Q. What is archaeology?
Q. How many different countries have you been to for your job?
Q. How fun is your job?
Q. What is anthropology?
Q. What is paleontology?
Q. What are the types of things you have found?
Q. Where do you buy your excavation supplies from, and how do you store them?
Q. How do archaeologists learn about people who lived in the past?
Q. Are the artifacts that you find fragile? How do you protect them?
Q. How many sites have you been to?
Q. I came to Crow Canyon a little while ago. I learned that to know where to dig you look for places where there might have been a rubble mound or something above ground. But how do you know it could be a site and not just a hill?
Q. What is the neatest thing you ever found?
Q. What kinds of tools do archaeologists use?
Q. How can you tell how old something is?
Q. I have Red Rock outcroppings near my house. There are black marks on the sides. There are black marks on Cliff Palace, also. Are these fire marks? Could people have lived near my house before we were here?
Q. How do you guys go to the bathroom when you're on a dig?

Q. What is archaeology?
A. Most people know that archaeologists study things that are old, but some people don't realize that the focus of archaeology is on humans who lived in the past. For the most part, archaeologists learn about people in the past by looking at the tools, buildings, trash, and other physical traces that people left behind. The record is not complete because not everything that was used in the past gets preserved into the present. Based on this incomplete physical record, archaeologists try to answer questions about the activities, customs, and social relationships of people in various societies in the past. Certain activities, like cooking, produce a lot of trash that gets preserved—things like discarded tools, broken containers, and charred food remains. Therefore, it is easier for archaeologists to learn about cooking practices, for instance, than it is to learn about sleeping practices, which do not leave behind the same kinds of clues in the archaeological record. Nevertheless, the goal of archaeology is not just to collect artifacts but rather to use artifacts and other physical remains to learn about people in the past.

This question was answered by Ricky Lightfoot, Archaeologist.    •  Top of page

Q. How many different countries have you been to for your job?
A. I have explored Mayan ruins in the countries of Guatemala and Honduras. However, my interest in seeing these ruins was personal rather than professional. I went to these places not as a part of my job at Crow Canyon, but rather out of my own interest. When she was younger, my grandmother, who is a writer, wrote about these archaeological sites. As an adult, I thought I'd see them for myself, so off I went.

Many people who work at Crow Canyon do travel to other countries as a part of their work—just as archaeologists from other countries come to Crow Canyon. This year, Crow Canyon employees will visit many countries including Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Egypt, Turkey, India, and countries in East Africa. Who knows, maybe I'll be going on one of these trips soon.

This question was answered by Scott Campbell, Archaeology Educator.    •  Top of page

Q. How fun is your job?
A. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate my job a 10. As an archaeologist, you're always learning and discovering new things. Sharing my knowledge and discoveries with others is equally exciting because I love to teach people about the ancient cultures of the Southwest. Having good writing skills and an attention to detail is important, so for people who enjoy writing and being detail-oriented, archaeology is a great career.

This question was answered by Scott Campbell, Archaeology Educator.    •  Top of page

Q. What is anthropology?
A. Anthropology is the study of humans, especially their physical, cultural, and linguistic characteristics and social relationships. Archaeology is a subfield of anthropology. A cultural anthropologist typically studies the culture of a modern group of people by living with those people so that he or she can observe different behaviors and customs, ask people about their beliefs and find out what things mean, and learn the rules that affect the way people live and behave.

This question was answered by Ricky Lightfoot, Archaeologist.    •  Top of page

Q. What is paleontology?
A. Paleontology is the branch of geology that studies fossils of prehistoric plants and animals, such as dinosaurs.

This question was answered by Ricky Lightfoot, Archaeologist.    •  Top of page

Q. What are the types of things you have found?
A. Over the years, Crow Canyon has unearthed literally millions of artifacts at its excavation sites. Pieces of pottery and stone tools are the most common artifacts we find, but we also see bone tools, jewelry, pendants, and ancient food items on occasion. I think the ancient stone structures (pueblos) that people in this area lived in are the most interesting finds in our excavations.

This question was answered by Scott Campbell, Archaeology Educator.    •  Top of page

Q. Where do you buy your excavation supplies from, and how do you store them?
A. You must have had some experience excavating to even think of this problem! You can purchase most of the tools we use (tape measures, trowels, plumb bobs, brushes, line levels, and so on) in a hardware store. Sometimes we use tools from special sources. For instance, dental tools are great for working around small, delicate items. The most important archaeological tool is probably the mason's trowel, and most archaeologists prefer the Marshalltown brand.

At Crow Canyon, we store our excavation supplies in an office trailer at the site. This keeps them from being stolen, and also when it rains and snows the tools won't get rusty or damaged. Individual archaeologists sometimes keep their own kit of tools. They carry around a modified toolbox with special compartments for their gear.

This question was answered by Sara Kelly, Archaeology Educator.    •  Top of page

Q. How do archaeologists learn about people who lived in the past?
A. Archaeology is a scientific process that begins with a set of research questions. The way an archaeologist goes about answering those questions is a lot like the way a detective goes about solving a crime mystery where there are no eye witnesses. The archaeologist, like the detective, must gather relevant bits of data and analyze them using legitimate scientific techniques. Based on the results of the analyses of the items found, the archaeologist attempts to put all the facts together to answer the original set of questions.

This question was answered by Ricky Lightfoot, Archaeologist.    •  Top of page

Q. Are the artifacts that you find fragile? How do you protect them?
A. Some artifacts, like basketry and complete vessels, are very fragile and must be removed from the ground and handled with extreme care. Sometimes we pack this type of artifact in protective cushioning inside small cardboard boxes until we get them to our analysis laboratory. Broken pottery (or sherds) and stone tools are very durable and need no special handling. The hardest artifacts to protect over a long period of time are things that deteriorate when they are exposed to the air, like basketry, cotton cloth, and yucca sandals. Museums and “curation facilities” (places that store artifacts) have developed special techniques for protecting and preserving artifacts. They maintain artifacts at constant temperatures, control the humidity, and wrap the materials in acid-free storage paper. In fact, museum conservation is a specialized field of work.

We only store artifacts briefly at Crow Canyon, while we are studying them. Once we are finished with our analysis, the materials are sent to a public museum called the Anasazi Heritage Center where they are stored or displayed for everyone to see. You can visit this museum on the Web at www.co.blm.gov/ahc/index.asp.

This question was answered by Sara Kelly, Archaeology Educator.    •  Top of page

Q. How many sites have you been to?
A. I don't know how many sites I have visited, but the number is probably in the thousands. The area where I live and work has tens of thousands of sites, and because I am an archaeologist I spend a fair amount of time looking at them. I have worked on sites in Colorado, Texas, Alaska, and Washington, and I have visited sites in almost every state in the western United States, as well as in England, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Mexico. I hope to continue traveling to other parts of the world and visiting archaeological sites wherever I go.

This question was answered by Ricky Lightfoot, Archaeologist.    •  Top of page

Q. I came to Crow Canyon a little while ago. I learned that to know where to dig you look for places where there might have been a rubble mound or something above ground. But how do you know it could be a site and not just a hill?
A. We do look for rubble mounds when we're looking for archaeological sites in the Southwest. The way we know a rubble mound is a site is from the stones themselves, and if any artifacts are present, that's a good clue too. A rubble mound that signifies a site is a concentration of stones in a place where it would not occur naturally. Also, sometimes the stones have been shaped for use in walls. Both of these characteristics mean that people are responsible for the rubble mound, and that the mound is probably the remains of a collapsed stone building, rather than a hill.

Hope you enjoyed your trip to Crow Canyon.

This question was answered by Kristin Kuckelman, Research Archaeologist.    •  Top of page

Q. What is the neatest thing you ever found?
A. This question is often difficult for an archaeologist to answer, because archaeology is not a treasure hunt. It is a process of scientific problem solving. Archaeologists spend most of their time collecting and studying trash and other refuse left behind by people in the past. They find the eroded bits and broken pieces of tools and implements from everyday life. Archaeologists study these bits and pieces, analyze their spatial arrangements, and use the resulting information to solve a problem. Occasionally an archaeologist finds a spectacular or unusual artifact, but such a find is not the focus of the archaeologist's attention. Artifacts help us learn about people who lived in the past. The artifacts are important, not because they are unusual or pretty, but rather because they provide clues to answer important research questions.

This question was answered by Ricky Lightfoot, Archaeologist.    •  Top of page

Q. What kinds of tools do archaeologists use?
A. Archaeologists use a number of tools that you are probably familiar with and have used yourself—shovels and buckets for removing dirt, for instance. A trowel is the tool most closely associated with archaeologists. It is used to remove dirt when digging at a site. This small, hand-held tool can be used with a paint brush to carefully excavate delicate remains that are on a floor of a structure. We use pen and paper to record our findings and cameras to document what we see. For making maps of small areas within the site where we are digging, we use a line level and measuring tapes. When the artifacts come into the laboratory for analysis, we use toothbrushes to wash them, rulers to measure them, scales to weigh them, and microscopes to look at fine details in pottery, stone, and bone artifacts. And, computers. We don't use computers in the field yet, but they are an important tool in the laboratory for recording data and for producing our site reports. Archaeologists at Crow Canyon also use a very sophisticated mapping tool, the laser transit, which helps us create an accurate map of a site and download location information into a computer to create the computer-generated maps you see on our Web site.

This question was answered by Sara Kelly, Archaeology Educator.    •  Top of page

Q. How can you tell how old something is?
A. There are many ways to do this. In the American Southwest we have one of the most unique and accurate methods of dating archaeological sites and the artifacts found in them, called dendrochronology, or the science of tree-ring dating.

Each year a tree adds one new ring of growth. The size of each ring differs from year to year, depending on the amount of sunlight, moisture, and nutrients the tree receives. You've probably looked at the cross section of a cut tree and counted the number of rings to determine how old the tree is.

Because the climate here in the Southwest is so dry, large timbers used by ancient peoples preserve quite well. Scientists have been able to create a catalogue of tree rings for various types of trees going back thousands of years, based on the changing patterns in the size of tree rings. So, when an ancient timber is discovered, as long as it displays a cross section of at least twenty-five good rings, we can usually determine what dates those rings represent. If the outer ring of the tree is intact, the date of that ring represents the "cutting episode"—the date that the tree was cut down by ancient people.

So if we find, in an excavated room, a number of roof beams that have cutting dates of A.D. 1262, we can usually assume that the room was built in 1262–740 years ago. Archaeologists in the Southwest employ other scientific methods of dating, including archaeomagnetic dating and carbon dating, but if good timbers are present at the archaeological site, they are the most accurate indicators of time.    •  Top of page

Q. I have Red Rock outcroppings near my house. There are black marks on the sides. There are black marks on Cliff Palace, also. Are these fire marks? Could people have lived near my house before we were here?
A. The black marks on the rock outcroppings near your house may be from smoke, but I suspect that they are, instead, from minerals washing over the rock surfaces. These minerals stain the stone and give it a “streaky” appearance. We call it “desert varnish.” This staining is mostly responsible for the black marks you see above Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park.

The best way to learn which type of marks you have is to determine from which direction the marks originate. If they seem to start out from under the outcropping and spread upward, they may be from smoke. If they seem to have come down from the top of the outcropping, they are probably the result of minerals staining the rock.

Folks at your local archaeological or historical society can tell you about the people who lived in your area before you—who they were, what their homes were like, and when they lived there. Thanks for your good question!

Your question was answered by Sara Kelly, Archaeology Educator.    •  Top of page

Q. How do you guys go to the bathroom when you're on a dig?
A. An excellent question. Although the sites we study are all pretty far off the beaten path, in most cases we have been able to arrange for the use of port-o-potties. Thank goodness.    •  Top of page

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