Jaye Smith, Robinson Assortment Mission Staff Lead
(July 1, 2022)—When engaged on a legacy assortment, it’s laborious to ascertain the context of the excavations carried out from simply the notes and artifact assemblages. Because the Robinson Assortment Mission Staff conducts their preliminary analysis and rehousing of the immense artifact assortment assembled by Ray Robinson throughout the Fifties and Sixties, we regularly take outing to ponder and muse concerning the the place’s and the way’s with out the advantage of visible aids—all of Ray’s documentations are handwritten notes or created on a historic instrument known as a typewriter with quite a lot of misaligned or lacking keys.
In the course of the Archaeology Southwest/College of Arizona Preservation Archaeology Discipline Faculty, the Robinson Mission Staff was invited to go to and take part within the ongoing excavation on the Gila River Farm web site, which has a serious Salado part much like the artifact assemblages the Staff is encountering throughout the Robinson Assortment.
For 2 of our workforce, it was their first expertise in an lively, ongoing excavation. For the remainder of us, as we watched the thrill of our virgin explorers, it introduced again these fond members of that first trowel of filth moved, or that first ceramic uncovered within the display and punctiliously bagged as if it was THE most vital sherd of the day. Robinson Mission Staff member Phil Starvation, throughout his first excavation expertise on the Gila River Farm Website, acknowledged it very succinctly:
“Additionally please thank all the scholars for the time they spent explaining the location and work they had been doing. And for his or her persistence as I performed within the filth or extra accurately mud as they had been attempting to do actual work. It was an important day and one thing I’ve been trying ahead to for a very long time. For the few hours we had been there it actually did assist me perceive what excavating a web site is about. Studying a report is useful however being there’s extra significant.”
For the Staff, who’ve conjoined many a big plain ware olla, corrugated jar, or Salado adorned bowl, to see this similar kind of artifact in situ was a really distinctive pleasure—and preserving me away from one explicit Maverick Mountain adorned jar was particularly difficult!
The Robinson Assortment Mission Staff offers our honest due to Karen Schollmeyer and her complete crew for his or her hospitality throughout our go to and, extra importantly, for the chance to get down and soiled!
