Well, most of the work that we need to do before we head home for Seattle has been accomplished. Colby, Bre, Matt, Mike, Ben and I have spent the last three days at the Sakhalin Regional Museum counting, cataloging, organizing, sorting, checking, verifying, cleaning, photographing and making inventory lists of ceramics, wood, bone or lithic tools, faunal materials, lithic flakes, samples of carbon, sand and tephra and field equipment/gear, including tents, boots, tools, spare sample bags, life jackets, shovels, trowels and first aid supplies.
Whew!
We needed a finalized list/count of all of the lithic flakes, faunal material, carbon samples and sand/tephra samples that would be headed back to Seattle with us by Friday afternoon so that Dr. Shubin could take it to the Russian authorities for the appropriate permits, etc. That was the biggest priority, but while some people worked on that, others of us worked on photographing ceramics and tools that will be staying at the Museum here in Russia.
By Friday at about 6 pm, when we left the Museum, we had done the following since Wednesday morning: - Cataloged approximately 451 samples from Ainu Creek - Entered approximately 648 samples into the computer catalog - Sorted, organized, checked and counted 485 geologic samples of sand or tephra - Sorted, organized, checked and counted 127 archaeological ceramic samples - Sorted, organized, checked and counted 185 archaeological lithic samples - Sorted, organized, checked and counted 261 archaeological carbon samples - Sorted, organized, checked and counted 212 archaeological fauna samples - Cleaned and took approximately 672 photographs of ceramics and lithic tools
Matt Walsh and Mike Etnier work to organize and verify samples from Vodapadnaya. Each numbered sample bag must be checked against the computer catalog so that errors in documentation can be corrected and any mis-sorted or lost samples can be located or noted.
Ben Fitzhugh (left) and Misty Nikula (right) work on cleaning, labeling and then photographing artifacts, ceramics and lithic tools, which will be staying at the Sakhalin Museum in Russia. (Photo courtesy of Mike Etnier)
On Friday night, we were all pretty pooped, but we had accomplished our main task! We gave the finalized lists to Dr. Shubin, cleaned up and caught the bus back "home”. We had a simple dinner that night (noodle bowls), watched some Russian cartoons and the movie "The Princess Bride” and headed to bed.
On Saturday, Jody, who has been working with Tanya Pinegina at the Institute to finish calculating the tsunami run-up data so that they can write an article for one of the Russian Academy of Science journals, made pancakes for us again! Then the other six of us caught the number 10 bus and headed back to the Museum, this time to work outside.
While Ben continued photographing ceramics in Dr. Shubin’s office, this time from the Ainu Creek collection, and Matt, Colby, Bre, Mike and I spent the day outside working with the field gear that will be stored here for next summer. In the small parking lot near Dr. Shubin’s office, there is a storage container, or garage, where most of our gear and equipment is stored between the three field seasons in the Kuril Islands. After we came back from Korsakov, the gear had all been piled into the garage and now we needed to pull it out, sort it, clean it, prepare it for storage, organize and inventory it, and then neatly put it all back in. That way the gear would be ready for next season, we would know how much is here and how much more needs to be ordered.
It was a nice warm (at times, perhaps, too hot…) day to spend outside. Colby and Bre were in charge of sorting and counting the "office” and first aid supplies. Mike was in charge of "fixing tools”. Matt was in charge of sorting and counting sample bags. I was in charge of keeping the inventory lists and packing the bags and boxes.
*The crew works to sort, organize, clean and prepare, count and then inventory and repack the group field equipment that will be stored at the Museum until next summer. Matt Walsh is sorting and counting sample bags, Colby Phillips is organizing and inventorying first aid supplies, and Bre MacInnes and Mike Etnier are washing Bre’s dry suit. *
We finished up work on Saturday at about 5 pm and headed back to the apartment for a relaxing evening without other "onerous” tasks looming immediately on the horizon. The largest chunk of our work at the Museum was done. On Monday, we will await for details from the Russian authorities concerning further tasks or information that they might need and begin packing the samples to be transported back to Seattle with Ben, Colby, Mike and me on Wednesday. Bre, Jody and Matt leave for Seattle on Monday afternoon and will take some of our personal gear that we don’t need for the next two days with them. That way the four of us that leave on Wednesday will be able to use more of our allotment of checked baggage for the samples.
That makes Sunday (today), essentially, a free day…which we will probably spend with a "slow-start” morning at the apartment – eating breakfast, catching up on computer tasks, drinking coffee or tea, chatting and lounging around, reading, etc – then many of us have plans for "shopping” around town during the afternoon. Our last few days in Russia…
Da Svidanya! Misty
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