5/13/2014

Dru Keyser                                                                                                                           May 13, 2014

36LY0345 Glunk

    Today was a similar day to yesterday, in that we began our day by practicing flint knapping while thunderstorms prevented us from going out to the Glunk site (36LY0345).  I believe that I successfully taught myself how to impact-flake a piece of chert in order to create a projectile point.  My next goal for flint knapping is to learn how to thin chert, as well as pressure flake the chert.  After about two hours of flint knapping, the thunderstorms had passed, so we decided to go out to the Glunk site for a few hours of digging.

    We arrived on site at approximately noon, which gave us about three hours of possible dig time.  Although the ground around our excavation units was fairly wet from the morning rain, our pits had remained dry because we keep them covered with tarps during our time away from the site.  My goal for the day was to dig level four of at least two quads.  The floor of my pit was at twenty-four inches, as per previous excavations, so I decided to dig another twelve inches, at which point I would call another arbitrary level at thirty-six inches.  I began with the Northwest quad, which continued to be comprised mostly of a sandy matrix.  Throughout the Northwest quad, I found many pieces of chert debutage, which reflected my hypothesis that there was a prehistoric individual flint knapping in the area, due to the large amount of chert debutage that I found in the West wall of excavation unit sixteen.  After reaching the arbitrary level of thirty-six inches in the Northwest quad, I began working on the Southeast quad.  The Southeast quad provided a great amount of chert debutage, as well as many pot sherds, and even one small chert dart.  I continued working in the Southwest quad until I had reached a depth of thirty-six inches.  After digging through level four (twenty-four to thirty-six inches in depth), we decided to clean up for the day because it was extremely humid outside due to the morning showers.  My next goal is to bring both the Northeast and Southeast quad to the same level and see if the rest of my excavation unit (number sixteen) reflects the other two quads that I dug today.