Thursday, June 19, 2008

Day 23 --great day at the Point

Today the point was beautiful--the weather was perfect, so nice that I could ride the ATV out and back without goggles or head gear--the weather was in the high 40's and NO wind, sun was shining, we excated two burials today--all in all a great day. Last sunday we surveyed a site out on the tundra that was supposed to have three skeletons being frost heaved out of the tundra. It uurns out there at eight for sure and probably twelve with one juvenile--the coffin wood and the square nails point to probably an epidemic in either 1908 or 1924. Pronbably no activity this year if at all, but will probably get them frnced off to keep ATv's from riding over them.
we tried Arctic Pizza the other night, good food and they take our BASC cards---there is a small park across the street with 15 house mounds at the edge of a 50 foot bluff looking out over the Chuchai Sea, beautiful location that was active when Charlie Brower founded Barrow in 1900. Never been dug and has preserved whalebone sticking out of the sod, probably dates all the way back to about 500 AD, in terms of constant occupation. There were polar bear tracks through the point this morning heading out onto the ice, Tried to get a shot of them and will post it later this week. David went out last weekend and got a seal just a little ways east of where we are digging and gave it to another family. Kyle was telling us that he has been on the whaleboat crew since he was 10 and they have landed 2 whales in the last 7 years, one of them this year. his job was fleashing the whale and hauling the meat and blubber to their ice cellar. Said it took him 24 hours straight, and he probably hauled 20 tons, about 40,000 pounds.
Clare got in a couple of days ago from Univ of Alaska Fairbanksand specializes in driftwood, she tried to speciate it and run dendronology dating on it--most is from the Yukon river but she does have one piece of Sequoia. We've been clearing off about 8 cubic meters of grabel off a driftwood accumulation that was projecting out of the bluff about 5 feet below the edge and probably dates to about 1500 years ago--one chert tool showed up and we, of course are hoping for a house floor but we'll see.
Having fun--getting up early--, working hard--, getting buff (well, sort of)--
Will post more later this week--

3 comments:

summer widow said...

BUFF? Can't wait to see you. You're going to be really warm here. 95 degrees and more yesterday!

coffeespoons said...

I hear that you actually get a break soon! We had a heatwave (reached as high as 111, I kid you not) last week, but the weather has decided to be reasonable for now. Such a far cry from what you're experiencing. You haven't mentioned midges so I guess that it's still too cold to be plagued by them. There are bugs, yes? Also, I looked the other day on the girls' globe (cheap Target thing, but it's great for cementing geography in their heads) and, guess what, it has Barrow, Alaska on it! Now the girls *really* know where you are. Oh, this is Rom, by the way, decided to get a blogger account instead of just using openID.

Chikako said...

Hey Dave! This is Chikako. I hope you are having fun and working hard. I've been enjoying your blogs! I hear that you are coming back soon!

My family is moving back to San Jose this weekend and we are so excited! Can't wait to see you on the 4th! Eriko is also going to be visiting from Japan!

I hope you have a great week and enjoy your last week there!