College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

• April 7, 2006

  Several thousand items pulled from Memorial Union dig site
  

• 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
  
  Friday, April 7
  Saturday, April 8
  Sunday, April 9
  
  Thursday, April 6
  
  It's a fairly small area. Just a 2 meter by 4 meter space.
  
  But that small space is yielding several thousand items in the Department of Anthropology's dig near the Memorial Union.
  
  "We've had a couple of really good days," said David Rapson, affiliate professor of anthropology and the dig's project coordinator. "The weather has cooperated and we've pulled probably 300 to 400 items a day from the site."
  
  Those items have been primarily bones in the pit that appears to have been established when the College of Veterinary Medicine was located on the site in the 1880s.
  
  "We've found primarily horse bones, but we've also found bones from cows and pigs," Rapson said. "This morning (Thursday), we pulled dog bones from the site and we have something at the edge of the pit that we don't know what it is. We're guessing it could be sheep but we're not sure yet."
  
  The one thing that has been consistent about the dig is the amount and type of horse bones found. Rapson said the archaeology team continues to see an arthritic condition in the bones and other evidence that would indicate that the horses were older animals.
  
  The size of the bones has also been very consistent.
  
  "These were large horses, probably draft horses," Rapson said. "We haven't found any bones that would indicate that the horses were used for riding or pulling a buggy. But we'll know more when we analyze the bones later in the lab."
  
  The horse bones are also consistent with those that would be used in an anatomy class. Most have markings that would indicate they were sawed in two.
  
  Other items that the team is finding are things that you would associate with a vet clinic. Rapson says numerous bottles have been recovered, as have other items like a metal shower head, an intact plate and spools of wire.
  
  "The bottles have been of various sizes but everyone have had a cork still in place," he said. "It looks like the veterinarians were very careful about keeping whatever was in the bottle still in there."
  
  One thing that has surprised and somewhat disappointed Rapson is the lack of medical instruments recovered.
  
  "We've found no evidence of surgical equipment. It would appear that the veterinarians would reuse and save their instruments," he said.
  
  The team has determined that the sides of the pit they are working on is sloping inward as they go deeper. As of Thursday afternoon, the team had dug approximately 50 centimeters deep. Rapson says the pit is bell-shaped which would be consistent with a hand-dug pit.
  
  Despite the slow going, Rapson says his team is making good progress.
  
  "We collecting a lot of good information out here and I think we'll have a nice sample of what's here."
  
  

Day 6 - Thursday, April 6

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