FRIDAY

Block B had an exciting find, a bunch of dog coprolites! Which is fossilized poop. I’ve never seen so many people so interested or excited about a pile of dog poop before! We’ve been constantly cracking jokes at the gal who found them. It’s actually a spectacular find. Not many of them have been found in the Fraser Valley and a plethora of information can be recovered from them. I began working on a new quad, which had a TON of artifacts. In one corner I found a couple hundred fish bones/fragments…it took a long time to pick them all out. I also found another bone awl!! This one is a little bigger and has notches at the base of it. A few larger bones and even a rib (mostly dog, maybe some deer). A tooth was also in this quad. Some of my block mates thought it might have been a human incisor, but after closer inspection it wasn’t. The quad is located near a hearth feature, so the items I found are most likely meal remains and/or discard. I couldn’t believe how much was in such a small place! I had a shower and laundry day that landed on the eve of our day off, so I got to be clean for 2 days! That evening we went into town and hung out at the Legion. It was a much busier night so we chatted with a few locals and played some pool

SATURDAY

We all slept in a little bit and then headed into town. We got breakfast at The Reynolds again then ran a few errands that people needed to do. We had planned on going on a short hike up to a waterfall we had heard about, but decided going swimming sounded a bit better. Most of the gang went and we found a nice spot where the Cayoosh Creek meets the Fraser River. It’s the perfect swimming hole. A little protected spot that doesn’t have a strong current and the water is nice and clear. We hung out there for the rest of the afternoon and early evening soaking up the sun and swimming. Then we packed up and went to dinner downtown.

SUNDAY

We all headed to the site at normal time but were only there for half an hour before the rain got a little too heavy to keep excavating. Once back at camp we did lab work. I worked on floats and we put a huge dent in the amount of soil samples that have accumulated. After lunch the sun came back out and we were able to start excavating again. It was my night to cook dinner, and that went well. I made my version of 5 On Black’s (a restaurant in Missoula) rice bowls.

MONDAY

Today was really hot. It got to the point where everyone started moving slow and getting rundown by the heat. The worst part is that this was supposedly “mild” and we haven’t seen nothin’ yet. To try and avoid as much of the afternoon heat as possible we are going to be at the site by 6:30am and take 15 minutes off of our lunch break. I finally finished the quad that was chocked full of artifacts. I moved in the Northern most quads of unit 15 and the composition was much different. At first we thought that it was substrate (the foundational material of the area, meaning that there would be no more floors) but it turned out to be this mysterious clay baked material that we’re not sure the meaning and/or purpose of yet.

**I blogged regularly during the field school on a separate blog. I will be posting three of them on this one, but if anyone is interested in reading some more click here **