Day 7: Thursday May 14 2009

COMPLICATED STRATIGRAPHY: WHERE PREHISTORIC AND MODERN PITS COLLIDE!!

Today at The Thing was quite interesting and eventful as usual. What started yesterday as a systematic look at the stratigraphy of a bulldozer cut that had dangerously encroached upon a known Neolithic pit, turned into a much intriguing view into what was a surprisingly large and possible storage pit. As we cleaned up the unearthed sand pit wall, this continued into another much larger pit with multiple horizons which had been truncated by said bulldozer. This work was done mostly by Dr. Andre Costopoulos and Max, one of our NOCUSO students.

One of the most imperative goals of today near this endangered site was to map the stratagraphic profile that had been unearthed by the modern cut. By this analysis, we discovered that this looks like a case of multiple disturbances of the area over the long period of time since its original usage. Straight lines seem to dissect the original stratigraphy of the pits, even earlier than the modern bulldozed sections. The mapping was initiated by Katie Grundtisch and Elizabeth Gohringer, who completed the first two meters of mapping in of the 475cm cut into the sand pit wall.

Most likely, as is tradition in this area, large areas of earth are moved and\or sifted for gravel in roads, construction, or what-have-you. This seems also to be the case for the adjacent water-drainage trench which has grown exponentially in size since last years excavations.

Jenn and Beth continued their soil sampling grid in the area of The Thing. They also took some samples near the known Neolithic depression and discovered what seems to be a long period of occupation indicated by complex stratigraphy and plenty of charcoal!

Sam, as well as periodically supervising the area of the Sand Pit Wall, walked the forest; mapping the terrain with the incredibly accurate GPS unit. This unit is accurate to 1cm, acting along with the GPS base station anchored to the roof of the Kierikki Stone Age Museum, which feeds of multiple satellites, allowing for such accurate results.

Today the Survey team systematically scoured the 60 meter contour which entailed a what would have been peninsula and a few small islands in prehistory. They reached an unpassable river but fortunately for them they came across a small fishihng wier which acted like a dam as well as a bridge across the expansive and swiftly moving river.

As well as an exciting moose spotting, the Survey team took a field trip to Haukipudas! What they found there were very large and very deep depressions on the 45 meter contour.