Class Notes: Geoarchaeology
Tuesday: November 1, 2011
Week 6: Lab Methods & Stone Sourcing Techniques
Monday:
On Monday, we went outside to use a total station in order to collect data for a contour map. We chose a corner by the library, then pushed a pencil into the grass to mark our Datum 1 and told the computer it was at coordinate 1000, 1000, 100. I was chosen to set up the tripod and level it since most others had, or were introduced to it the prior week. The steps are easy but I didn’t weigh enough to push it into the ground, and leveling a triangle takes skill so it took me a while. Then we set Datum 2 and each student had to take 50 points and hold the stadia rod for 50 points so that we had a total of 400 measurements. By the time class was over, we only had 250 points taken.
Wednesday:
We went outside to finish taking the measurements, and I took some photos of campus while this was being done, so I will share those with you. (Boy had just given me a new camera he purchased off my brother: a Canon PowerShot S95 which I know nothing about because he got it in Hong Kong and it did not come with an English booklet.) I did not take any photos of the total station but I do have some from another dig I participated in which I will share in a later post.
Before the measurements were completed, Dr. M realized it may take us a while so we held our normal discussions out on the lawn until it got dark and went inside. We talked about chapter 16 and covered these three articles (see the Library for bibliographic information):
- Raw Material Utilization in Carroll County, Indiana: A Small-Scale Analysis of Diachronic Patterns in the Usage of Attica, Kenneth, and Wyandotte Cherts
- Sourcing Lithic Artifacts by Instrumental Analysis
- Macroscopic and Microscopic Analysis of Chert. A Proposal for Standardisation of Methodology and Terminology
University of Indianapolis campus, looking at Smith Mall (the "quad" area). The lower half of this image is a large portion of our contour map.
University of Indianapolis campus, looking at Esch Hall. The foreground is a large portion of our contour map.
Fall colors hiding Martin Hall at the University of Indianapolis.
Must get you to help curly cut those trees up in your back yard back home – so you will be strong enough to push that tripod in and level it.
beautiful university. you are doing real good. keep it up.
Ruth Utley said this on November 26th, 2011 at 6:17 am