As an aside, I realized that some of you may have no idea what a micromorphology thin section looks like. There is an incredible range of variation but one example can be found on the wesbite for the joint Turkish/American project at Üçagizli Cave, Turkey. If you scroll down the page you will see the sample still in the profile followed by the thin section after processing.

Back to today’s update:

The structure of today’s work was a perfect way to end the course. The morning was a lecture on the micromorphological signatures of medieval structures and how to identify workshop areas or other industrial processes. As per usual this was followed by a few hours perusing the relevant reference collection. This was the last major topic for the course, the afternoon session swung back full-circle and re-addressed the systematic nature of describing thin secctions and the necessity of proper data presentation. Rather than continue browsing slides following the reminder we were all given an hour to systematically describe a thin section of our choice, make some form of educated interpretation, then present it to the class. This was intimidating. Not only because 4 days ago I knew next to nothing about the topic but also because we were told it takes an experienced micromorphologist roughly a half day to fully examine, describe, document, and make an interpretation for one slide. Regardless, this was our excercise and we went ahead and put together our descriptions then presented them.

My slide was from a Saxon occupation and the description, the short version, went something like this:

Homogenous thin section with numerous inclusions. Weakly separated granular microstructure with unaccommodating peds, massive intrapedal microstructure. The ratio of course and fine fractions (c:f) is 2:3 and the c:f related distribution is single-spaced equal enaulic…(There is a bit about the coarse fraction mineral content, coarse organics, and the fine fraction in detail but I will spare it here)…Large plaster/mortar floor fragment in upper section, smaller rounded and iron stained mortar/plaster fragments in lower section, small accumulation of mm-sized iron slag fragments in middle portion, and frequent iron staining/mottling throughout section. This represents a mixed deposit with evidence of occupation floors, potentially redeposited and significant post-depositional movement of iron.

That is a quick overview of the description I did. A little simplistic but not too bad for my first time. I need to brush up on my abilities to identify minerals and rock types but I was happy. You’ll notice it contains a whole bunch of fancy speak, but it’s necessary to maintain consistency and comparability in the description of thin sections. All the terms above have strictly defined definitions that include quantitative estimations (see Stoops 2003). This type of stuff is for data tables and databases, not necessarily all of the nitty-gritty goes into the final publication, unless it is a monograph, report, or something similar.

And that’s that….except for the hours and hours I still need to spend looking at reference collections and analyzing my own thin sections. A great week! Now it is time to sleep.

References:

Stoops, G. 2003. Guidelines for Analysis and Description of Soil and Regolith Thin Sections. Soil Science Society  of America, Inc., Madison,Wisconsin.

The best part of this course is the enormous reference collection of thin sections that is at our disposal. After each topic is introduced, remember the two lectures a day program followed by hours of examining slides, we are introduced to another set of thin sections relevant to the topic. That means every half of day the slides we can look at grows and grows. Now that I am feeling a bit more confident in my approach to soil micromorphology I have realized just how valuable this experience truly is. The only unfortunate part is I wish I had more time to look through all of these things and really thoroughly study each topic in detail. A week doesn’t really lend itself to that however.

Today we were introduced to two more topics. We shifted into more rural habitation and looked at occupation surfaces, such things as constructed living floors like plaster, mortar, daub. This was the morning. In the afternoon we were treated to a lecture on the vague term Dark Earth. This type of sediment dates to the post-Roman period and is related to urban deposits that have been the medium in which soil has formed. As per the name it is very dark and visually diagnostic, often producing an extremely homogenized deposit. I won’t go into to too much detail but take a look at Dr Richard Macphail’s work if you’re interested in learning more. It is an extremely ubiquitous sediment type in London in particular and is an amazing example of how soil micromorphology can be applied to archaeological questions.

In addition to all this my eyes have begun to revolt to excessive use of a microscope. It may have something to do with a lack of sleep but I don’t have that luxury for another day so I am going to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Back tomorrow with Day 5 update, the final day of the training week.

In attempt to ease the complexity added by time and post-depositional forces we discussed numerous experimental examples first, specifically the Butser farm site and the Umeå site (see Goldberg and Macphail 2006). The Butser farm experiment is a reconstruction of an Iron Age village that was thoroughly tested for many things before, during, and after occupation. The researchers also burned some of the dwellings and studied the resultant impacts on the subsurface. The Umeå site is similar but specifically tested the impact of slash and burn agriculture and ploughing (plus some other things). These examples are invaluable. The reason being that all the evidence for human modification to the landscape during occupation is masked by everything that has happened since abandonment; the pesky post-depositional process like pedogenesis, bioturbation, erosion, re-occupation, etc, etc. Therefore, these experimental projects were the first step, allowing us to understand the immediate impacts before moving into numerous examples of manured, burned, ploughed, and trampled soils and sediments that have been buried for a couple thousand years. It all makes sense when you think about it but the tough part is recreating the history of a sediment or soil after I identify numerous features in the thin sections.

Yes, that’s right, the features I can now identify. By no means am I an expert or even an intermediate. I am still 100% a beginner, well maybe 99%. Nevertheless, I feel as though this Wednesday was the day when I overcame some imaginary hurdle (perhaps a hump) toward proficiency in soil micromorphology. I am able to compartmentalize the sample into the coarse and fine fraction, identify the primary mineral components like quartz, glauconite, feldspar, mica, etc., say something about the structure (the porosity, the sorting, the shape, and abundance, etc.). I learned how to identified shell, egg shell, bone, phytoliths, calcium oxalate spherulites, phosphate enriched soils, charcoal, and organic matter. I also saw a fungal spore but didn’t locate it myself, although I feel I could now.

Most of this learning is thanks to my great classmates. There are about 12 of us (give or take a couple) and today everyone opened up a bit, the atmosphere was a little more collegiate and it made a huge difference. Maybe it was the group outing to the pub yesterday….either way, everyone had something to offer, except for me now that i think about…let’s say I added the enthusiasm. We even had a short presentation on phytolith morphology. I now know what a banana phytolith looks like and know way more about the domestication of bananas than I ever imagined I would. Sorry, that isn’t true. I’ve never even thought of banana domestication until today. It has a very interesting and complex history goes back to Papua New Guinea about 6000 years ago. I don’t have a reference but this seems to line up generally with what was said today if you want some more general information.

Personally, I stuck to my same strategy as yesterday: pairing slides with their publications and reviewing basic identification concepts and locating the appropriate feature or component in a number of slides. I am almost finished with the major concepts so tomorrow afternoon I move onto systematic thin section description from start to finish. By tomorrow night I will know whether I did actually make it over the hump or am still teetering somewhere near the top…let’s just hope I fall forward if it’s the latter.

I ended the day with a tall dark Guinness and walked home with a some fish and chips wrapped in newsprint. Mmmm!

Back tomorrow with another update.

References:

Goldberg, P. and R. Macphail, 2006   Practical and Theoretical Geoarchaeology. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford.

As with yesterday I think the lectures were great. It would be nice to have a bit more (or maybe more explicit) explanation of what characteristics identify the various features for the topic at hand. At the same time however, there is something extremely satisfying about figuring it out yourself afterward. In fact I took a very different approach to my time with the microscope today and it proved much more fruitful than yesterday. Rather than blindly looking at slide after slide wondering what I was supposed to be seeing, I re-read through one of my text books and for each concept I would ask the professor for an appropriate slide and then identify the features for that topic. For instance, I read through aeolian sediments and then identified the various components in a photomicrograph that distinguish it and variations on it, including secondary deposition and pedogenesis. I did this for numerous concepts. Next, I took slides for which there are publications with full descriptions and interpretations and went through a particular paper and its relevant slides together.

I didn’t look at as many slide today but I learned way more than yesterday. At the very least the learning curve now has a slight incline. The day was capped by a nice British stout at the pub. I couldn’t believe the pints were only 1.60 pounds, which is about half price of a pint in Canada after the exchange. Then I walked south to Charing Cross station through Trafalgar Square where I caught the train home for the night. I took a great picture of the square all lit up with the fountain on but unfortunately I forgot the cord to connect my camera. Guess you’ll have to wait a week for pictures.

Until tomorrow’s update,

Cheers

Sunday might as well not have existed thanks to jet lag but I did catch up on sleep. This was a good thing because today was the first day of my Archaeological Soil Micromorphology course at the Institute of Archaeology at UCL. The course is focused on a technique that involves collecting intact sediment samples, embedding them in resin, slicing and dicing, sticking them to a glass slide, and finally grinding them down to 0.03mm thick before sticking them under a microscope for description and interpretation (includes both geological and archaeological sediments). I have been looking forward to this course for months, reading as much as I could and looking at as many images of thin sections as possible. I thought I was somewhat prepared…boy was I way off.

The course started with an introductory seminar, followed by 3 hours looking at reference thin sections under the microscope. Lunch break was great! I found a nice sandwich and bag of crisps (aka chips) for 3 pounds. Then the afternoon was a lecture on buried soils and the numerous taphonomic factors that act upon them. This included marine water fluctuations and the resulting cycle of pyrite formation and oxidation, as well as other things like the velocity of deposition in flash floods and the sorting patterns produced. This lecture was again followed by a few hours of browsing reference samples under the microscope.

Today’s class was not overly uplifting. The lectures were great, the concepts all make sense and the interpretation that follow are somewhat satisfying. Even the basic principles of deposition, soil formation, and post-depositional alterations all fit nicely into my head. My biggest stepping stone is understanding the identification process. How do I know which minerals are quartz, pyrite, tourmaline, muscovite, etc. from clay, shell, bone, flint, and ash fragments.  Coming from a purely archaeology side of things (specifically North American archaeology rooted in an Anthropology department) my optical mineralogy, and mineral crystallography are a little weak…if not non-existent. So, some pretty major hurdles and there was quite a bit of frustration today but at least I know what I need to learn. To me, that’s a pretty good first day. I already know what I need to get out of this 2-week course.

So after 6 hours with the microscope today and a couple more reading, the screen is starting to go a bit blurry. It’s time for me to stop and do some more reading on birefringence. I’ll be back tomorrow night with some updates on the course and my progress.

In September of 2007 I moved my life to Montreal to start graduate school. On my very first day, literally the morning after I moved into my tiny apartment, I strolled into campus to meet my MA supervisor, the same individual that is now one of my PhD co-supervisors. I barely made it through the door of his office before he asks me to take a look at this amazing e-mail he just received. It was from the director of zoology at Parc Safari, an African animal park south of Montreal in Hemmingford, Quebec. The park had decided they needed an educational display in their entrance building and the perfect complement would be some articulated skeletons of African wildlife. Logically this meant they should contact the McGill archaeology department and ask them to dig up the park’s cemetery and then articulate the skeletons they found, particularly hoping for an elephant or rhinoceros. This is exactly what was in the e-mail my new supervisor read to me, only to follow it with his plan to turn it into an undergraduate field methods and zooarchaeology course. All this before I even got a chance to introduce myself. Regardless, I was sold and so began the first year, we’re now in the third year, of the Parc Safari field methods class.

If you want to get caught up to date on the past two seasons you should swing by the McGiil Zooarchaeological Field School blog that is put together by the students each year. This year’s group is ironing out some details and will be posting updates really soon, so keep an eye on it. As a taste I will tell you that last Friday we mapped and removed approximately 75% of a large male watusi. We know it is large and male because we excavated and re-articulated a complete female watusi during the first season.

Don't be fooled by the scenery...under this surface lies a cemetery for African wildlife

Although it may sound like just fun and games there is in fact a lot research going on at the site in addition to those fun and games. We are looking at the taphonomic impact of decomposing cadavers, vegetation reflectance signatures that can help in the identification of clandestine mass graves, 3-dimensional reconstructions of excavation pits, and more. Don’t take my word for it though, go see what the students think about it all.

So, now that I am deshackled from my thesis I have moved on head first into a PhD at McGill, and over the next little while there are some exciting things happening that will appear up here on the blog. I have switched gears for my PhD, embracing the geoarchaeological work I have done in Jordan and has been mentioned a few times on the blog. Nothing against the archaeology on the Northwest Coast, definitely still an interest of mine, but I really enjoy the geoarchaeology and working with the people I met in Jordan, a great crew! This switch means I need to brush up on some geography, geology and soil science and as a result am auditing a class on Soils and the Environment this term, which is going great. It is through Geography, meaning I get to play the fun game of trying to relate pedogenesis and nutrient cycling for temperate environment agriculture to 300,000 year old buried soils in the basalt desert of eastern Jordan. That being said the course is incredibly informative and I would recommend a contemporary soils class to anyone doing field archaeology.

That course is great but the thing I am most  excited about this term is the course I have signed up for with Prof. Rich Macphail at the Institute of Archaeology at UCL. In a couple weeks I am heading over to London for an intense workshop/course on Archaeological Soil Micromorphology. While I am over there I will keep you all up to date on what the course is like and the trials and tribulations of learning micromorphology.

Have to run. Time to head out to the Parc Safari cemetery to finish digging up and mapping the remains of an enormous male watusi…yes I am going to leave that hanging at the end of the post…don’t worry I will fill you in shortly.

-Chris

To help ourselves out a bit this year we have rented a local wedding tent to provide some shade over the excavation units. The tent is basically a six legged frame with three cross-beams (all of substantial size and weight) that support very nicely decorated canvas segments (two on the roof and three sides). Unfortunately I don’t have a picture yet but the outsides are plain beige and when you step inside you get confronted by vibrant colours and memsmerizing geometric patterns. As a shade it has been working great, making the days a bit less draining by keeping the sun of our backs. However, in the afternoon today the winds really picked up from the west-southwest almost lifting the tent like a kite. It took five of our crew members plus one friendly and incredibly helpful local to keep the thing from taking off. We tied every possible piece of rope we had to rocks, trees, and fences plus we anchored the leg posts with the biggest boulders I could carry. After about an hour we felt confident it would make it through the storm. Now, as I sit here in the lodge, I am question whether it will be there in the morning. The wind is howling and whipping things around as though they were wieghtless. All of the trees in the area are being held at a significant angle and before the sun went down the skies looked particularly daunting. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the night brings and then assess the damage in the morning. Reconstrcuting the tent is a setback we would all really like to avoid!

We spent this morning getting our site area ready for excavation. This involved tying our survey equipment back into last years grid, finding the trenches from last year, cleaning them off and starting to remove the backfill. We were a bit concerned about how much disturbance the past year of construction had below the surface so we also put in a small test pit to determine the stratigraphic integrity. This testpit was finished up by lunch (good news!) and we had made good progress on identifying the perimeter of the pit from last year.

After a short break for lunch and a few minutes rest at the lodge we split into two crews and headed back out. One crew of 4 to the morning’s site to finish clearing off the perimeter. Myself and two others headed a bit further north to follow up on a project started last year, as well as survey the upland basalt for more evidence of the prehistoric lake shore. The project we started last year looks at the natural patterns of desert weathering on bone and it involved quickly locating and mapping some bone we documented last year. After that was done I headed up slope into the basalt areas and found a few more blocks with eroded shorelines in them. I am specifically looking for an eroded bench with the right types of sediment attached that I can use to get a reasonable date for the shoreline. Although we don’t have a date yet, based on some sedimentary analysis that myself and Carlos Cordova presented at the Association of American Geographer’s annual meeting this year, we think the shoreline fits into the Marine Isotope Stage 5e interglacial (or roughly 110,000-130,000 years  ago). So, no dateable sample yet, it just  means I get to keep looking. I have to do more survey regardless if I am going to get a reasonable map of the shorleine perimeter and an accurate elevation anyway. Unfortunately nothing knock your socks of exciting to report yet but spending the day hiking through the desert isn’t that bad. Here’s a picture of one upland bench to give you an idea of what I have been and am looking for.