Backyard Geology Adventures: Special Archaeology Edition Part 3

Life has been pretty crazy lately and new things are coming up constantly, but it’s about time I finished this thing off, so… enjoy!

If you missed my two original posts on this topic you can go here:

Part 1

Part 2

All right, now that we’re all caught up, let’s continue.  Where was I? Ahh, yes, I had just finished talking about growing agave and later remembered I had not mentioned what the prehistoric people actually used the agave for.

Well, they used it for a couple things.  What they did was take something (like a stick) and use it as a lever-type device to pry the agave plant out at its root.  The bottom of an agave is sort of like an artichoke, and the prehistoric people would cook it in a roasting pit.  Evidence of a prehistoric roasting pit is something called slag.  In geology, slag means the stuff that comes out of an iron furnace.  In archaeology, as I found out, it also means burnt soil from a roasting pit.  It looks like this:

Which reminds me, there’s other burnt old stuff, that provides evidence for an archaeological site.  This is burnt daub.

It’s adobe from a stone structure that burned down and collapsed.  Cool, huh?

Anyway, back to the agave.  The leaves were also useful.  Their insides are made of fibers that could be used for making cloth and baskets and other stuff you use fibers for.  That’s about it for the agave.  I have one more thing to talk about.

Trade

Prehistoric trade became very complexto the point where products were being manufactured and traded by specialists. Trade products included:

Pottery

Pottery appears to be coming from several different areas as part of a sophisticated trade economy.  The many different types of pottery are seen most commonly today as “sherds” or little pieces of broken pottery.  Here’s some of the coolest ones I found.

This one is sitting on top of a piece of tuff, which often indicates a doorway in a prehistoric structure. Like a doorstep.

The best ceramics were made in the earliest times and became more simple and coarse as time went on.  This concept can be compared to similar changes in modern manufacturing with changes in the economy.

Luxury Items

Shells from the Pacific Coast of California, near LA, were easy to manipulate into jewelry and transport to make a large profit.

Turquoise, another luxury item, was rare and transported long distances.

Other Products

Other products brought to trade were heavy rock baskets made out of igneous rock; axes made of green diorite (mass produced); products made of obsidian, hematite, chert and quartz; baskets; finished clothing; etc.

Oh, and one more thing…

Pretty much all these artifacts can be found not only at the living sites themselves, but also in prehistoric garbage dumps called trash mounds. Yep, the prehistoric people had landfills too!

That’s about all I’ve got.  Hope you enjoyed it.  I ruined a perfectly good pair of jeans trying to get all this information.

But I had a lot of fun and saw some really cool stuff.  I went to the art museum,

picnicked in the park,

and stayed at a pretty amazing hotel.

Fun times.  Just another day in the life of a soil scientist.

Stay tuned for my next adventure in the wilderness!

Like trying to drink whiskey from a bottle of wine

This is me.  I am sexy!(I can’t believe I am posting this.  It’s like the worst picture of me, ever.  Worse than the time I got the terrible haircut in 4th grade and everyone called me Cory Matthews -you know, from Boy Meets World, because my hair looked like his.  And worse than the time when I was 13 and got a huge cold sore on my mouth right before the school dance, and I covered up my mouth with my hand in every picture and wore overalls because I hated my boobs, but that’s another story…)

This week’s spin cycle is all about manners.  And I have to say, I am lacking in that department.  I think my bad habits in etiquette mostly stem from one major root cause:  pure laziness.  This leads to lack of concern for what people think of me because it’s just too much darn work to worry about how to remedy my faults in order to please others.  I know that it’s rude to use my finger to pick food out of my teeth or scrape sauce off my plate in public, but I do it anyway.  Is that a crime?

Being a single girl for over 25 years of my life, I never really gave much thought to how my habits appeared to others.  I lived in my own little world and did what I pleased.  It was a nice, happy little world I lived in.

Enter the boyfriend.  What a hottie!

Together, we’re a really classy pair.  In fact, he probably won’t like me telling you this, but my nickname for him is tooty (or tootycake), because, well, it’s probably self explanatory.  He farts, he burps.  He does… what boys do.  And I’m fine with it.  You’d think he’d be a little more lenient about some of my little idiosyncrasies.  Yeah, not so much.

One night, he said my hair was poking him and when was the last time I shaved my legs.  I asked why bother shaving my legs all the time if I’m going to wear pants anyway; I never did before.  His reply: “Yeah, but you have a boyfriend now.”  Wait.  What?  I’m supposed to shave my legs more because I have a boyfriend?  Really?  Is that, like, a rule or something?  I don’t see him shaving any more often now that he has a girlfriend.

Why doesn’t it go both ways?  Why must we be “ladylike” while guys get to give their girlfriends a whiff of whatever they just ate with an enormous, loud reverberating belch and stink up the room with their butt air?  (Granted, I’m no perfect princess when it comes to the farting, and Matt doesn’t mind – probably because he does the same thing himself ).

And here’s what else I want to know.  Why are guys so grossed out by disembodied hair?  When I was in England, one of the guys I was traveling with came and asked me if I would take the hair out of the shower drain for him, because he couldn’t do it himself.  I don’t get what the problem is.  It’s just hair, not a giant mutant cockroach.  My hair is THICK and has clogged many-a-drain since I can remember.  Back at home when I was a kid, I’d just grab a soap and shampoo-caked wad of it out with my bare hands.  Is that totally disgusting?  Perhaps.  But that’s how I roll.

Just Thursday

When I was younger, I always thought Thursday was the best day.  I’m not sure why.  It’s just… Thursday.

Anyhoo, my Thursday work consisted of map editing and it must have fried my brain because Thursday after work was pretty much a complete waste.  I’m working on a little arts&crafts project with lanterns but I have to buy some lanterns first.  I ended up going to three stores, wandering around aimlessly talking to my brother on the phone.  And I finally found some good ones on sale at Target but when I went to pay for them, the sale price did not come up so I argued with the store people for a while with me saying that was the regular price and them saying no that is the sale price, so I said I didn’t want them anymore and then as soon as I said that I changed my mind but I didn’t want to look dumb saying I wanted them again so I just left and decided to go back and buy them later.

Then I came back and wandered around the internets for a while until I found this little quizzy thing that I am going to post now.  It involves answering the following questions, and then looking up the answers on urbandictionary.com (after doing so, my computer went berzerk and told me it had a million viruses, so do this at your own risk, but I am a risky person, what can I say?  (Not really)).  A lot of the definitions have drug references, which amuses me, but I hope I don’t get in any trouble for posting them here.  Oh well.  Another risk.

What is your name: Maureen

Female name usually given to someone Irish or an Irish wanna-be. Most Maureens are smart, stubborn and memorable. A Maureen will leave you exhausted for days. You won’t forget your first Maureen, ever.

What is your age: 26 (almost)

A lot of booze.  750ml of alcohol.  Pronounced “two-six” not twenty-six

Something you should be doing right now: dishes

The most vile and unacceptable chore known to all people still living at home with their parents

Favorite Color: purple

Extremely potent marijuana, specifically marijuana buds that have a purple hue to them.  Also accompanied by a fragrant, usually fruity smell and mad perma-grin

riiigght…

Where you were born:  Ann Arbor

“I am from Ann Arbor, Michigan. I know what the Deuce is. If you don’t, don’t bother asking. I know more names for marijuana than you have friends, and every possible way to use it. I’ve done them all, and made up my own. Everything is a potential drinking game, and if you can’t see that, you sure aren’t from the same place as me. You wanna play flipcup? Beirut? Quarters? Dice? You wanna get your ass beat? Bring it on. No, I can’t dance, no I don’t care. You think the enemies of Pioneers are Indians? Think again, they’re River Rats. Welcome to the Big House, where we bleed MAIZE and blue, not blue and GOLD, like every other college in the country. I know you know our fight song. Don’t even bother trying to drive your car dowtown. You can’t figure out the one-ways or parallel park. And we know you’re out-of-town because your car isn’t covered in bumperstickers. Yes, it’s HAAHT in here, and yes, I’m taking a VAAHDKA SHAAAHT right now. At least I’m taking more than you. And what the hell is SODA? It will ALWAYS be POP.There is only one Ann Arbor, and kids from the Deuce are simply a different breed.”

Month you were born in: April

The 4th month of the year.  In which national marijuana day is celebrated on the 20th.  Is Avril in French.

Incidentally, I was born on the day after marijuana day

Last person you texted: Matt

ancient Greek translation for “eternal sex god.”  It is believed that anyone who holds this name has a great level of skill and ability to perform sexual acts for long periods of time.  Men possessing this name are also well endowed.

HAHAHAHA

One of your nicknames: Mo

Method of Operation (the way you do the things)

Random word: bunbury

To Bunbury or go bunburying is to have a made up excuse to get out of doing something boring.  From Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” where Jack creates a sick friend by the name of Bunbury to escape the boring countryside.

And that’s it.  Oh!  Fitness update!  I did not work out on Wednesday because it was Matt’s day off and we went to Sam’s to go grocery shopping and eat pizza.  I think grocery shopping maybe counts as a semi-workout though.  Sam’s is a very big place.  And the pizza had vegetables on it.  Today I did the treadmill and weights for half an hour each while watching The Office and 30 Rock.  So I win!

My Boss Told Me I Need to Work Out More

First off, today this site had more visits than it has ever had in its entire life!  This is exciting.  So, as not to disappoint my adoring fans (hahaha), I am writing a post today!  Aren’t you lucky?

During the past several weeks, I have been perusing the blogosphere in search of some new reading material, and recently stumbled upon a little blog called HASAY, which is all about diet and exercise and such things like that.  This is a topic that has been on my mind for quite some time, and my half-ass method of doing something about it is really not working out all that great.  Now, I realize that I am rather late to the party on this one, but oddly enough, looking at the dates, it appears that this group started right around the time I was going home from another long week in the field and this whole needing to work more on my fitness skills mess started, so perhaps I have been participating in spirit all along?  Or perhaps I am full of crap.  Either way, let’s begin, shall we?

So as I was saying, I was coming home from the Gila, expecting another awkward four hours of sitting quietly listening to banjo music, when my boss started talking to me about stuff.  Mostly about field work and other job-related things (neither of us are much for small talk) when the conversation turned to what we do when not in the field.  As I have learned, what we do when not in the field is a lot of sitting around.  This is not terribly conducive to the very large punch-in-the-face (or kick-in-the-junk, whichever you prefer) that is field season.  So my boss suggested that I start working out in the winter to stay in shape.

In the beginning, I had ideals.  Let me tell you about my ideals.  I was going to join a gym (which I did, even though I have a little mini-gym at my apartment, and even though my boyfriend told me it was a waste of money, etc etc.) and I was going to go there 3-5 times a week, and use the weight machines and the elliptical machine, and I was going to take classes.  All the classes I thought would be useful to me.  Weight lifting, aerobic kickboxing, zumba, yoga, step aerobics, the works.  I was going to do it all.  That was in October.

Now, six months later and about one month to go until next field season, I’ve since cut all classes except yoga and (very rarely) zumba from my fitness agenda.  And I hardly ever go just to use the weights or any of the other machines.  And it’s showing.  Mostly in my middle area.

Let’s go back in time for a moment.  Back to the summer of 2007, when I weighed 124 lbs (awesome) and even my mom noticed how good I looked.  How did that happen?  And what has changed since then?  Well, a couple things.  The first is my friend TT.  Near the beginning of that year (2007), she decided to go on the Weight Watchers diet.  I was not really in need of any sort of structured diet program at the time but I sort of semi-dieted with her anyway.  We ate fat free yogurt or low fat bagels with low fat cheese (Laughing Cow, you can get it at Albertson’s, it’s actually really good) for breakfast and Healthy Choice or Smart Ones frozen dinners for lunch.  I don’t remember what I was eating for dinner around that time, but in the evenings I was exercising, which leads me to the second thing.

My roommates.  To be honest, I wasn’t really a huge fan of either of them.  It’s a long complicated story that I don’t want to get into right now but suffice it to say I wanted to spend as little time around them as possible.  Since sitting in my room all evening isn’t much fun, I started taking walks.  Long walks.  Maybe an hour or more.  Plus I walked pretty much everywhere I needed to go.  The grocery store, the library, wherever.  And sometimes at school when I got bored, I’d walk around there too.  I was a walking fiend.

But without TT, my roommates, and time to kill by wandering around aimlessly, I find myself sitting on my butt a lot more.  And like I said, it shows.  And I’m not going to be happy about it when I’m climbing up steep slopes and digging holes through clay and rocks.

I need to do something about it.  And I need to start now.  Yesterday I began writing down my goals for this year (of which there are many) and one of them is to exercise every day.  Second day in, I’m doing pretty good.  Yesterday I was planning to go to both zumba and yoga but ended up just going to yoga (half-win) and today I went for an hour walk (total win!).

There’s still a lot more to do.  I need to lift weights.  This is very important for my job, and as much as I hate and despise even the thought of picking up a large amount of weight and then putting it down again repeatedly, it is something that must happen.

There is also the issue of diet.  I don’t think I eat that badly.  And most people who know me tell me I don’t really need to diet, just exercise more.  So that will be my main thing.  But I’ll also try to pay more attention to what I eat throughout the day, and what I am doing to work off the excess calories that I do eat.

Ok.  Let’s see how this works out.

Happy Easter!

Hope you find some goodies in your basket!

Have a good day

An Addendum

Over the weekend, the allergy bug blew in with the wind and bit me in the face.  Subsequently, on Monday, I lived in a hazey, snotty, cough-y daze all day.  And as I was going to blow my nose for the zillionth time that afternoon, I happened to notice the clock and realized it was time for me to go home, having absolutely no recollection of what exactly happened at work that day, except that there was key lime pie, and it was delicious.

Upon arriving home, I found a note attached to my door informing me that the laundry room was being renovated and would be closed until further notice.  Thanks, awesome apartment complex people, for informing me of this AFTER I cleaned my entire bathroom except for my rugs, that are now sitting in a heap on the hallway carpet, which has still not been cleaned since the Great Final Disaster of 2008.  And AFTER I scrounged up three quarters so that I could actually clean those damn rugs that a certain boyfriend is always complaining about.  I really appreciate that.

I decided to clear my head at yoga class, and I drove all the way over to my far far faraway gym only to discover that Monday yoga class was not starting until next week.

Defeated, I returned home to read the Alibi’s Best of Burque Edition, and was amusing myself laughing at ads from “sophisticated gentlemen looking for sex slaves” in the alternative section, when I remembered, I never mentioned what, exactly, the prehistoric people used the agave for, after they grew it.

But now that I have written all of this, I don’t really feel like going into an archaeology lesson right now, so… later!

Backyard Geology Adventures: Special Archaeology Edition Part 2

Jen over at Sprite’s Keeper hosts a fun little thing every week called The Spin Cycle.  This week was a free-for-all, so I decided, what the hey?  I’ll try it!

*****************************************************************

This is a continuation of my previous post about archaeology in the southwest, and what kinds of things I found and learned about in the Arizona desert.

Agriculture

Agricultural tradition in the Southwestern U.S. originally came from Mexico.  In 3000 BC, people were growing corn, beans and squash, and other plants were added over the years.  Irrigation was used to adapt the southwest to farming conditions of the wetter Mexican crops.

Archaeologists recognize prehistoric agricultural sites in the field by the presence of agricultural terraces, like those in the picture shown below.  We found quite a few of these as well, and this one was the most obvious.

prehistoric agricultural terraces, humans for scale

They will often be found in a cleared area with little to no artifacts and tend to have less vegetation than the surrounding areas, due to extended use of the soil and depletion of nutrients.

FUN FACT!  Growing too much corn in one spot over a long period of time takes all the iron out of the soil and causes anemia in people who eat it.  Image from here.

One of the later plants used by the prehistoric people was the agave, which grew as both a native and a cultivated plant.  Agave prefer to grow in rocky, well drained soil, like in the picture shown here.

Prehistoric people planted agave in rock piles, which can still be seen today, without the agave.

Image from here

Some species of agave, like Murphy’s Agave, were developed specifically for cultivation.  Murphy’s Agave doesn’t flower like most other agave species do, but instead sprouts little agaves that can be picked off and planted somewhere else.

(I couldn’t find a picture of this.  boo! …  Our teacher just told us about it.  I really would like to see what it looks like.)

Well, I think that’s enough for today.  I have one more topic to write about in my little archaeology series, but you will just have to wait for the final edition until a later date!

Six months and still rockin’

Yesterday was Matt’s and my six month anniversary.  And what better way to celebrate half a year of being together than with a screaming hardcore rock concert?

The Sno Core tour opened here in Albuquerque last night, and we were there to witness the insanity firsthand.  Now what is the Sno Core tour, you may ask?  That is a good question, and one that I didn’t know myself until just recently.  You could click on the picture (which is also a link to where it came from) and find out or you could just take my word that it’s a tour that this year is featuring Static-X, one of the most screamiest bands I know of.  And what exactly would possess me to go to such an event?  Honestly, I’m not really sure.  My appearance and personality do not exactly come out and say Hi I’m a hardcore rocker chick. All I know is Matt came over to watch NOVA (which was really good this week by the way.  it was about the recent -geologically speaking- mammalian extinction, and they actually found some pretty amazing stuff.  if you haven’t already, you should check it out) and he said let’s go to this concert and I said, yes let’s go, because I have never been to a real concert before (unless you count Bebo Norman and Jars of Clay – bonus points if you know who they are , so we went.

And you know what?  I had a fabulous time!  The concert started out with a band called The Flood.  Their music wasn’t bad, but I don’t think I’m really a fan of their style.  It was a little too…emo for me.  The lead singer seemed kinda weird.  In a way he sort of reminded me of the evil villain on a Disney cartoon.  But the bass player… oh man, he was hot!  I told this to Matt, and he said that he was trying to be, but no, he was not trying.  He was hot.  After they finished a lot of people booed, which made me feel bad for them, so I cheered.

The second band, Burn Halo, was better.  The bass and guitar player looked like little kids, but wow, was that little guitar player good.  I was impressed.

After they were done, we waited and people watched for a while and the guy I was standing next to started hitting on me.  Even Matt noticed.  It was funny.  Was it not obvious that the guy I came in with was my boyfriend?  Apparently not.

And finally, we got to see Static X.  I don’t know what it is, but there’s definitely something exciting about seeing someone famous who you’ve heard on the radio or seen on music videos in person, in the same room as you,  even if they’re still kind of far away.  And I got to see them.  Crazy hair, Beardy, Asian Dude and The Drummer (that is what I decided to call them last night).  And they put on an awesome show.  The main singer (Crazy Hair – I think he actually calls himself  Static somethingorother) is a real good screamer.  I was wondering if his throat hurt after he sang like that and I think it probably did because he sounded pretty hoarse when he talked.  But they were cool, and really liked the Albuquerque crowd, and took shots in between songs (brought out to them by a scantily clad, insanely thin girl with pigtails and ridiculous tall, hot pink fuzzy boots).

We had a great view.  We stood up on the top tier of the balcony, where the bar was, and could see everything.  I got a couple pictures of the band with my phone but it’s hard to tell how they turned out.  It was also fun watching the crowd surfing going on down on the floor below.  The security guards had to stand up there and intercept people all night.  Haha.  It looked like they were having a pretty good time themselves, though.

All in all, I thought it was a really good concert.  Matt said the sound quality could have been better, but he knows about stuff like that, and I don’t.  So it seemed good to me.  In any case, I thought it was a perfect way to spend our night together.