May 29th 2019 - Tall Trees and Small Bees

Most people joined us in the field today, with only one student working in the lab. Harman is slowly working on her huge project, which cataloguing and organizing all artifacts from the McKenzie Creek site that have been found in the past, and continue to be found this season. So far there are almost 900 items on paper lists which she will be digitizing. While she was working in the lab, others split off into their groups in the field to continue working on excavations. Karoline and I walked an extra 6 kilometres from our site to a patch of old growth trees.

Karoline and the path we took to the reach the old growth trail.

While travelling down the old growth trail, we saw large trees that had a significant sized base, but they weren't as large as the ones we recorded on Monday at McKenzie Creek. With our measuring tape, we checked the circumference of one red cedar tree that has been there for about 350 years according to an information board next to it.

Red cedar tree that Karoline and I measured. (7.1m circumference)

We measured a distance of 7.1 meters around the tree, which is the same as one of the smaller trees on our site. According the the information board, the average circumference of the old growth red cedar trees in the area is 5.5 meters, which is smaller than the average at our site. The largest circumference of an old growth tree on the McKenzie Creek site is 11 meters. We speculate that the difference in size may have to do with the elevation, or how close it is to the mountains on either side of the valley.

More trees on the old growth trail.

While we were looking for old growth trees, an archaeology field school from Simon Fraser University joined us at the McKenzie Creek site. Over 20 students and few professors got a tour from Bob. Currently they are just working in the classroom, but soon they will be working at a site in Courtenay British Columbia with the K'omoks First Nation band for six weeks. Their site will focus on the excavation of a large ancient village at the mouth of the Puntledge River. If you want to read more information about it you can check it out here. They had many great questions for Bob, and I hope that they enjoyed their time at our site. We also displayed some of the artifacts found at McKenzie Creek for the students and professors to look at.

The SFU archaeology field school group.

Display of artifacts found at the McKenzie Creek site.

Once Karoline and I got back from our detour, we joined Phoenix and continued excavating our units. We found four nails, one small circular piece of metal and what seems like melted glass, all surrounded by charred wood. Other students on the site also excavated pieces of bottle glass and nails. Everyone is excited to get their turn excavating, especially with all of the exciting things being found everyday. One group has an especially hard excavation unit, which is filled with large tree roots. They are doing an amazing job working around the obstacles.

An excavation unit with large tree roots.

Alyssa and Siobhan worked on excavating a portion of the ofuro all day, and found lots of small pieces of metal buried within. Mitch and Ali continued to work on the rock feature, slowly digging out the walls that go deeper into the ground than expected.

Alyssa and Siobhan working at the ofuro.

Aza and Allyah were also working on the cedar plank road that runs through our site. They are trying to compare the road to pictures and notes from previous years to see how much it has changed since then. They are doing this by taking measurements of the wood without uncovering too much of it, to reduce possible decomposition. Aza is going to be creating a map of the cedar planks, which will include the depth and size of each plank. She is also hoping to find an average board size by the end of her project. We're all excited to see the final product!

A surface level cedar plank covered in moss. Taken by Aza.

We also kept our eye out for the bear today, and still haven't seen it since Monday when it ate somebody's lunch bag. New signs have been put up on the paved path near our site to warn other people of the possible threat. Tomorrow we are all in the lab working on our projects and sharing our progress with the group.