Today was such pleasant weather for the field, cross your fingers a cool front swoops our way and gives us most 70 degree days! Last week it was hot, hot, hot, and the ~15 of us out at Bush Prairie felt every hour of it. We have accomplished great work thus far! We’ve…

Uncovered the original excavation site and laid out the grid again. We are working in around 15 different squares. Most of them are concentrated around the super cool deposit the field school found last year, something that was also uncovered and is being carefully excavated by one of our volunteers.

It’s shaded now, but the first two days we were taking full sunlight on our dig!

We’ve had some groups of visitors come by since last Wednesdays, when our public tours started. (See this post for our tour schedule and details!) There are two model excavation units for those who want to get their hands dirty at the site (especially the kids!) Nathan trained everyone in how to use our Total Station, so now we’re taking points across the excavation and building a map the field school may use for years to come..

Nathan and the total station

Today, Steven Hackenberger from Central Washington University came back out to the homestead to train us in his Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) equipment, from which we have enough preliminary data to start some shovel tests across the field. Those will commence tomorrow. A few more excavation sites have opened up next to a test pit, also started today, that gave us some really, really interesting finds! Pieces of leather, tons of metal, charcoal, some bone, interesting shards of glass.

I know that we can’t wait to see what else we find. Be sure to come out and see for yourself before it’s over!