I am here to characterize the setting of the toolstone source and map its distribution.
But that’s the field task, where much work remains before I can tell that story. In between wandering transects, note-filled pauses, and pencil marks on maps, I have time to see and hear other things. A variety of birds, including the Pinyon Jay, aware of its own laugh, and the enigmatic Greater Roadrunner, sprinting after lizards.
Storms looked promising over the central Great Basin, as weak monsoon moisture drifted northward. It is Second Friday, and I am focused on a long traverse, almost 150 miles, linking Antelope Valley with Stone Cabin Valley. Wandering the alluvial fans and pediments between the Monitor Range in the west and the Antelope and Hot Creek…
Video experience in geomorphology and geography; cartographic landform dictionary
Archaeologists ask questions about the technology and culture of people, past and present, to better understand changes in human adaptation and lifestyles across time and space. And yet, archaeological observations wrestle with geological problems. People leave traces of their passage on landforms shaped by natural processes–the dynamic landscape influences and alters people’s behavior and continues to alter and mask the materials and patterns left behind. We must understand these processes, along with the climatic and environmental conditions driving them, before we can find answers in the sample of artifacts and features we are fortunate to encounter and document.
