The squad pulls up to the gorge.
Take
Each &
Every
Tooth
Home
– Running out of poem types, send help
Day one of the archaeological expedition was, as many days here have been, a bright and early start. Rising with the sun is a novel experience (for me at least) that has happened at an increasingly tedious rate this trip. Still, now that we are mostly over the jet lag, beginning at dawn poses less of a challenge. That is, if you make it to breakfast before the line gets too long. Nothing sours a morning like having to scrape the bottom of the pot (metaphorically and literally).
Dr. Manuel looking spiffy!
Our destination that morning was The Gully. Our mission: find some teeth! It had been decided that instead of trying to learn whole skeleton identification and reconstruction in five days, it would be easier (and more useful) for us to become skilled in identifying something distinct; in this case, Bovidae teeth. But before we could do any classifying, we had some collection to do.
After hours of slipping and sliding up and down rocky slopes, I had amassed a number of teeth I felt wasn’t embarrassing. Of course, it couldn’t compare to the likes of Caroline or Rose, who both accumulated teeth in the double digits, but it was a decent amount. At least, that was what I thought. In the end, most of what I had was too fragmented to be identified; my total for usable teeth was only four.
A bone! Not a tooth, but still cool.
As for identification, we did that at our good pal the Olduvai Museum. Sitting at a long table in the outdoor pavilion called the Restaurant, we listened to a short presentation to learn where exactly our teeth came from and how to tell. Starting off, I was pretty frustrated by my inability to place two of my four champers, but luckily, Dr. Manuel was there to point out to me that the two I couldn’t place were not included in the earlier presentation because they weren’t Bovidae. Instead, I had a giraffid and a suid to go with my alcelaphini and antilopini. The next step in the process was to find the exact species by browsing the museum exhibits. My ending total was one Sivathereum maurusium (ancient giraffid), Metridiochoerus compactus (ancient suid), Antidorcas recki (ancient antilopini) and Connochaetes species (ancient alcelaphini). It was incredible to me that we found these ancient bones just lying in plain view! Truly an activity you couldn’t do anywhere else.
We closed the night out with presentations on various archaeological methods, most of which were too complex for me to grasp in one go. Information overload is a novel way to end a day, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it. Still, the information we learn is hopefully meant to serve us in the upcoming days of archaeology; I hope they are as exciting as today was!
