Day 11 Monday May 18

Today we opened two units at Hiidenkangas. This is an area of clear archaeological significance which appears to have been greatly disturbed by logging. The extensive area was narrowed into two significant study areas: 1. the Upper Clearing, and 2. the Lower Clearing, which were 15 x 15 meter units.

The Upper Clearing contained 2 small depressions, the team rolled large amounts of turf between tractor furrows and located any diagnostic tools or remains, but left them in situ. Finds consisted of quartz flakes and debitage (which would be related to manufacture), as well as charcoal. These finds seemed to be dispersed with no discernible spatial pattern.




The Lower Clearing group worked on clearing the organic down to the leeched (A Horizon). They located surface finds ranging from quartz (thinning flakes and retouch, indicating curation) to fire cracked rock. The forest clearing did not compromise the depositional environment of the artifacts.








This unit consisted of a large depression that had a similar morphology to the Kierikki depressions in that they have steep walls with a dip at one end and a mound at the other (probable midden), and two hearths. Similar also is was that in the sea-shore facing area were large amounts of flakes which did not occur on the back end of the depression (indicating a spatial patterning).


This indicates that either the two depressions (areas) were occupied at different time periods or at similar time periods but for different purposes (specialization), the quartz finds indicate these two possibilities as well.




Eva and Loretta completed 57 soil samples at the Kotikangas site from the excavations in 2006 and 2007. While heading down the road from the Thing to the Kotigangas excavations, Loretta spotted an adder crossing the sandy dirt road. As it began to slither away, Loretta took a few quick snapshots before it was lost in the brush. This warm weather is bringing out all sorts of creatures. Moose tracks were found along the road after the last soil samplings of the day. Another small lizard scurried beneath the filed of lingonberries.

Today at The Thing, Katie and Lisa worked together like a well-oiled machine. The first task was to complete the top map of the large organic mass at the Sand Pit Wall: this included depth measurements for each layer it was comprised of. It was, yet again, slow going. But fortunately because of all the hard work and careful planning started last Friday by Brendan and Katie, it was finished by lunchtime.

The next task began after lunch, which was to help Jenn, who had been working painstakingly all day to lower the Geologic unit (T109) to the bottom (or beach) sand. Beth trained Keegan on soil sampling and they completed 16 soil cores. Once completed with that task, they began work on T209. They dug the unit down another few centimeters and it appears that there is another leeched layer below the enriched.

It all went smoothly, though periodic episodes of laughter made Jenn (the site supervisor) a tad nervous that the unexpected and intense heat of the day might have been frying everyone's brains!!!! Not a soul argued when it was time for cookie break!!!!She was worried about us drinking enough water.... but we weren't the ones with the orange slice smile....


Day 10 Sunday May 17 2009

Day 9 Saturday May 16 2009