Hi blog. Today was very eventful. We started the morning by learning how to conduct transects. We separated into groups of three and used quadrats that were two feet by two feet and we placed them every ten feet of a two hundred foot straight path. We analyzed every quadrat for the presence of animal poop. Our data points were basically just a true/false on the presence of poop. We were trying to analyze how animal density changed as distance from their watering hole increased, but the watering hole was completely dried up so I don’t see why distance from the watering hole would matter.
^Carina, Enoch and I conducting poop transects.
^We saw a fleshy wildebeest skull on the way to conduct transects.
After we did our transects, we visited Shifting Sands. Shifting Sands is a sand dune comprised of magnetic sand that moves its position over time. Scott said that the dune’s movement over the years was being tracked. We all climbed the sand dune, and the sand attracted to certain magnetic positions on our phones, which was kinda cool.
^Carina enjoying her time at Shifting Sands.
^The magnetic sand being attracted to certain magnets inside Carina’s phone.
After we visited Shifting Sands, we went back to the museum to finish our teeth comparisons. I only had two teeth, so I expected it to be a quick activity. However, although I was able to quickly identify one of my teeth as a wildebeest tooth, I had some trouble identifying the other one. It turns out that my second tooth was not an antilopini like I had previously thought, but instead the top tooth of a reduncini. Professor Dominguez Rodrigo confirmed that my tooth was from a reedbuck, and he said that the museum did not display the top teeth of reedbucks, which is probably why I had so much trouble identifying it.
After we completed the tooth identification activity, we listened to a few methods presentations and discussed how to reconstruct paleoenvironments using the number of animals we counted via their teeth as well as potential paleo methods we could use. We found a wide variety of teeth in the excavation area, such as a crocodile and sivatherium, and Dr. Dominguez Rodrigo reminded us that bones could have been moved into the area a number of ways, and the animals we identify might not exactly reflect what the environment looked like.
^Me at the Olduvai Gorge museum’s viewpoint.
Still playing with teeth,
Kacey
