For this weeks photo I have a picture of the only complete pot I have ever seen (and collected) from the field:

The vessel is an undecorated white ware collected from a Pueblo III site north of the Rio Puerco.

Here is another view of the vessel:

We had an annular solar eclipse last weekend. As the internet has not really been working this week, I figured I'd put them up now.

Sunset on Tatooine

And here is a shot of the full eclipse. It reminds me of a Johnny Cash song, Sunday Morning Coming Down, I think...

Did anybody else get to see it? What did you all think?

I've been going through a few old photos to try and help set up a professional looking website for myself, with Kacy's help. I came across this photo taken from the inside of Bat Cave looking north across the Plains of San Augustine.

The Bat Cave is often cited as having some of the earliest evidence of corn cultivation. During the last Ice Age a huge lake came up onto the slope below the cave. The hope was to do additional excavations in the cave looking for early Paleoindian deposits.

Well, the full field crew is finally here. So that meant most of the week was taken up trying to get hiring paperwork completed, house requests done, and finding computers, desks, and equipment. But here is a photo of the crew in action recording petroglyphs with the help of the summer biotech.

The site has several large panels on a small isolated butte on the far eastern edge of the site.

Well I wasn't in the field this week, but at firefighter training in Grants, NM.

But here is a photo from the week before. How many bullet holes can you identify in this petroglyph panel?

Time for a new photo of the week!

This last week we were able to hike out into the southern portion of the park's piece of the painted desert. To this canyon:

We had gone out here to look at a series of small eroding pueblos on the mesa tops and visit some petroglyphs with the adjacent landowners, namely the set of panels they called the Moon Dog glyphs for this image:

We also found a small wall, perhaps a portion of a granary?

Unfortunately, I have to go to training this week, so hopefully the intern will get some good shots while I am gone.

The archaeology of life and limb:
Had another interesting day this week. On our way out to look at an eroding pueblo we managed to surprise some armed petrified wood hunters and archaeological site looters. One of them attempted to make a run for it, but the other wasn't near his vehicle. We managed to sneak in, get his plate number, and alert the park rangers. After watching them for about an hour the runner returned and we watched them from a hilltop until the rangers arrived.

As they happened to be on an in holding of private land, the landowner was contacted and the county sheriffs dispatched. We had to identify the artifacts they took and went over the maps of site localities which then had with them. It looks pretty likely that this is something they do often. Hopefully they will get prosecuted.