The call is made for extra screeners. They make their way toward “the trench,” a long line of units overlaying an anomaly exposed by earlier geophysics. Most of the units are shallow. Unit 17, however, is going deep.
As the students approach, they see four screens dangling from wooden A-Frames in constellation around Unit 17; two canopies stacked neatly overhead. Less clearly, they see the top of Dr. Dennis Blanton’s head poking just above the unit. He pauses digging only long enough to smile at the students, telling them the unit will be finished by the end of the day, no matter how deep they must go.
As the students approach, they see four screens dangling from wooden A-Frames in constellation around Unit 17; two canopies stacked neatly overhead. Less clearly, they see the top of Dr. Dennis Blanton’s head poking just above the unit. He pauses digging only long enough to smile at the students, telling them the unit will be finished by the end of the day, no matter how deep they must go.
No time is wasted. The students’ screens are immediately filled with thick and uncooperative clay. Tyler Stumpf, a Ph.D. candidate and research assistant with the field school, flies from screen to screen. He double-checks the students’ work and deposits more soil, simultaneously completing page after page of paperwork. Dr. Blanton continues digging. He fills so many buckets with soil that the screeners can hardly keep up. The excavation becomes a well-coordinated spectacle, moving in rhythm to Bob Marley quietly playing from a nearby phone.
Before long, the chunk of the shovel stops. The last granules of soil tumble from the screens. Unit 17 is complete. Initially, the unit seems to speak of an earth lodge – a semi-subterranean and circular building which, for Mississippian cultures, primarily served ceremonial and political purposes. This idea is supported by a possible feature fill in the surrounding units which appears to form a circle. There are also some dark and spectral patches which could prove to be postholes. Despite the evidence, the earth lodge hypothesis is quickly tossed aside. The stratigraphy simply doesn’t support such a story.
A new story is formulated among the field school’s leadership. Before the story of Unit 17 is revealed, however, the students are given an opportunity to read the stratigraphy themselves. Pairs are given one hour to describe the soil; to decide what it’s telling them.[1]
A new story is formulated among the field school’s leadership. Before the story of Unit 17 is revealed, however, the students are given an opportunity to read the stratigraphy themselves. Pairs are given one hour to describe the soil; to decide what it’s telling them.[1]
A new story is formulated among the field school’s leadership. Before the story of Unit 17 is revealed, however, the students are given an opportunity to read the stratigraphy themselves. Pairs are given one hour to describe the soil; to decide what it’s telling them.[1]
The student teams emerge. They have tales of multiple occupations, of ceremonial burials, and, most notably, of buildings. Only a small part of their story is correct. Unfortunately, the students are too quick to map their wishful thinking and the recent story of an earth lodge onto the stratigraphy. There was never a building in Unit 17. Rather, the red clay – which the students argue to be the floor of a building – was used to create a level, earthen monument. In other minor ways, the students also miss the mark. The mistakes they make and the lessons they learn, however, will help them tell the right story in the future.
-Allen Luethke and Kelly Teboe
The student teams emerge. They have tales of multiple occupations, of ceremonial burials, and, most notably, of buildings. Only a small part of their story is correct. Unfortunately, the students are too quick to map their wishful thinking and the recent story of an earth lodge onto the stratigraphy. There was never a building in Unit 17. Rather, the red clay – which the students argue to be the floor of a building – was used to create a level, earthen monument. In other minor ways, the students also miss the mark. The mistakes they make and the lessons they learn, however, will help them tell the right story in the future.
-Allen Luethke and Kelly Teboe
[1] “Reading” the soil is no easy matter. Students must use a Munsell soil color book and USDA textural criteria to characterize the various strata; they must describe the soil’s structure and inclusions; and they must look at the pitch (i.e. the angle) of the strata. All of this, and the students have only begun the process of stratigraphic interpretation.