Day Nineteen in Chaco Canyon

Kurly Tlapoyawa
10/31/2016

Wow. Time certainly flies out here in Chaco. As we wind down our excavation at the Wetherill Trading Post, I can’t help but think about how nervous and excited I was to begin this journey. Now, with only a few more days to go, I know that I will miss this place. I will be happy to be back home with my family, but I want to return here soon with them and show them how marvelous this place is. I can truly say that this has been a transformative experience.

Today is Halloween, so we all left the site as a group to hand out candy to the tourists, volunteers, and employees at the visitor’s center. We all wore silly hats instead of full costumes, but the spirit was the same. Right now we are all sitting together eating dinner, telling stories, and laughing. It will be strange to be back at UNM, surrounded by so many people and sitting in a classroom. I will miss the solitude of Chaco and the star filled nights.

   We are closing up our units and collecting the last of our data. It feels satisfying to look at our excavation site and see all of the work we have done. I dug down around 60 centimeters and found many cool prehistoric sherds. I wonder what else I would have found if the field school were not drawing to a close. This may sound funny, but as long and strenuous as some of these days have been, I can’t wait to get out into the field again. Archaeology has become a major part of my life, and I hope it expands into a full-blown career. Time will tell.

                

This will be the last post I write for our blog, so I just wanted to thank everyone here at Chaco for making this such an amazing experience. I want to thank my family for dealing with me being gone for so long so that I could experience this. I want to thank my classmates for being such cool people to hang out with on a daily basis. I want to thank Dr. Wills and Dr. Crown for providing me with such an amazing opportunity. And ultimately, I want to thank the ancestors who built this amazing place we call Chaco. Your spirit is felt every single day – alive and untamed.