Amber Writes a Thesis: Part Two

Where I last left off was my advisor wanting me to look at 10% of the assemblage to be certain that there would be enough identifiable specimens to be able to generate meaningful numbers. And there will be. In fact, the unit I’m looking at seems to have many more species represented than was seen in the first feature I analyzed. Including what myself and museum employee I have the most contact with, believe to be a bison calcaneus. I say believe because yes that’s what it looks like, but it is on the small side for bison and I haven’t access to elk specimen in the comparative collection. There is also considerably less freshwater mussel shell present in this unit when compared to my first feature, which also would make sense from estimates of population density. And that it has been shown elsewhere, mussels aren’t a resource that are exploited until there is some nutritional stress on a population.

I haven’t been in the lab for the entire month of July. Everyone has been doing field work and I haven’t had access. I had planned to participate in the dig although my thesis doesn’t depend on me doing field work. But due to car, family and financial problems that wasn’t able to happen. But when I pick things up in August I’ll be able to go straight to the comparative collection and finish up my analysis.