Autumn Beyer

The archaeological excavation in Aztalan State Park started off slowly. I was assigned to a unit west of the main palisade. My unit partner, Neal, and myself uncovered several flakes and pottery sherds. The soil that we excavated was very dense and mostly clay. It made it difficult to screen the soil to look for artifacts.

The main feature of our unit was a deep plow scar through the center of the unit. On one occasion, we had bail out the tarp covering our unit after a thunderstorm.

After Neal and I finished excavating our unit, we moved over to excavate on the other side of the park, the gravel knoll. In my new unit with Ariel, we have uncovered animal bone, shell, flakes, pottery sherds (both shell and grit tempered!), a beautiful shell tempered rim sherd, and a portion of a Mississippian blade! I am very excited to see what we uncover next!