New and Exciting Times

What have I been up to since my last post?
Well, I went down to Pollock Works in Cedarville, Oh. My old stomping grounds if you recall from last summer's field school in archaeology with Wright State University. Bob Riordan, the director of excavations, decided to hire Jarrod Burks for the day to perform Magnetometry and Resistvity at part of the site so that we could find if there were any more post molds in relation to one in particular we found last summer. This proved to be a difficult task because the area that needed the prospecting done was full of broken pieces of an old rusted barbed-wire fence, partially buried beneath the ground from years of sediment run-off. We were on our hands and knees trying to get rid of all the little pieces which happened to look just like the soil.

After we set up a grid and Jarrod finished sweeping the area, we were able to take a look at the results immediately on the lap top he brought with him in the field. It was difficult to tell if any other features of archaeological significance were present mainly because parts of the metal fence ran right through the center of the area that we were intereted in learning more about. Jarrod has since working on this and says there may be some other significant features out there--the only real way to tell is to go ahead and dig this summer.

This was my first experience seeing the process of performing Magnetometry and Resistivity and I think it was very valuable, with many lessons learned.

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As far as life goes after grad school rejection--I just recently received a job that will last me the entire year. I'll be working full time over the summer at Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe. You may recall this is where Steve works. I'm happy to report that he is moving over into the archaeology division at the park, and I'll be taking up Steve's duties as a Park Ranger guide. I'll be taking folks on tours of the park and talking about the mounds, as well as talking to them about items in the museum and setting up introductory videos for them to watch. I'm really excited for both archaeology reasons and money reasons, but also because it's a sentimental place--where I first met Steve last summer. Perhaps I will now become a Hopewell Archaeologist Extraordinaire myself. :-)

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This past Wednesday, I presented my poster at the Humanities Undergraduate Research Colloquium pertaining to my thesis: "Data Collection and Methodological Consistency in Intensive Survey: A Case Study from the Eastern Korinthia". I think my poster went over very well and I got a lot of feedback especially from the geologists who were there. Creating a poster was a lot harder than I thought! I takes a lot of effort to think about style--font, colors, size, etc., let alone the amount of information to put on it! I really learned a lot from this experience and feel better prepared for the college-wide forum in May 18th. I'll soon have pictures of my poster that I will post here.