#fieldtechlife

So for the past month or so, I did some cultural resource management work (CRM). When I land one of these temporary gigs it means I get paid to do "archaeology."

It's not what you think.

We were doing Phase I work in the Kisatchie National Forest of Louisiana. Phase I means we aren't going in because we know there is an archaeological site there. It means we're going in just to see if there is. And usually....there isn't.

But hey, there is still a bit of adventure in it. I've braved everything from thorn bushes to creepy hotel life! To give you an idea of what it's like, Here is a random assortment of moments from my work in Kisatchie, complete with pictures!


Wednesday, March 25th, 6:45am: I make my sleepy way to the breakfast area of the Econolodge in El Dorado, Arkansas. There's really nothing "continental" about this breakfast. Not finding any fruit, I grab a couple of those little muffins with the carcinogenic fake blueberry bits. We're supposed to meet at 7:00, but no one else from my crew is down here yet...just some construction worker dudes who are used to being in hotels filled completely with other construction worker dudes.

I think I'll just enjoy my fake blueberry bits alone in my room.

Saturday, March 28th, 7:30am: On the drive through the forest to the parcel that we're working on, we see a lot of trucks parked along the roadsides. On a hunch, our crew chief googles something...

Turns out turkey hunting season starts today. Each of those trucks corresponds to a turkey hunter out in the woods that we are supposed to be surveying. How did the company not find this out BEFORE starting the project??

Wednesday, March 29th, 1:00pm: In an effort to get us away from the hunters, the company has moved us to another parcel. And it's a swamp.

Like, seriously, this area has to be underwater for a good part of the year.

We spread out fifty meters apart and walk along parallel lines through the forest. We each use pink sighting flags and sighting compasses to make sure that we are staying true to our line. We are also each carrying a backpack with lunch, and paperwork, and some random small useful things, as well as a shovel in one hand and a screen in another. We lug all this equipment along all day, putting in a small shovel test every 30 or 50 meters to check for cultural material.

They're all mud. If anything or anyone has lived here EVER, the evidence is all washed away. Except for the evidence of this little guy...


Saturday, April 11th, 7:30am: On this project, we have to work ten days in a row and then get four days off. Now it's our second ten day and we're working on a different section of Kisatchie deeper into Louisiana.

We pull up to a little white church tucked into the forest. We'll be working through the woods to the back and side of the church's cemetery for the next few days. As we walk along the cemetery fence line, casually observing names and dates on nearby headstones, our crew chief comments that it may be old enough to have unmarked African American graves that got left outside of the fence. In the area we'll be working in.

But I think he's joking. I mean he is joking, right?

Sunday, April 12th, 2:00pm: One  of my fellow field techs and I are working together on a transect. The undergrowth here is intense. Too intense to back-spot to the last sighting flag after going more than a few meters. We end up crawling through tunnels of thorns on all fours at points, trying to ignore the fact that we've been warned about multiple species of venomous snakes that live here.

At one point I look back and see her struggling to get all of her equipment through a sea of undergrowth. I could help her...or I could take a picture and document her struggle for the glory of the internet.

I feel like I made the right decision.

Monday, April 13th, 12:00pm: It looks like it might rain today, so we stay at the hotel and clean and sharpen shovels. This company hasn't exactly been putting us in fancy hotels, but I'm still a bit disturbed when I notice some handcuffs connected to a fence around what used to be the pool.

Like....those are not cheezy magician handcuffs. Nor are they pink and fuzzy. Those are legit handcuffs. WHY IS THIS A THING?

Dagger eyes and Grizzly Beard

Wednesday, Oct 22, 7:15pm

Finally, I’m turning into the hotel in Ottumwa, Iowa! I check in and start dragging my stuff into my new temporary home. It isn’t long before I spot a friend of mine from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. I flag him down and we chat. As he’s giving me the low down on the crew, a woman walks by with what can only be interpreted as a “don’t even try to talk to me” face. Devin explains that she’s a crew chief…and not a very friendly one. Great. Glad I’m being thrown into such a happy environment.

But my crew chief is a different person anyway. I’ll be meeting him tomorrow morning at seven. Then we’ll all load up in trucks that should be four wheel drive but aren’t and go look for signs of past occupation in the woods and farms of small-town Iowa.

Thursday, Oct 23, 7:15am

Rapping on my door rouses me from a deep, comfortable sleep. I stumble my way out of bed and see my friend from UALR through the peep hole. I open the door, thinking it must be the middle of the night.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s time to go.”

“What?” At first I assume that he’s kidding, but I look back at the clock and realize that I’m already fifteen minutes late. “Oh no! Are they waiting for me? Are the mad?”

“No, it’s fine…just get ready and get out there asap.”

7:30am

I power walk through the parking lot with a stack of new hire paperwork in my hand. I head striaght to my friend’s crew, which I had been told would also be mine. Self-conscious and flustered, I hand my paperwork to a man with an authoritative-looking clip board before making sure he’s the man I had been instructed to report to.

He isn’t.

However, as he tells me with a smirk under his grizzly beard, the other guy quit and he’s the replacement. BUT….I won’t be on his crew anyway. They’re crew seven and they’ve decided to put myself and another new guy on crew six. With the dagger-eyes lady from yesterday.

Well, what a great start.

5:00 pm

After work, my friend invites me to join him and some of his crew mates at a local grill and bar. I know how important workmate bonding is, and I want to be received well among those who are already established in this group, so I join.

Grizzly beard is there, and makes a few playful pokes at my sleeping in, but overall is friendly and really doesn't seem to care about my blunder. And after we get to the hotel I’m even invited to hang out and have a beer at the fire pit out back.

So I guess I had a shabby start….but overall, it wasn't a bad day. This project and the potential friends in it at least seem promising…

Lunch at "the office"

Tuesday, Sept 30th

A huge ravine runs right through our parcel today and the entire area is wooded, with plenty of thorny undergrowth. Probably won’t be much digging. But we hike right into the underbrush, each person with their own shovel, screen, and backpack. We walk for a long time, letting someone with a machete go first. Thorns grab at us as we go and in a couple of spots we’re forced to crawl on the ground to get through networks of vines and branches. Shovel in hand the whole time, of course.

I love it. The physical challenge of it makes it fun, and the woods are breathtakingly beautiful. Through the trees to the left, we can see a wall of woodland sloping down the other side of the ravine. All around us, the circle of life is intertwined with itself. Little saplings await their first taste of winter beside old fallen trees that are now something between wood and dirt. Every now and then one of us steps on one, overestimating its strength, and it instantly crumbles beneath our weight.

Eventually, we come across a small, overgrown road. It’s going in the direction we need so we walk along it until it curves away from our trajectory. We then return to making our own path…until someone notices something interesting to the right. It’s a small tower of rocks. Flat rocks, and obviously stacked on top of each other intentionally. In fact, there is a whole wall cutting into the slope behind it! 

We explore and observe and discuss until our crew chief is satisfied that it’s the bottom of what was once a barn built partly into the hill. This area was once pasture land. We measure it, take pictures, and take note of artifacts, which include the metal remains of farm equipment and glass bottles. And then we decide it’s the perfect place to sit down for lunch.

Lunch at the office. What can I say? I’m getting paid to walk around and look for old broken stuff. Maybe it’s not everyone’s ideal job…but it’s one way in which I’m fulfilling my desire to live an adventure.

On to the next adventure

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.