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Recording Fluted Points

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:21:07 -0500

Today in the lab Jack Hranicky and friend Thomas Hoskins visited to record fluted points for the McCary fluted point survey. Two web sites you can visit to learn more about the survey can be found here and here. Jack inspected and recorded several points but only one of them was from Virginia and therefore assigned a survey number. This point will appear in the next publication of the survey volume.

Yup, the lab’s a mess

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:04:16 -0500

If you visit the museum this week and look in the lab windows you won’t see the neat and orderly tables you usually see. Instead you will see piles of equipment, supplies and shelving units taking up floor space. This is a good thing. The floor of the supply closet is being painted this week and in order to do that we had to pull out everything that was in the closet. It will all be put back next week and the lab will be orderly once more.

Halifax County Teachers Learn About Archaeology

Tue, 4 Nov 2008 15:38:40 -0500

As part of a grant funded project, Dr. Moore taught a day-long class on archaeology to a group of teachers from Halifax County gathered at Hopewell High School. One of the activities (see photo above) was laying out a grid in the grass. Teachers divided into groups of four and using two tape measures, had to lay out a grid. Each grid was composed of units that were one yard on a side and had to be a minimum of four units wide and four units long. They quickly applied the 3-4-5 triangle formula to make sure they had square corners and straight sides.

Martinsville High School Teachers at the Museum

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 11:06:59 -0400

As part of a Department of Education grant, ten Martinsville High School teachers have been taking an archaeology class at VMNH. As part of Saturday’s class, the teachers had to lay out a grid outside in the museum yard as if they were going to excavate a site. The units were one yard square and each grid had to be at least 4 units on each side. The value of geometry, the pythagorean theorem, and the 3-4-5 triangle soon became obvious. For additional photos of the class see the “MHS ARCHAEOLOGY CLASS” section header at the top of the page.

October meeting of the ASV Patrick Henry Chapter

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:19:19 -0400

This evening we held the October meeting of the Patrick Henry chapter of the Archaeological Society of Virginia. Agenda items included approving minutes from the last meeting, discussing the chapter budget, and discussing chapter activities. It was decided that one of the first major activities that will be taken on by chapter members will be to review, in the field, the current status of known archaeological sites. Many of the known sites in Martinsville and the surrounding counties have not been reviewed since they were listed. Some may be threatened by development, some by erosion, flooding, etc. Nick Coleman offered to plot site locations on a map set at the archaeology lab. Brad Harris offered to check the Bassett Historical Society for maps, notes, or other documents on file from Richard Gravely’s work in the area. Once we have a list of known sites prepared, we will begin checking them. Some of this will be done as a group as chapter “field trips.” Some of this can be done individual chapter members as they go by property near their homes or work place. Any changes observed to the sites will be entered into DSS so that the state site files are up to date.