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- April 7, 2006
Campus offices to be asked to analyze dig findings
- 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
Thursday,
April 6
Friday, April 7
Most of the items that are being pulled from the dig site at the Memorial
Union on campus can be identified and eventually analyzed by members of
the archaeology team from the Department of Anthropology.
But there are a few things that the team will be looking for assistance
on.
And they plan to ask academic departments on the Iowa State campus for that
help.
"We're going to call on folks on campus to analyze some of the items,"
said David Rapson, affiliate professor in the Department of Anthropology
and the project leader on the nine-day dig that will end on Sunday, April
9. "Our plan is to collect the samples now and analyze them later."
Academic departments will be asked to identify the liquid that has remained
inside the many intact and corked medicine-like bottles recovered from the
pit that was located near the College of Veterinary Medicine. That college
was located on the current Memorial Union site in the 1880s.
Rapson and his team are also collecting samples of the soil at the site.
They theorize that equine viruses may have been present on the horse carcases
thrown into the pit by the 1880s veterinary medicine anatomy courses.
"We want to see if there is evidence the these might have been preserved,"
Rapson said.
As the dig winds down, the majority of items pulled from the pit continue
to be bones of horses with other farm animals remains also present. Late
Thursday and early Friday the team came across an old-time coffee pot and
a large basin or bowl. That item is undeterminable yet because the team
has yet to excavate it fully.
A metal tray was also recovered from the pit. Looking closely you can see
horse hair and oak leaves on the tray.
"It was face down in the pit," said graduate student Adam Holven.
"That was one of the reasons why we got a good preservation of the
horse hair and oak leaves."
The site remains flush with items yet to be properly located and analyzed
before it can be pulled out and stored.
"Every time you pull something you find something new underneath it,"
Holven said. "That's a challenge but we can't afford to go too fast.
If you go too fast then you might get more materials but the quality of
the information we get wouldn't be as good.
"So far we've collected a really good sample."
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Day 7- Friday, April 7
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