The Dirt on Archaeology: New blog from Range Creek: deep cultural deposits

In the last week we excavated a dark black, cultural stratum in the south portion of one of the pithouses at the Burnout site in Range Creek, and built about 40 feet of walkway so visitors can walk across the site and past the excavation without walking on artifacts or cultural features. Thanks to Sutherlands for donating about $120 worth of lumber cuts to CEU!

Volunteers Kerk and Ron helped out at the site. Kerk found a gorgeous stone bead, and Ron found a nearly complete, beautiful projectile point. (Kerk also made a fantastic dutch oven peach cobbler at camp for dessert and breakfast!) We removed the layer of adobe, charcoal and cultural debris from the collapsed roof, then began excavating the thick, black layer of sandy sediment beneath, with dense artifacts from the house interior. It appears to have burned so hot that there is little solid wood charcoal left from the wooden beams and withes in the roof, just the blackish sediment. We did find a few pieces of charcoal, including one near the bottom of the level, that may yield an informative radiocarbon date.

Artifacts are abundant in this level, especially small pieces of lithic debitage and broken lithic tools from nearly a dozen different toolstone sources. We recovered nearly 500 specimens during two days of excavation, including a nearly whole projectile point and several smaller projectile fragments, a biface, part of a mano/grinding stone, three beads, broken animal bones from deer-size animals and birds, and a handful of ceramics-- including the rim of a Tsegi orangeware bowl imported from the Pueblo/Hitsatsinom culture region in Arizona.