The Dirt on Archaeology: Range Creek Week 2: The SciGirls Episode

This week a PBS film crew from Twin Cities visited the field school in Range Creek, filming a new series called "SciGirls." It focuses on jr. high age girls in science, and the archaeology episode filmed with us will be the fourth or fifth in the series that will air beginning next January. The SciGirls chosen for this episode are Gates and Jazzy. Gates and Jazzy, their Moms Kristen and Carol, a little brother, and the Twin Cities Public TV film crew were with us Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and then spent the morning on Saturday wrapping up the episode filming in the museum. In Range Creek we worked with them recording rock art, excavating a Fremont site and rappelling into a granary, and had lots of fun. The film crew provided s'mores, guitar music by the SciGirls and great company and conversation around the campfire.

The girls worked on their own hypotheses about life in Range Creek 1000 years ago. Very impressive! Gates has promised to come volunteer at the museum and help label and process artifacts-- we look forward to working with her and hope she will be a future CEU student and archaeology intern at the museum. Jazzy said she has decided to change her career plans, and will be a professional archaeologist!

The SciGirls Crew included producer Angela Ewald, associate producer Marissa Blahnick, director of photography Mike Phillips, audio recordist/mixer Brian Pederson, professional climber Greg Child and production assistant Bart. SciGirls Website Link: http://www.scigirls.org

The students spent Monday excavating, and Tuesday FS'ing artifacts, cleaning the site and flagging artifacts on the site in the morning, and visiting and recording rock art in the afternoon. Wednesday morning we excavated for about an hour and a half before the SciGirls joined us on site. The field school students gave the film crew a tour of the site and mentored Jazzy and Gates at the excavation, helping them trowel through a grid unit that had been taken down to the lower cultural level, screen for artifacts, take pollen and bulk samples, and map artifacts with the total station and prism.

The girls were fantastic, and found the largest pottery sherds recovered so far from the site! We were rained out around 2:30 pm with a major downpour, and went back to camp where we FS'ed and washed artifacts with the film crew. Thursday we visited a granary site with the SciGirls, and the students surveyed a side canyon of Range Creek before another big thunderstorm rolled in. They found a new site with a large trough metate and a possible pithouse that we will record using IMACS this week! By Friday, the crew had sunshine and hot temperatures and spent the entire day excavating and taking notes, and at the end of the day learned to profile. It was a crazy, terrific week....

We also were joined by two volunteers this week: Liz from Arizona State University, and retired General Greg from Rochester, New York. Liz helped excavate and take notes, and Greg did a great job screening for artifacts. They were a wonderful addition to the crew! (Greg also brought cold sodas and watermelons for the crew). Other visitors included Jeannie Jensen, Mark Connolly, the Greens and the Kirbys.

In the words of the students:

Ingrid- "Summary: My last day in Range Creek. I sure learned a lot. But I feel that I need to go back home to see my little family. I'm certainly going to come back here because I find the unanswered questions really interesting. This week was so crazy! We had a lot of fun around the fire with the film crew and I was really excited to see the two teens live their dream. The survey was one of my favorite moments of the week, and to find a metate was really exciting. It was also fun to have Liz and the general around! Liz and I opened a new grid and even if we didn't really get to do some trowel work it was exciting to dig something new. It was less rainy this week and we got the chance to have some toilets. It was so funny to wee everybody's faces when they arrived! We also saw more paintings and each time I find it special. To see a form of art and communication from the past painted on a wall is just amazing. We also got stuck with the pick-up and that was really a crazy adventure! In conclusion, I had so much fun during this field school and I can't wait to excavate again! Thanks to all the crew and thank you Renee for teaching me so much. :) " (Thank you Ingrid- you are amazing and I hope you will come back and work with us again!)

Lisa- "This week gave us sun, sun, rain, rain, sun, rain, rain, hail, rain, sun, rain, thunder, lightening, rain and finally sun. Monday we planned and made the site ready for the PS television crw visiting us for a few days. Tuesday the film crew came and the team gave a tour of the site. After the tour of the site we all went on a small tour of the canyon to visit three rock art murals. Wednesday the SciGirls found a large piece of the grayware ceramic while excavating 503 N 104 E. After excavating we cleaned artifacts in the rain and hail. Thursday brought a sunny morning, but rather wet day while exploring granaries and surveying the canyon. Friday we spent the first all-sunny day at the site! Finally."

Joe- "June 15th-19th: This week has been an interesting one. There was a film crew up at the site making a tv show for PBS. Most of the week was spent giving tours and monitoring the girls excavations. It was a little more relaxing but we didn't get as much work done. This field school has been great. The site has a lot of interesting artifacts and could turn out to be an important site. It seems that there were two separate occupations at this site or there was a roof collapse with the amount of large stones we have found, the site could be a tower similar to others found in the canyon. It will be interesting to see what comes of the site during future excavations."

Celia Jean- "Mother is bi-polar. So we've had a mixture of superb weather w/ massive cloud coverage and rainstorms. For the most part it was nice enough to get a tan though. We unearthed the rest of our metate which was (g)narly and have found over a dozen more lithics. Pottery in our grid unit hasn't really been a big find of ours. The SciGirls were here filming all week. I love the idea of teaching young girls that science can be cool for everyone, especially archaeology. Stay away from those hidden temples though girls... that's my find :) I've celebrated my birthday out here which was a kick a**. I wanted a great outdoor experience (alcohol-free) on my birthday and that is what I got- hooray for that :) The hike was intense but rewarding, we did find one metate and possibly one more feature "pithouse." Overall though the week was great. I'm hoping our site turns out to be some sort of communal hot spot big (....) the weird rock formation that appears to be w/in. We'll see though!

Mel- " This week has actually been really good with the film crew coming. We got to experience what a filming production is like. It was also a really good mix of excavation work and rock art with also some analysis and artifact cleaning. It's exciting that Celia and I are getting closer to the floor and we're taking more care. We have excavated F9/F16 and in parts have hit F17- very exciting! In addition, I found 5 lithic debitage today. First day I've found any- and found five- awesome. I really enjoyed the rock art too- analyzing the symbols- this probably is the best!"

--Well, that wraps up our week. On site the students uncovered a trough metate fragment, a mano fragment, a paved floor feature with ash (possible second hearth), ceramics that included applique, a lithic tool, debitage and animal bone, and lots of charcoal, ash and rocks.

renee