College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

• April 6, 2006

  Memorial Union dig results in new project for graduate student
  

• Editor's Note: Check back daily for updates on the progress and new photos of the Department of Anthropology's team's dig at the Memorial Union.
  
  Original release
  Saturday, April 1
  Sunday, April 2
  Monday, April 3
  Tuesday, April 4
  
  Wednesday, April 5
  
  David Rapson doesn't hold back his feelings about the dig site at the Memorial Union.
  
  "This project is really great," the affiliate professor of anthropology and dig project coordinator said. "Not only is the prospect of field experience a wonderful opportunity for our undergraduates, but this project will provide support for two of our graduate students."
  
  One of those graduate students is Erik Otarola-Castillo. The graduate student and GMAP Scholar (Graduate Minority Assistant Program) from Long Island, N.Y., has been at the Memorial Union site since the project started last Saturday. While he will remain at the site until work is completed this coming weekend, Otarola-Castillo's work is just beginning.
  
  Once the specimens have been collected, Otarola-Castillo will start cataloguing and analyzing the data back at the lab. He will input the information into a GIS (Geographical Information Systems) program.
  
  "The program will allow us to closely resemble what the site actually looked like, not only two-dimensionally but turn them into 3-D pictures as well," he said. "We'll be able to rotate the site and get a better picture of what the site looked like than we could in the field.
  
  "The computer program will allow us to analyze how the remains got here."
  
  Otarola-Castillo says working with the data in the field will give him a degree of familiarity when it comes time to start working in the lab.
  
  "Being here when we are excavating the site will allow me some nuances on how the data was collected that I couldn't have if I was just working on the data in the lab," he said. "While I think we're collecting quality data sets, we can't begin to record every data."
  
  Working in both the field and in the lab is appealing to Otarola-Castillo.
  
  "I like working with my hands," he said. "I really like collecting the data in the field but I also enjoy spending time in the lab afterwards when I can analysis and see what happened at a particular time and location."
  
  Although this is the first historic site that he has worked on, Otarola-Castillo says he is fascinated with the results that the dig site is yielding.
  
  "I get to see a small picture of what life was like on campus 100 to 150 years ago," he said, "and how things have changed over that period of time. The chance to see what life was like here in Ames in the 1880s is a pretty cool opportunity.
  
  "I think this is a really good project. It shows that Iowa State University does care about its roots and the historical events that have led up to this point in time."

Graduate student Erik Otarola-Castillo

Day 5 - Wednesday, April 5

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