On Tuesday April 14, 2015, our class of twenty-two students went into a prairie portion of the Arboretum. We broke the prairie into three areas which will be referred to as Section A, Section B, and Section C. Team A and B had a total of 7 people, and Team C had a total of 8 people. Each team employed a transect collection strategy, where a surveyor would walk in a straight path (south or north) for a set distance and survey a meter to their left and a meter to their right. Each surveyor was approximately 15 meters from the next surveyor. Materials falling in the following categories were recorded and bagged: ceramic, tile/brick, lithics, metal, plastic, glass, and other. The weather on Tuesday April 14th was sunny, which was perfect for the surveyors.

Below the recorders for each team document their key findings.

Section A

Team A conducted five survey units in the approximately 150m x 300m plot assigned (SUA01-5).  The area was bordered on two sides by roads (Highway 19 to the South and Canada Ave W to the East), by further corn fields to the West, and by a thicket of trees to the North .  In addition, Team A also conducted one survey unit in Team B’s area, SUB06.  Our team consisted of seven members: Emma Starr (Recorder), Chloe Bergstrand (Mapper), and five surveyors, Alex Claman, Erika Farmer, Carrie Johnson, Claire Jensen, and Megan Harder.  The areas surveyed were corn fields, and most of the objects discovered were plastic or paper debris.

 

Survey Unit	Ceramic Count/ Collected	Tile/Brick Count/ Collected	Lithics Count/ Collected	Metal Count/ Collected	Plastic Count/ Collected	Glass Count/ Collected	Other Count/ Collected	Other Notes
A01					1 / 1		1 / 1	Paper cup
A02
A03					17 / 4	2 / 2	2 / 2	Styrofoam
A04				1 / 1	1 / 1		3 / 3	Dish gift certificate, paper debris
A05					2 / 2		2 / 2
B06					1 / 1	1 / 1	1 / 0	Winter glove
Total	0 / 0	0 / 0	0 / 0	1 / 1	22 / 9	3 / 3	9 / 8

Section B

Section B consisted of 5 survey units, referred to as B-01, B-02…etc. The majority of the material findings in Section B were either glass fragments or assorted pieces of plastic remains. A few samples of bone were collected, although they can be grouped under the classification of “ecofacts” which don’t necessarily indicate any presence of human populations.

 

Survey Unit	Ceramic   Count/ Collected	Tile/Brick   Count/ Collected	Lithics   Count/ Collected	Metal   Count/ Collected	Plastic   Count/ Collected	Glass   Count/ Collected	Other   Count/ Collected	Other Notes
B01	1/1					1/1	1/1	Bone samples
B02		1/1			1/1	2/2	2/2	Unknown, possible lithic/ paper cup
B03	3/3	1/1			4/4	8/8	5/5	Bone/teeth
B04				2/2	9/9		5/5	Paper wrappers and cigarette box
B05	2/2	2/2			2/0	6/6	3/3	Paper
Total	6/6	4/4		2/2	16/14	17/17	11/11

Section C

This section was cut in six total surveying units, labeled C01-06. The members of this surveying unit were: JordiKai Watanabe-Inouye (Recorder), Anna Thompson (Mapper), (six surveyors) Shirley Yang, Elizabeth O’Connor, Alice Welna, Patton Small, Theo Morris, and Rachael Sutherland.Section C

Section C was, unlike Section A and B, recently burnt agricultural and managed prairie. For the majority of the area it was flat with no variation in topography (the most variation can be found in SUC03 and 04). A key structure that appeared several times was a wire mesh fencing. The majority of the materials found in this section were burnt plastic. Common materials spotted were wooden stakes and burn log/planks (especially prominent in C05 &06).

 

Survey Unit	Ceramic   Count/ Collected	Tile/Brick   Count/ Collected	Lithics   Count/ Collected	Metal   Count/ Collected	Plastic   Count/ Collected	Glass   Count/ Collected	Other   Count/ Collected	Other Notes
C01					5/5			Melted pens
C02							1/0	Wooden stake *see figure C02_A
C03					2/2			Parts of a burnt marker/ flag
C04					1/1		10/1	Burnt OneCard with keys *see figure C04_A
C05								No Findings Recorded
C06								No Findings Recorded
Totals					8/8		11/1

Most of the materials collected for all three teams fell into the categories of plastic or other.  We found no samples for the lithics category, and very few for the ceramic, tile/brick, and metal categories.  Team B found the most items, while Team C found the least, which is explained by the fact that Team C’s area had recently been burned.

Totals for all three teams-

Team	Ceramic Count/Collected	Tile/Brick Count/Collected	Lithics Count/Collected	Metal Count/Collected	Plastic Count/Collected	Glass Count/Collected	Other Count/Collected
A				1 / 1	22 / 9	3 / 3	9 / 8
B	6 / 6	4 / 4		2 / 2	16 / 14	17 / 17	16 / 16
C					8 / 8		11 / 1
Total	6 / 6	4 / 4		3 / 3	46 / 31	20 / 20	36 / 25

 

---