Finishing Up

Once again, today was a very hot Oklahoma day (100 degrees according to Eileen's car dashboard!) and sadly, today also marked our last day of excavations.  And what a day it was!  Even as several teams continued to take down baulks and complete documentation of features, others spent the day backfilling the finished units.  Quite amusing to see dirt carefully being taken out of the units, while just a few feet away, dirt was being shoveled back in as efficiently as possible!

Shelby carefully takes the dirt OUT

While the guys quickly put it back IN

In the midst of ordered chaos, more visitors, including Dr. Susan Vehik, Dr. Robert Brooks, and Dr. Lee Bementarrived to see what all we've been doing these past five weeks.  We were excited to show them around!

We all know that archaeology sometimes requires working in awkward and highly uncomfortable positions, but Dawn took the prize today as she excavated a feature.

Dawn really gets into her work

After a long, hot, but productive day, we were finally done with five weeks of archaeology, and it was time to get a little crazy. We cheerfully tossed rocks, sticks, and random dirt into the units, tramped wherever we pleased, and generally made a mess of our once immaculate units!   

Wild and crazy Elsbeth

Tomorrow we will return to the site to backfill the remaining units and make sure we haven't left anything behind, but the hard and rewarding work of archaeology fieldwork that we set out to do has been completed!

Bridget Kiefer, Michael Carlock, Eileen Schaumleffle, Justin Anderson