[Tucker]
Overcast turning into a sunny day at Burro Point, kinda windy today as well.

Becky and I started the day finishing ceramics analysis outside the concentrations. After that, Ruth decided we needed a close-up of the area w/ all the upright slabs in the NW corner going into the NW quad. So Becky and I made a 1 to 1 map of the area. It's hard to tell if there is any correlation between slabs…We tried some pin-flag probing to see if we could locate some more rock in lines, but there was rock everywhere.

After lunch Becky and I went around and wrote feature descriptions for the 13 Rock piles and 3 slab-lined features (previously known as cists). Katie, Kellam and Seth finished up mapping the NE quad and began photographing important artifacts and getting them on the map as well. Chelsea and Trevor continued doing lithic analysis.

Everyone finished their given jobs at about the same time and we began to draw some of the more important lithic tools. I'm not very good at that, we found out, so I rolled tape and picked up pin flags and we were out of there by 3.

[Trevor]
It was Chelsea and I's second day as the lithics team. We had to categorize and identify the rest of the tools on the general site as well as finish the lithics and tools in the remaining concentrations. Lithics takes a very long time. We pulled all the lithic flags on the site/section that weren't tools. One mistake we made was we gave numbers to utilized flakes and cores that weren't particularly "cool" or special because we thought we had to number all the tools we found. As a result we ended up with tools being numbered into the mid 20's, which was unnecessary. When everyone else finished up with their jobs, we were still working so we got some help from Seth and Kellam. Having a few people helped because a lot of the lithics were just tertiary flakes and we could call out "Morrison mud tertiary" and have someone recording.

[Chelsea]
A hallmark of the Basketmaker III to late Pueblo I time period is an increased dependence on domesticated plants and therefore more long-term storage of foods and a decreased dependence on hunting animals for subsistence. As it has been stated by some researches that the majority of the BMIII person's diet consisted of agricultural foods, including corn, beans, and squash, it seems to make sense that we are seeing a number of groundstone tools on LT 6 [5MT 1749] which may be associated with grinding these foods for consumption.

One question that still persists for me after recording several Basketmaker III sites in our survey area is the settlement strategy of the people on Burro Point during the Basketmaker III time period. Our sites have been located in generally pinyon/juniper woodland areas that appear to have seasonal drainages, while the nearest permanent water source is often Yellow Jacket Canyon. As this time period is generally characterized by increased dependence on stored foodstuffs it would seem that habitation sites would be occupied less on a seasonal basis and instead year round. Generally it seems that with increased sedentism there is an increased population of people all living in the same vicinity. However it is difficult to tell how many people would have actually occupied the sites. What kind of agriculture did these people practice? Slash-and-burn seems a possibility although difficult to determine.

[Kellam]
We finished mapping and recording the NE quad. Mapping was a pain in the ass until Seth and Katie and I started working as a team better, and got another 50 m tape in on things. Sex jokes have been broached, so folks are getting to know one another.

Distinct tool preferences at LT 6 and LT 5 [5MT 1749, 5MT 17274], more groundstone at LT 6, more masher-bashers at LT 5. Still found at least two masher-bashers (retouched core/hammerstone/huge tert. or sec. flakes multi-use tool) at LT 6. Possible slab-lined features on LT 6, but too hard to tell what is under surface…LT 6 is on a high part of the mesa, just as it starts sloping to the north.

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