Participant at site: ©CCAC, Photo by Wendy Mimiaga

Indiana Jones recovering the Lost Ark of the Covenant or Howard Carter finding the treasures of King Tut’s tomb—these things have always fascinated me, so when I learned of a place that where I could learn basic archaeology and work on real archaeological digs, I was hooked!

Learning about the Native Americans of today and the ancient people who lived on this continent a thousand years ago is an exciting and life-altering experience available in the beautiful Southwest.

My two week educational adventure began in the heart of the Four Corners region: the spot where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona all meet. It is the richest archaeological region in the U. S. and the best place to start your adventure!  My husband Ron and I have been participating in these programs for about 13 years. The scenery in the Four Corners is awesome, especially to Illinoisans like us. The two dominant features are Sleeping Ute Mountain to the south and Mesa Verde to the east with other mountain ranges marching all the way to the horizon. The view is breathtaking.

When you start to dig, you don’t just grab a shovel and begin moving dirt. Novices receive introductory sessions that provide a short course on the history of the Mesa Verde region. I had the opportunity to work at Goodman Point Pueblo, which in 1889, became the first site set aside for protection from homesteading. The ruins are relatively untouched since abandoned in the late 1200s. The Pueblo is in the heart of many large communities occupied by groups of related peoples at roughly the same time. These people are officially called Ancestral Pueblo; though many still use the term Anasazi or “ancient ones.”

Near the site, we walk down a trail about a quarter of a mile to the site of an ancient village. Partial stone walls and piles of rubble show where buildings up to three stories high once stood. Our guide points out different kinds of structures: a plaza area and the spring that provided the villagers’ water supply. We assemble under a large tent to pick up our digging equipment and get our assignments. The equipment consists of a bucket, a trowel, a kneeling pad, a whiskbroom and a dustpan.

We are assigned to a kiva, a circular underground structure believed to have been used for ceremonies, food preparation, and other activities such as flint knapping. Our kiva exists only as a circular pile of stones with a bowl-shaped depression in the center. In this depression there is a square two meters by two meters delineated by four wooden stakes in the ground with string tied between them. This is our “unit”. I’ve never dug in a “virgin” unit; I’ve always worked in units that other diggers have been excavating before me. This is a new experience.

Participant at site: ©CCAC, Photo by Wendy Mimiaga

We grab our trowels and begin piling dirt into our buckets. When the buckets are full we carry them to a big wooden frame suspended from a large tripod. The frame’s bottom is a quarter-inch wire mesh screen. By sifting the dirt through this screen, we can find small artifacts that might go unnoticed as we scoop up the dirt.

We begin finding artifacts right away. This is unusual because most artifacts found in kivas tend to be on the floor of the structure and we’re a long way from the floor. I’m thinking that these artifacts have washed into our kiva over time since we’re digging near the bottom of a steep downhill slope. They are randomly deposited the way we ordinarily find artifacts in a “midden,” or refuse area.

As we find the artifacts, we place them in a paper bag that has all kinds of information written on it so that when the artifacts are analyzed in the lab, the exact location where they were found is documented. The term for this is “provenience”. Potsherds and chipped stone go in a big bag because that’s what we find the most of. Smaller bags are provided for animal bones and charcoal.

I always get excited when I hear that clink sound that means my trowel has struck a potsherd or piece of stone that may prove to be significant. It’s back to my Indiana Jones dream: will this be the Rosetta Stone of the American Southwest?

Ron and I celebrate when we find a pilaster in our unit. This stone support pillar is proof-positive that we are digging in a kiva structure. Anasazi kivas have six of these pillars which support a cribbed roof of logs covered with a network of latias, sticks that support the adobe roof of the circular kiva.

We continue to find pottery sherds, animal bones, and charcoal and ash, which indicate the secondary use of the kiva as a midden. This seems to indicate that the structures we’re working in were some of the first built in the pueblo as kivas were often used this way after the original occupants left and others came to occupy the site later.

The stone walls of the pueblos were constructed of stacked sandstone blocks that were shaped to fit securely together. Without maintenance, these stack stone walls collapse. As Ron and I remove the fallen rubble from our unit, we stack the stones in a one-meter square tower. This will give a fair assessment of the height of the building.

Soon, we’re ready for a break from excavation and we’re happy to work a day in the analysis lab. Here the artifacts are washed, sorted, and then carefully analyzed. We visit the lab’s curation room to look at whole or reconstructed pottery pieces. This makes it easier to identify the broken pieces we’re analyzing because we can see how they fit into a complete vessel.

Potsherds are by far the majority of artifacts taken from a site. It’s amazing how much can be learned from a broken piece of pottery. We learn to determine the age of a piece by looking at its form, the clay it was made from and its decoration. These things also tell us where it was made. The potters from different locales had distinctive ways of shaping and decorating their bowls and jars. Pottery made at a far locale indicates that the people at Goodman Point traded with the people at that locale.

Sometimes we find a potsherd that still bears the fingerprint of the individual who made it hundreds of years ago. When I find such a piece I love to hold it in my hand. It gives me a feeling of connection and communication with that ancient potter.

We’ll be back next year for more digging and we also hope to enjoy other Southwest-based learning vacations where participants travel with archaeologists and Native American scholars to visit ancient ruins, experience Native American traditions, or learn an ancient skill such as pottery making or weaving.