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Date: | Mon, 13 Oct 2003 18:55:07 -0700 |
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There's been a bunch of things I've found that were memorable (or neat),
but my memory keeps returning to one afternoon I was TAing a field class
on a prehistoric site in the western Mojave. (Sorry to bring prehistory
onto the list.) The class was doing on-site debitage analysis, and I was
standing over two students as they looked at their tally sheets. It was
obvious from the scores of tick-marks that there were no cortical flakes
(although there were quarries within a quarter mile) and no tools, just
a bunch of medium-sized waste flakes.
I remember the looks on their faces as they realized that their hours of
analysis indicated there were _at least_ two other sites out there,
directly related to the one they were standing on: the site where these
artifacts had been, and the one to which the worked-on artifacts had gone.
I love those moments when the bits and pieces come together for me, but
it's a great feeling to watch others "get it" and start looking at the
vast landscape around them in a totally new way, as re-occupied space
with a story for those who ask to hear it.
Gwyn Alcock
Statistical Research, Inc.
Redlands, California
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