Last summer I had the pleasure of assisting Kautz Environmental, out of Reno, with pedestrian survey all over Nevada.  The rising price of gold and copper has allowed mines to expand their operations and they need archaeologists to complete cultural resource surveys.  While we primarily recorded historic mining features and artifacts, there was a consistent, albeit generally diffuse, prehistoric component everywhere we surveyed. Typically we found isolated arrowheads, sometimes we found activity areas with arrowheads and lithic debitage.

Logistically this project was a treat.  Our field schedule was 8 days working and 6 days off.  I traveled to Reno from Tucson in my 78 Toyota camper and I was well prepared for my days off- I was able to explore Lake Tahoe and made a couple trips into San Franciso.

 

Our first project are was in Eureka at the Ruby Hill mine.  Ruby Hill is an old operation and has been worked on and off since the 1870's.  It is beautiful country with stands of pinyon and pine.  The area was loaded with old mine claims (cobble cairns), test pits, adits, shafts, some fenced off, many not. There were deer as well, I was almost run over by one in a pinyon stand.

We also found mine camps loaded with cans and bottles.  I learned a great deal about the evolution of can construction and morphology, temporally sensitive traits. Generally we would sample old trash concentrations to get an idea of the age of the deposit.  Between the cans and the glass we could usually date the site to within 20 or 30 years.

Can of motor oil

 Occasionally we would encounter structures, usually just a rough pine frame with a footer of cobbles. I enjoyed imagining the miners living there working away, hopefully with success.  Around Ruby Hill we found evidence of Chinese workers in the form of opium tins. These were small rectangular metal containers with one or two Chinese characters stamped on them.

Opium tin