Day One in Chaco Canyon

Heidi Pierce

Oct. 3, 2016

Day One:

            If someone looked in your trash can today, what might they learn about your life?  Would they be able to figure out what you ate for breakfast?  Could they tell if you have a cat or dog at home?  How do you think that your trash might be different from someone who lives in another country?  Archaeologists ask these kinds of questions when they work in the field, because we want to know more about the people who lived in the past.  By digging in and around the abandoned buildings of Chaco Canyon, archaeologists have learned about the people who lived here over one thousand years ago. 

But these ancient people were not the only ones who lived in this area.  Other families have called this place home both before and after the famous buildings were constructed.  One family, the Wetherills, lived here and built a trading post in the late 1800’s.  This month, I am part of a group of students from the University of New Mexico who have the chance to learn about the Wetherill family by digging in the area where they lived. 

Today, we woke up in our camp and spent the morning setting up our field kitchen and making sure that our tents are secure.  Then, this afternoon we were able to go out to the location where we will be digging and get started!  Because we are picking up the work where other archaeologists left off, the first thing we had to do was find the markers that were left behind.  Archaeologists work in square units so that we can record information about exactly where things are located.  We hammer a large nail or stake into the ground to mark the corners of these large squares.   
 
Today, we found those stakes and tied a piece of bright tape to them with the location information, so that we can always know where are working.  While one group of students did that, other students were clearing away the plants that have grown over the area in the past few years.  Once the plants were cleared away, we could see the edges of tarps that covered the earlier excavation, but there was still a lot of dirt on top of them!   

Working together, we carefully removed the dirt from the tarps and shoveled it into wheelbarrows to move to piles out of the way.  After a few hours of hard work, we were able to pull the tarps away to reveal the exposed foundations of buildings that were used by the Wetherill family.  It was very exciting to be able to see the wall, buried in the ground.  I know that we are all looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, and to find out more about the building and the people who lived and worked there.   

http://anthropology.unm.edu/programs_UNMatchaco.htm