DEET is the super-strong bug repellant we use. You can get 30 percent DEET, which works well, but 100 percent DEET is the strongest. It will melt the plastic off your Swiss Army knife! Usually we have to apply DEET every few hours but not today. There were no mosquitoes bothering us this entire day - it was wonderful. The trade-off was the cold windy drizzle that blew them away. Well, we were well prepared with green Helly Hansen rain suits and layers of cozy fleece underneath.

    Tech support call
    The day started with a marathon tech call to Martin in Menlo Park, California, who was helping me send email over the sat phone. This photo is proof that he was successful - we did it! Pictures can be sent over the satellite phone!

    Up on the ridge the archaeologists braved the wet wind to continue their relentless search for ancient history. On their knees in square holes, they would carefully scrape into the soil with trowels and hand brooms. If they found something, they would rinse it in a bucket and bag it as either "lithics," (stone) or "bone." The soil was then put in a bucket to be screened. For this, you stand at a wooden screener which is like a two-legged table about waist high with a wire-mesh top. You dump the bucket of soil into the screen and shake it back and forth, letting tiny particulate drop through and catching larger items at the top. Many small flakes of red, brown and gray chert left by ancient tool makers were collected.

    Raven Bluff dig
    The team is working a unit on the bluff above the West Fork of the Kivalina River. It's an L-shaped cut with one arm aligned north-south and the other east-west. They are down about 60-70 centimeters from the surface, an area they believe is from about 11,500 years ago.

    The researchers carefully note what unit it was found in and in what quarter of the unit (for example, the north west, south east). They also measure the depth below the surface. Today Stephan and Ines were digging between 60-70 centimeters below the surface. This area was previously dated at being from about 12,000 years ago.

    11,500-year-old tooth?
    Ines, a PhD archaeology student from Cologne, Germany, found this tooth in the layer researchers think is from about 11,500 years ago. To me it looks like an herbivore's tooth - maybe a caribou?

    Ines found another tooth form an herbivore - maybe a caribou? Stephan found a microblade which everyone was very excited about. It is tiny but an important technology from that time. Microblades are thin strips of razor-sharp stone. The one Stephan found was greenish chert less than one quarter-inch thick and less than a half an inch long.

    Wet Archaeology
    Dr. Jeff Rasic gave a helping hand to the muddy archaeologists in the 'pit' and labeled their artifact bags while his hands were still clean. The labels include the site name, unit number, the quarter of the unit the artifact was found in, what type (bone or stone) and the date.

    Today's drizzle was enough to leak into one of the researcher's tents. We all pitched in to help him set up one of the backup tents in the rain after lunch.

    Using the Screen
    Using the screen involves dumping the soil in the mesh and shaking it back and forth so little bits fall through. Then you can carefully search through what gets stuck and see if there are any artifacts.

    Early this morning Ian saw a musk ox grazing south of camp. These fascinating beast were extinct in Alaska, but have been reintroduced from herds in Greenland.

    Ancient Tool
    The researchers were pretty excited about this, which they called a 'rough biface', meaning it's a tool shaped on both sides. Apparently it was never finished and discarded or lost at some point.

    I spoke on the phone this morning with the two native girls from Kivalina village who will be coming to visit the day after tomorrow. It will be great to have them in camp! I reminded them to bring plenty of rain gear.

    Site Datum
    This is the site Datum - the main reference point for graphing the Raven Bluff site. Notice the little green tundra plants around it. Some almost look like tiny pine needles.
    Artifact Bag Label
    The artifact bag label starts with DEL-402 because this is site 402 in the De Long Mountains. Unit 1 refers to the specific meter-square section the artifact was found in. It was found in the northeast corner of that unit in this case between 50-60 centimeters below the surface.

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