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> July 22 – Iturup Island (Part 1), or Do we finally get to get off the boat?! YES!!!!
Misty_Nikula_Ohlsen
post Jul 27 2006, 10:06 PM
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July 22 – Iturup Island
or Do we finally get to get off the boat?! YES!!!!

Saturday, 22 July – Aboard the Gipanis, offshore of Kuril’sk on Iturup Island
10:30 am


Last night we transited from Urup Island south across the channel to Iturup Island.  We were awoken at about 3 am by the cutting of the engine and then a few minutes later by the loud metal clanging as the anchors were lowered.  We have been here, anchored about 1-2 miles off of the coast near Kuril’sk since then.  As usual it is very foggy and we can barely see the shoreline.  With the binoculars we can make out quite a few houses, streets, cars and buses driving around and even a herd of cows.  It is a reasonably sized town.

At about 9 am, Valery Shubin, one of the expedition leaders from the Sakhalin Regional Museum, the captain of the Gipanis and the crew member with the sore tooth went ashore on the zodiac.  The captain stayed ashore with the crew member, so we know we won’t be leaving until he returns.  The latest scuttlebutt (rumor) is that our group may be going ashore in a bay south of here sometime after lunch!  The location is called Kuybushevskiy.  Maybe as soon as 2-4 hours from now!  We are trying not to get our hopes up too much so that we won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t happen.  

In preparation, I have loaded up my day pack with all of my essentials for a day in the field.  You have to bring enough stuff to not only do the work that we need to do in any sort of weather (apparently lots of digging while trying not to get uncomfortably wet or dirty), but also to cover foreseeable problems or emergencies, like getting too wet, being hungry, or being stuck on shore for an extended period of time perhaps due to bad weather and the zodiac can’t get to us right away.  My list includes:
 
•    Rain gear
•    Jacket and windbreaker
•    Extra dry clothes
•    Extra dry socks
•    Warm hat
•    Warm and work gloves
•    Visor and sunscreen
•    Knife
•    Snacks
•    Lip balm
•    First aid kit, emergency blanket and whistle
•    Mosquito repellent
•    Passport and entry card
•    Water bottle, spoon and mug
•    Toilet paper and tissue
•    Hand lens and trowel
•    Flashlight and matches
•    Camera
•    Sketch book
•    Dry bag inside backpack so things won’t get wet going ashore on zodiac
 
We are all feeling very anxious to get off of the ship and to start doing something on shore.  Anything!  It’s like cabin fever and we are getting quite punchy.  Jesse has started referring to himself in the third person as “The Penguin” and our major excitement this morning was that we learned how to operate the washing machine!  Yippee!  Matt did a sacrificial test load with his laundry.  He had tried to wash some of his clothes yesterday in the shower and when he hung them on the shower curtain rod it broke and all of them fell on the floor of the shower stall.  Yuck.  The washer has a separate washing/rinsing tub and a spin compartment.  Using it is a bit tricky because all of the instructions on the dials are in Japanese, so we have to guess and use the icons.  At first, we were filling up the wash tub and it was draining right back out.  Oops!  We did manage to actually wash and spin Matt’s clothes so that they would dry faster, though, without too much difficulty.  These are our little victories right now.  smile.gif
Our next challenge is to figure out the sauna procedures . . .

8:00 pm – Aboard the Gipanis, offshore of Kuybushevskiy on Iturup Island

We did it!  We went ashore and it was awesome!  Not just that we got off the ship, but the site that we went to was also very cool.  It had been foggy all morning, but by early afternoon as we prepared for the field, the fog had mostly lifted and we reveled in the first glorious sun that we had seen in about a week.  

At about 3 pm, Ben, Jody, Valery Shubin, his wife, Marina, and son, Dima, all of the students and I went ashore in two zodiac trips.  We walked up and over some high sand dunes and then assessed the area.  We were in a sandy area bordered by a fairly large lake to the east, a stream that ran from the lake to the Sea of Okhotsk on the north, the Sea on the west and dunes that ran quite a ways to the south.  As we came over the first set of large dunes that bordered the beach, we came upon a large (about 25-30 meter diameter) area covered with round cobbles and boulders of various sizes.  (See picture below – left)

We soon discovered that the area was completely covered with stone points and flakes, broken pieces of pottery, called sherds, pieces of bones and other artifacts.  They were everywhere!  Having never actually found an arrowhead before, I was amazed and very excited about the first tiny, thin stone point that I found.   smile.gif

These artifacts, however, were apparently from more than one time period.  Some of the artifacts could be identified as Jomon and some as Okhotsk, in addition to Ainu culture.  Each of these cultures lived on the Kuril Islands at different times in the past.  Furthermore, there were artifacts from the modern historical period that were mixed in, like rusted iron pieces and modern ceramics (as well as general beach garbage sad.gif ).

I soon learned that an area like this where different archeological deposits from separate periods are mixed together is called a deflation lag zone.  Typically, over time, people often choose to live in the same locations, because they are close to natural resources such as fresh water, good fishing or hunting and/or well-sheltered from severe weather or easily protected from threats.  Sometimes these sites accumulate several layers of occupation that may either build up on top of each other naturally or may be separated by time as one group moves away and another comes along later.  In that latter case, the original settlement might have been buried by sand, dirt or even volcanic deposits in the intervening time period.  

However, if after these different ancient settlements are buried, a time passes and the dirt and sand are slowly blown away, then all of the things that are too heavy to be blown, such as tools, rocks, bones, etc. all eventually collect on the, now lower, surface and are mixed together.  When archaeologists find a site like this, they call it a deflation lag zone.  Other than being able to determine that all of these different peoples lived on this site at some time in the past, these sorts of sites are not the most helpful for archaeologists to be able to decipher the sequence of when each of the different groups lived there.

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The process of deflation, which can cause an archaeological site to be very confused as artifacts of different time periods are found together.

In order to be able to match a time period to a settlement of people (to give a “when” to the “who”), archaeologists need to find a couple of things.  First, they have to find artifacts that are “in context”, which means that they are embedded in their original deposit layer.  If they can find these layers, they can at least determine the relative order of the settlements, that is, which came first, second, etc. since the oldest settlements would be at the deepest depths.  But unless they can establish the age of each settlement (how old it is), they don’t know how much time might have passed in between each one.  For this they need a second piece of information.

If the archaeologists can also find something from these same “in context” layers that used to be living, most often a piece of bone or charcoal, they can use it to learn the absolute age of the deposit or settlement.  This is radiocarbon dating can be used to find out the age of previously living things.  With both of these pieces of information, the archaeologists can begin to tell the story of who lived in this place, when they lived there and possibly for how long.

Fortunately, before long, we had located at least one part of what Ben would need to decipher this site – some charcoal pieces, from an ancient fire pit, perhaps, that were still embedding in a higher, eroding, exposed part of a dune.  The next task, since the site with the charcoal had been so eroded, was to try to determine how far down in the layers of sand and soil this particular layer with the charcoal was located.   To do this, Jody, Beth and I began to look for a complete sequence of soil and sand deposits that was exposed enough to be able to document and that we could then correlate to the layer that Ben was working in.

We found a sequence that was easily exposed on another partially eroded part of a sand dune and we managed to also figure out which layer was the same as Ben’s excavation layer.  Beth worked to remove the weathered and eroded parts of the exposure and Jody and I then worked to document the layers of sand and soil called the stratigraphy or profile.  We recorded the depth of each layer and a description of its composition, such as color, grain sizes and type (sand, silt, organic material, etc).  (See picture below – right)  This way, the dating of some of the samples and the levels of soil deposits could be matched together.  

Before we knew it, our allotted time ashore was up!  We only had a short time at this very complex site.  Ben termed it “Archaeology Crazy Style.”  We collected up our tools, backpacks and collected samples and headed back to the beach and by the zodiac back to the Gipanis.  Before dinner, we worked to complete the more detailed sorting and labeling of the samples and sample bags.  Right now, after dinner, the rest of the group is working in the ship’s hold to complete the drudgery of documenting of all of the collected items – assigning of a number, taking digital photographs, and making a written description of each item – while I am working on this journal entry.

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On the left:  The Deflation Lag Deposit site that we first found.  All of the rounded rocks are surrounded by bits of stone tools and flakes, broken pieces of pottery and charcoal – all removed from their original “context” by the removal of the sand and dirt by wind erosion. On the right:  Jody Bourgeois is marking the layers of sand, soil and volcanic eruptions (tephra). She then describes the location (depth), color, grain texture and composition of each.  This is recorded in a notebook and later transcribed onto the computer.

Mrs. N-O
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