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Show Best way to describe SUSC's archeology crew is 'cosmopolitan' Y n cavation begins at 8 a.m. and continues to 5 p.m. with an hour off for lunch. Evenings are reserved for lectures and for cleaning and labeling materials recovered at the site that day. Camp responsibilities include helping Georgia Beth Thompson with dish washing and other housekeeping chores. Thompson, former dean of women at SUSC and the camp manager, is an experienced a ar-cheologist, ar-cheologist, having worked with her husband on several sites. The Thompson's 7-year-old daughter Richelle, and her black Labrador, Muppet, round out the crew. Richelle has six summer digs to her credit, while Muppet has only four. Rirhard A. Thompson (left), professor of anthropology an-thropology at SUSC, directs the annual SUSC Field School in Southwestern Archeology. A Juniper tree offers welcome shade and a chance for an impromptu im-promptu lecture. LITTLE CREEK MT., Washington Co. Cosmopolitan. That's the best way to describe the crew for this summer's Southern Utah State College Field School in Southwestern Archeology. Ar-cheology. Student archeologists recently left for their respective homes after living for eight weeks in a tent compound some 20 miles southwest of Hurricane and about seven miles from the Arizona state line. That's roughly 325 miles south of Salt Lake City, 180 miles north of Las Vegas and 65 miles from the SUSC campus in Cedar City. Working under the direction of Richard A. Thompson, professor of anthropology at SUSC, the 20-member crew worked to unearth information in-formation about the so-called so-called Virgin Branch of the Kayenta Anasazi, prehistoric inhabitants of southeastern Nevada and the area along the western Arizona-Utah border. By college or university, univer-sity, the 1982 class lists students from the University of Maine, Orono; Washburn University, Topeka, Kan. ; North Hennepin Community College, Brooklyn Park, Minn. ; Utah State University; College of Marin, Kent-field, Kent-field, . Calif.; Blue Mountain Community College, Pendleton, Ore. ; Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Va.; Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.; and SUSC. Also enrolled were a couple of teachers, a medical technician, two high school students, and several "archeologists by avocation," those enrolled strictly for enjoyment. Offered through the SUSC summer school program, the field camp offers participants 15 hours credit in ar-cheological ar-cheological excavation and survey. Each works according to his or her abilities, Dr. Thompson said. Field school participants par-ticipants lived amid pinon and juniper trees in spring-bar tents, eating and doing laboratory work in a three-sided "tea house" and showering in a camouflaged canvas bathhouse. "Since water had to be hauled to the site from Hurricane, showers were the water on-water off kind," Dr. Thompson s said. As the crow flies the actual archeology "dig" was only about a mile from camp but two miles away by road. Arid southern Utah with its massive red sandstone formations, temperatures tem-peratures hovering above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and persistent black gnats called "no see'ums is often far different from the environment en-vironment near the participants' own homes. "I've never been out west," Nancy Drew, Norfolk, Va., said. "It's gorgeous out here but I'm ready to go back and hit the beaches." Drew, a senior history major at Old Dominion University, has also done archeological work in Israel. "Many of the students have had previous archeological ar-cheological experience," Thompson said, "and many have not." "The crew is bonded by an interest in archeology and anthropology," the field director said. "The diversity of their backgrounds only makes for a more interesting experience." Rae LeCompte, a biological science teacher at West Jefferson High School, Columbus, Ohio, enrolled in the field camp to enrich her teaching. "I'm very much interested in the origin of man, the correlation between biology and anthropology, an-thropology, and wanted an experience to share with my students," she said. LeCompte was excavating ex-cavating a stone-walled storage pit believed to nave been used by the Anasazi around 850 A.D. According to Thompson, the site would be designated late Pueblo I, the term used to distinguish earlier and later people of similar culture. "These people lived as sedentary farmers," he said, "growing corn, squash and beans, and most likely supplementing sup-plementing their diet with foods obtained from hunting and gathering." Materials from this summer's field school along with information from pervious excavations ex-cavations in the area will be used to trace changing subsistence patterns. "We are interested essentially in the way social patterns changed in response to changing subsistence techniques," the director said. Karen E. Wise, Mill Valley, Calif., served as assistant field school director. The 1982 graduate of Wesleyan University has worked with Thompson on two other Little Creek Mountain excavations and has also worked in Bluff, Utah, with the Utah Historical Society's Antiquities Section, and in Chaco Canyon, N.M. Greg Woodall, Cave Creek, Ariz., was the graduate assistant. Woodall graduated cum laude this spring from SUSC with a B.S. in botany. Both he and Wise plan to attend graduate school in the near future. Woodall supervised a rotating crew of three student who worked on a systematic sampling of the area to determine the kinds of prehistoric occupation oc-cupation there. From data collected, he said, it's estimated that between bet-ween 1,200 and 1,300 sites are located within a 30-square 30-square mile area. Thompson's recent field crew included two high school students, one from Washington, D.C., the other from Saline, Mich. Liz Cafritz, Washington, will be a senior at Georgetown Day High School and is looking at anthropology as a possible college major. Rebecca Wid-mark Wid-mark has anthropology in mind also. Widmark attended the dig with her mother, Jackie, one of the avocational archeologists. ar-cheologists. The field school is designed to combine an academic experience with vacation. On weekends Mondays and Tuesdays students are free to visit place of interest in the area. Trips to Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, Grand Canyon and Las Vegas are popular along with visit to the Utah Shakespearean Festival conducted each summer on the SUSC campus. The day-to-day routine at the site begins with an early breakfast. Ex- Annette Maggitti, an SUSC senior majoring in elementary education with a minor in anthropology, takes materials for a Carbon-14 sample. She was one of many students from all over the country taking part in the dig. |