Well, I had quite a week and lots of help. We hit the floor in a large part of the pit, so we decided to extend the pit east about 50 cm and start anew from the top. I had four wonderful field assistants to help me do this: Bob Feranec, Carrie Glenney, and my parents (Steve and Barbara Blois). Bob and Carrie excavated with me in the beginning and the end of the week, and my parents got into the cave on Thursday. By yesterday, we were about 50 cm deep and seemed to be glimpsing the top of the floor in the new location. I am hopeful that we can get another 20 cm down before we hit the floor again.
The sediment is really interesting- it’s very dry and loose, and very easy to excavate. Sometimes it’s so easy, it makes it difficult to avoid going to deep! We found quite a few intact jaws as we were excavating on Friday- a Lepus (probably the black-tailed jackrabbit), a Sylvilagus (a bunny rabbit), and a sciurid, probably Spermophilus beecheyi (California ground squirrel). It will be interesting to see if we find more stuff while sieving. I head up on Sunday or Monday with Carrie and Xue, a Stanford undergrad who will be helping me the rest of the summer. And Ronny, another Stanford undergrad, will join us on Wednesday. It will be great to have so much help to finish the excavation and the other small little details of wrapping up!
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