Fieldwork!

Aside from my two weeks out at Mule Creek early in the summer, it's been quite a while since I've gotten to really do any fun fieldwork.  Part of my hope for this year away from school was to find some interesting projects to work on, which would preferably involve getting dirty by way of either hiking and/or excavating.  I'm happy to report that my schedule for the next year has already been shaping up quite nicely, and I have some survey fieldwork scheduled for this and next month, as well as guaranteed excavation in the spring and working on a field school next summer.  I'm pretty excited about how things have fallen into place so soon.

Tomorrow I am heading up to Grants, New Mexico for a bit of survey.  I'll be working in the El Malpais National Monument, which is a really bizzare-yet-beautiful area of "badland" south of Grants.  The entire area of El Malpais is basically covered by a rugged lava flow, which has created caves and tunnels in the rock, and is sure to be some tough hiking.  The project I've been hired for is a block survey of 1000 acres, and we'll work eight 10-hour days starting on Monday, and then I'll go back again in October and work another 8 day session.  I'm enthused to work in this area, as it's gorgeous scenery and there are really amazing prehistoric sites all over the place (with pretty pottery!).  They're even putting us up in a decent hotel with complimentary breakfast!  Very posh by most archaeological standards.

Considering that we're still seeing temps of 105 here in Tucson, I'm pretty happy to get over to NM for a while.  Of course, I'm also happy to be getting paid to hike for ten hours a day and to find neat stuff.  But the latter point should probably go without saying.