Blog Post – Sandy Schreyer – 6/24/09

June 24, 2009 – Excavated Molinoloma with pickaxes, shovels, and ibuprofen.

Molinoloma (“Mill Hill”) is an archaeological site about 1/4 of a mile from the Hacienda, up a steep slope. It is quite intriguing because it yields artifacts that can be catagorized as Colonial, Inca, as well as pre-Inca. This is our second day of excavation for the 2009
field season.

Our team consists of 2 students and 2 staff. Since this was our second unit, the staff let the students take the lead in laying out the new unit. Once that was done, they graciously
let us remove the vegetation and root mat with pick axes and shovels. I was so tired, dirty, and miserable that by noon I was sure that archaeology was not my calling.

The too-short rest and the infusion of food energy called “lunch” helped. Then we went back to work, finding bedrock after excavating less than 10 cm. We made our edges square, swept the area clean, then officially closed the unit. Our objective was achieved: demonstrating that
there were no more buildings to the north of the mound.

Our entire group was assigned to open up a new unit — a depression filled with stones the size of a man’s head. We students laid out the unit in record time and started excavating. By the end of the day, we had found a wall, several pieces of Spanish roof tile, an obsidian scraper, several obsidian points, some pottery sherds (characteristic of the pre-Inca inhabitants of this area), a modern bullet, three scorpions, several huge grubs (4 inches long) and a lizard who had lost his tail. Now this was fun!

The day was really hard work, but rewarding. I went from the depths of despair thinking that  I could not handle this much physical labor, to the joy in finding artifacts. The lesson learned is that archaeology is more fun when someone else wields the pick axe.

Sandy Schreyer

Blog Post – Gabriel Ortiz – 7/21/09

Today is Tuesday July 21, 2009 I’ve been in Ecuador for approximately 1 month and so far my time here has been amazing. Honestly I’m really an anthropology student with a focus on culture not archaeology however, so far this is one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in my life. This is the first field school I have been on and I feel like I’ve been able to experience so much in 5 weeks being in another country. First off the actual archaeology and digging in the field has for the most part been a very exciting experience, finding material culture i.e. (pottery, idols, living structures) from the past and discussing a range of insightful theories about what might have happened or who inhabited the sites we’re excavating. This archaeology field experience has allowed me as a student to place myself in the past and really time travel mentally so to speak which helped me gain some understating of how indigenous people of this region whether Inca Caranqui or others lived.

Another experience that has really struck me well in the field school in Northern Ecuador is working with local members of the community. I think that by hiring workers from these neighboring communities the Pambamarca Archaeology project builds stronger relationships with the descendents of the people we’re studying. In this the program in my opinion reaches out to show the people of the valley of Cayambe that we are not hear to deceive them in any way but are hear because we respect their culture and the culture of their ancestors.

By far for me interacting with the communities of Buen Esperanza, San Pedro, Canguahua, and Cayambe and the many others has been a blessing. I feel that many times we as people find ways to separate our selves, based on skin color, culture, religion, political beliefs etc, but being here in a country where the living environment is completely different than the U.S I’ve been able to really witness similarities which connect us as people. Whether it’s a father playing with his child on the bus, a family grocery shopping, a group of teens making jokes or two women working side by side in unison to survive I’ve been able to see the real life stories in Ecuador and for that I’m grateful.

So my advice is if you have a chance to travel please give the Northern Ecuadorian highlands a chance if not please step out of the world that we are all so accustomed to living in and travel some where. I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed, you’ll come back to your life, your world with a little more perspective, and a little more gratitude, and a little more understanding of how we, humans nationally or internationally are all the same.

Gracias

CHOW!

Gabriel Ortiz

Blog Post – Hannah Reynolds – 7/19/09

The thing about foreign countries with foreign food and foreign bacteria is that, inevitably, you wind up sick.

I woke up at 3 in the morning, spent an hour curled up on the bathroom floor, before dragging myself back into bed and back to sleep.

The other thing about foreign countries? Sometimes, you’re not there very long. So even if you are sick (and during our time in Ecuador, everyone on the project has had food poisoning, altitude sickness, or parasites) you’re still going to try everything you can.

The next morning, we went to the hot springs at Oyacachi. The bus ride was long, comatose, and damp at the end. The town of Oyacachi- recent closed to visitors due to a local, several week-long roadblock- is at a lower, wetter altitude than our own. We were freezing as we tumbled off the bus, freezing as we striped to our swimsuits and eyed the three murky brown pools, and boiling an instant later as we senselessly slipped into the hottest spring there.

And it felt amazing.

It’s hard to imagine how dirty we get at field school, unless you’re actually here. But there’s dirt under our nails and in our ears; grit in our and and tans made by soil .And it’s rare to be warm and HAPPY about it, either we’re freezing at night, huddled in layers, or dying of heat stroke under the mid-day sun.

So it may have been cold and drizzling in Oyacachi- but while we were in that water, we were warm, and happy, and relaxed.

And when I came home that night, I was sick again.

But at least I was clean.

-Hannah Reynolds

Blog Post – Matt Mcguire – 7/18/09

Today I´m going to Pukarito to excavate a site thought to be inhabited by both Inca and Pre-Inca Peoples.  For the past few weeks I´ve been excavating at sites along the west side of the hill along what seems to be a cangahua melt wall.  Cangahua is hard packed volcanic ash soil that can be used to form structures and blocks.  The Caranqui or the people of Northern Ecuador before the Inca arrived used Cangahua to build many of their structures, while the Inca use primarily stone but use Cangahua to patch their buildings. During these excavations we uncovered burned soil with burnt corn and bone.  Half a meter to the south, we found a series of faced Cangahua blocks that seem to form two walls.  Its hard to tell what this site is because much it has been destroyed by farming, though some would argue that the walls are from a residential structure and the burnt soil is a hearth used to cook food (though this sentiment isn´t shared by everybody).

However, today I´m working at a unit in the Northeast of the site.  We just openned a 5 meter by 5 meter unit because of results from a grounding penetrating radar.  It showed three different possible structures, so we have to excavate down around 60 cm to discover what they are if anything.  We uncovered the first of the possible structures and it appears to only be naturally formed cangahua and nothing more.  Later we found what appears to be a nicely face Cangahua wall along the north side of the unit.  We have to excavate quickly because we only have a few days left before we leave for the year.

When we´re not excavating we have to fill out all kinds of paper work or draw maps.  These are extremely important for people who want to look at your finds in later years.  Pukarito is extremely windy, so we have to eat lunch behind agave and tree to stay warm.  Pukarito has been an interesting place to work, the weather and finds make everyday an adventure.

Matt McGuire

Blog Post – Grant Spector – 7/17/09

GPR sends pulses through the ground and bounces off objects in the ground and sends the pulses back to you. This allows us to see important objects or buildings that the inka, pre-inka, or Curonqui built without digging. The deepest our GPR can go is about ninety centimeters down and when the signal is sent back to us we use we measure it in nanoseconds. The day I was with Heather, Guy, Brian, Bobby, Barry, Jazmin, George and Sandy. We used the GPR behind the Hacienda above the houses on the terraces. First George walked up and down the field with the GPR so we could see it was a temple from the Inka. Then we had to set up a perimeter in which we would scan the ground. I was the first one to go. I had to pull the GPR along the ground up and down the field six times because we split it up amongst the nine of us so every one got a turn. Once I was done Brian took over and I went over to the monitor to see what the GPR was picking up. The way you read the data being sent to you is the GPR sends a bunch of straight lines to you that makes up the ground beneath you and when you find an object or a building or even a separation you will see spikes in the area. Then when you collect all of your data, you load it onto a computer a construct a 3D model which you can read in black or white or in color (whichever is easier). Today was fun but I had to come back before everyone because I hurt my leg the night before, so I didn’t get to see what the other people found or didn’t find and now I’m about to go to sleep, because last night I broke my bed and fixed it so hopefully it won’t break again.

-Grant Spector

Blog Post – Michael Hitchcock – 7/16/09

Yesterday a few of us decided to take the truck into the nearby town of Cayambe to go to the store, use the internet and eat some amazing pizza. The trip started out like most of the other trips, we went to the Santa Maria and purchased some necessities. After leaving the store we headed up the main street to get a cake for another student whose birthday we were celebrating that night, on our way up the street we saw a mob of people running our direction and shop windows locking up. This of course sparked our interest immediately so we continued up the street to see what was going on. There was a group of riot police standing in the middle of the street along with numerous onlookers like ourselves. Some people started throwing rocks at the police in front of the mayors building and the police responded with tear gas, the group of us decided that was about the time to get out of there.

We headed back down the street to meet up with a couple staff members who were down eating pizza. Our next course of action was to attempt to circumvent the growing riot by going a block over and then up the street to the internet café where we knew a group of more students was hanging out. When we arrived we talked with the other students for a bit but then noticed just outside of the internet café the line of police gathered on ones side of the street and a line of rioters on the other. It was just our luck that we had wound up in the middle of this riot. A couple of us decided to go out into the middle of the street to see what was going on, a bunch of young and angry Ecuadorians were throwing large rocks and sticks at the riot police, you could feel the emotion in the air. After the cops had enough they launched tear gas again into the mob, the mob that a couple of were now standing in, we were able to run back to the café in time to not get gassed too badly but we could certainly feel it. The restaurant next to the café was nice enough to let us silly gringos out the back door and out of the fray. We finished our day eating pizza up the street then driving out of town around the riot. It wasn’t until we got back that we found out the whole story about the riot and it being a modern day lynch mob out to get a few Columbians who had car jacked and murdered a local.

Looking back at the day it was certainly intense but an experience I wouldn’t trade for anything, seeing people rise up against the police is something one usually only sees on the news.

-Mike Hitchcock

Blog Post – Kristen Petit – 7/15/09

So I’ve now done three different parts of archeology and so far my favorite part is the scenery. It is always there. Look up from you pot sherds and there is the most beautiful view. There you are on one of these hills, shoved from the Earth, nearly blown into a gulch by a strong wind. But what a beautiful gulch (and how far down!). In survey you can’t miss it as you comb the hill for artifacts. Climb up and down (sometimes sliding down on your behind). The grass that glows in the sun, every shade of green in the eucalyptus trees. The rolling hills – for me mountains that look like they were ripped open again. Ecuador is such a beautiful country.

-Kristen Petit

Blog Post – Catherine Chapman – 7/14/09

Today began with a follow-up meeting with the local Women’s Associations, which is comprised of women form the surrounding communities around Cangahua. Our meeting was to discuss our community service project that we as students participate in while in Ecuador. Previous meetings revealed that they were in need of an industrial sewing machine so that they can create their traditional clothing as well as clothes for their children. Today we let them know we we be providing one for their group.

Afterward I joined a survey team. We walked twenty meters apart as we scanned the surface for evidence of possible archaeological sites. There are four of us on the survey team and we used GPS to mark various points as we took note of what we found. Other than arbitrary pottery sherds and obsidian, we didn’t find anything today until the end of the day. We found a possible structure but will have to go back to assess the site at a later date to determine the type of structure.

-Catherine Chapman

Blog Post – Ross Davison – 7/13/09

Nothing about our day was boring.  The day started with a ride up a cobblestone roadway in the back of a pick-up, weaving through herds of sheep and locals busily working their fields.  The view was nothing short of spectacular.  The valley stretched out before me, surrounded by green mountain, patch-worked with the farms of locals.  When we arrived at Capana Pucara, our start off point for the day, I was a little sad our ride was over, but one look down the path we would soon be traversing had me back in ecstasy.

After tromping through a few fields, and crossing a narrow water way, we spread out, at exactly twenty meters to begin looking for possible sites.  We crossed countless fields of unknown crops but found nothing.  At last, right after lunch, we found our first site.  Easton gave the call, ¨hey guys, packs down, we got a site.¨   We all dropped our gear and ran to the find.  Some pottery here, some there but it was enough.  As Easton began the documentation, we all headed out in different directions.  North and South, East and West we found the boarders.  The site was marked, surface samples were taken, and we were satisfied for the day.

-Ross Davison

Blog Post – Marsha Hanson – 7/12/09

After 3 weeks of excavations and crazy survey days we were all rewarded with a much-needed free weekend. Some people decided to stay and hang around for the local festival activities, while others opted for a weekend away.

We boarded our bus Friday evening around 6pm and after a 3 ½ hour bus ride we arrived in Mindo. Upon stepping off of the bus I immediately regretted wearing my fleece as the warm, muggy air hit my face. We divided into two groups on a hostel search and quickly decided on the Gallo de la Pena, whose only real downfalls turned out to be the real padlock locks and our very “noisy” neighbors. However, we did have a pool surrounded by bushes with brightly colored flowers. We spent Saturday zip lining through the cloud forest canopy, eating trout, and racking up a great dinner tab, followed by a night out at the discotecas.

Sunday morning continued with a quick breakfast, and jumping into the back of the pick-up truck taxi to go to the waterfall park, which turned out to be an extremely treacherous ride. We followed the trail down through the slippery switchbacks to a cement slide that shot you out above the water where you then dropped into a deep pool of cold refreshing water. With a quick pop of the head above the water and a short swim brought us to a shallow area where we got out the water and into the warm sun. After a few more trips down the slide we continued our walk through a group of butterflies and on to the first waterfall. The guys all took turns jumping off the cliff next to the fall while us girls decided to take the sketchy, rickety uneven ladder down to the swimming hole. We encountered a young man shortly after who asked us for our ticket, which was kept by the woman at the ticket counter. He hassled us for $5 each, whom we refused to pay so he began to follow us up the trail, but quickly lost interest in our group, and we continued on our quest for fun. A few waterfalls and natural slides later we began to make our way to the cable car that took us up to the top. We grabbed a taxi while waiting for the rest of our group and then made our way back into town.

An hour later after getting brownies to go, we boarded our bus again to return to the Hacienda Guachala. All in all it turned out to be an amazing weekend, a much-needed breath of fresh air from the windy slopes of the Pambamarca region.