I emailed my resume in before going to bed Tuesday night. I
got a reply Thursday night. Not only did I get the job, but they wanted me to
join the crew on Monday…in Ohio. Friday I went shopping and packed, Saturday I
ate lunch with the family and headed out with Meowthew as my only companion.
Saturday night was spent in a hotel in Kentucky and I was here in St.
Clairsville, Ohio, by Sunday night.
The weekend drive
Driving alone can be relaxing. It being the weekend, I’m
totally avoiding rush hour traffic. And I don’t have to exit this highway for
another hour at least. I go between Owl City, a Vans Warped Tour Compilation cd,
and local country stations. After all, I don’t have to worry about anyone else’s
musical preference. Except for Meowthew's. But he likes pretty much whatever I like.
These highways have been surrounded by trees pretty much the
whole way since Arkansas. And as I travel between states, I feel like I’m
traveling between seasons. The forests in
Arkansas were still dressed in a lush summer green. But as I make my way
further north, the trees fade into a lighter shade of green, splotched with
soft yellows and oranges and little spurts of deep red. Enjoying the view but
knowing that it comes in exchange for seeing the colors change in the Ozarks, I
drink it in as I go.
Monday, Sept 29th
As we all stand in a circle in a Rural King parking lot,
awaiting orders so we can hop in the van and get to work, I sit and chat with
my crew. There is only one other woman, but she’s cool, and none of the guys
are creepy. This looks promising so far.
After a little bit of navigation trouble and “is this really
a road or someone’s driveway??” We find the area we are supposed to survey
today.
Basically, before putting in a pipeline, the pipeline people
are required to make sure they aren’t about to tear up any burials or other
culturally significant sites. Thus, they hire private firms, which hire archaeology and anthropology majors like me as archaeological technicians. And then we comb miles and miles of land for possible sites.
We find our bearings and spread out in a straight line. We
use our compasses to make sure that we are walking straight and in the same
direction. Then we walk, scanning the ground for artifacts. Every
15 meters, we each dig a small whole and run the dirt through a small screen
made of a wooden frame and metal mesh, checking for artifacts.
My first couple of holes are completely sterile. The next
would-be hole, fifteen meters away, is on a steep slope. Erosion will have
taken anything that was once here, so I move along. Pretty soon we are all in
the woods on the side of a hill. The slope and vegetation means digging here is
a no-go. But we head single file through the clearest trail we can make to
check out the rest of the area…each person carrying his or her own shovel and
screen.
At the bottom of the slope is a dry creek bed. While crossing it, I
slip on a rock. I catch myself on my screen, but a bit of the cut edge of the
metal mesh is sticking out from under the wooden frame and scrapes my arm up a
bit. Battle wounds already! I’ll have to get a back pack I can clip the screen
onto, as many of the others have done.
After all, this is only the beginning.
