Friday, February 16, 2007

The Lab is up and running

The project lab in the town of Calixtlahuaca is up and running! All of the project members have been an immense help in the lab--assembling shelves, setting up work stations, organizing excavation kits, etc. Two local women are assisting by washing artifacts as well as performing other miscellaneous duties. Last summer's students (Angela and Melissa), our ASU undergrad. Caitlin, and myself have been classifying the ceramics brought in as the survey work from 2006 continued in the first couple of weeks of this season. Now we have some interesting excavated deposits to work on.

Recent finds include a couple of whole spindle whorls used to spin a heavy thread from maguey (agave) fibers. These whorls are much larger than the whorls used for cotton spinning that were common finds in our projects in the state of Morelos.

So far all project members have arrived safely and remain in good health, although working at an altitude of about 8800 feet takes some adjustment!

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