keskiviikko 21. toukokuuta 2008

Day 8 - May 21st: Makkara and the Kierikki Stone Age Museum

Today was only a half day so there isn't very much to report. We worked in the morning and then had makkara Wednesday at the re-created neolithic village at the Kierikki Stone Age Museum. After everyone had had their fill of makkara we checked out the museum.

Survey didn't turn up any new sites, but they did see a moose pretty close up! I'd say that's pretty exciting. We've also got a really good picture of the survey line I described in Monday's post.

Trench T108 at KKN today yielded some more quartz flakes and ceramics. No really exciting amber finds today but we still have another seven days of excavation left, so maybe some more will turn up.

The leveling of the ant farm tentacles in trench T208 at the Thing occurred today. According to Jari Okkonen (an Archaeologist here at Oulu university who specializes in Iron Age monuments), the tentacle like enriched soil pattern that descends deep into the trench is a result of the practice of radially lining Iron Age cooking pits with wood during their period of use. Besides this news there is nothing else to report from the Thing besides the fact that trench T408 was brought down to the leeched layer today.

Turns out mourning the death of trench T308 at the Pits yesterday was a little preemptive. It's holding on for one more day, it will probably be filled in tomorrow. The middle pit in trench T308 was brought down a little further today to see if it matched the pattern of the western pit which was excavated down to the water table yesterday. The same pattern is observed, the V-shaped layer of decomposing birch bark described yesterday, except at a shallower depth. Thus this pit could also have been a hunting cache. Also, a decomposed log crosses this pit, in the same position that all of the hard pan soil I was struggling with yesterday is located in the other pit. Coincidence? I think not! Turns out I was hacking through the hard pan remains of a log yesterday. Some soil and stratigraphy maps of trench T308 were also done today.

As I said in the little introduction today, after eating some makkara in the re-created neolithic village we checked out the Kierikki Stone Age Museum. The museum is dedicated to the prehistory of the Yli-Ii river area and has some very fascinating exhibits. You can check out the website to learn some more about it here.

I'm also including a fantastic map of the Yli-Ii area which includes all the current sites, old sites, newly discovered sites from this year, and the former coast lines (contours). Thanks to Dustin Keeler for creating this map, I'm sure the readers will appreciate it greatly, I know I do!

As always, it's picture time.

The moose the survey team found today.

A good picture of the survey line.

Excavating trench T108 at KKN.

The ant farm tentacle feature from T208 at the Thing being leveled.

The modern interpretation of a neolithic village at the Kierikki Stone Age Museum.

Roasting makkara in the re-created neolithic row house.

Andrius and Colin Nielsen (A University College of London Graduate student) used their rock climbing skills to get on top of the big ball here at Oulu University.


A map of the region in question (Click to enlarge). The past coast lines are shown, as well as newly discovered sites in red, and the sites currently being excavated in blue and labeled "Nocuso Excavations".

That's all for the day, roughly same time tomorrow.

Cheers,
The Field School

3 kommenttia:

Eva kirjoitti...

In that photo of Andrius and Colin... it kind of looks like Andrius is wearing Colin as a hand puppet. Could you confirm the location of Andrius' forearm?

Lars Anderson kirjoitti...

Alright, so if you click on the pic to enlarge it you see that Andrius is losing his balance and leaning his arm into Colin's thing so he doesn't fall off the big ball...at least that's my interpretation.

DrVolin kirjoitti...
Kirjoittaja on poistanut tämän kommentin.