If there is one simple name I could be called today, it would be the bone collector. We started off our day back at the gulley where we initially gathered teeth, but this time, we were looking for fractured bones. Specifically, we were looking for green fractures. These are a certain type of fracture that are more spiral and smooth in long bones that indicate damage from a hominin or carnivore rather than the bone breaking incidentally. Green fractures are great for trying to identify hominin or carnivore activity in a region.
One cool fractured bone I found included fossilized bone marrow (pictured). It was a long bone that lacked both epiphysises since they had been fractured off. The epiphysis, or rounded end of a long bone, is often the greasiest part of a bone so carnivores tend to target this area when eating. The bone was also very cool to see since the bone marrow was very apparent in the shaft and was a much darker color than the fossilized bone.
Fossilized Bone with Bone Marrow
Also, as I was searching for fossils, the fossils and rocks decided to fight back. As they say, history is written by the victors and since I am writing this blog, you can probably guess who won. For everyone’s sake though, it is probably better that I am the one writing this blog and not a rock. The rocks did however leave their mark on my knuckles (ouch!).
Later in the day, we did some excavation work at BK, not to be confused with Burger King (as my hungry brain once may have thought). BK is an excavation site known as Bell’s Korongo. We spent a few hours there and the digging and excavating (pictured) reminded me of the dreams I had as a young kid of uncovering fossils.
Excavation at BK
Finally, in the evening, we continued with some presentations at the museum. However, there was a surprise as I approached the bathroom—a bucket full of mongeese. There was an entire pack of banded mongeese roaming around and dunking head first into a bucket of water. It was a very cute sight to see and just another time I have seen my taxa on this trip!
A Bucket Full of Banded Mongeese
Banded Mongeese Out of the Bucket
Today was actually our last real day at Olduvai Gorge. We leave tomorrow morning to start our travel back home. It has been such a great experience being at Olduvai and it truly has started to feel like a home despite being there for such a limited amount of time. I am very glad to have had the chance to come and hope there will be a future opportunity again!
-Milton
