As an SCA archaeology intern at the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona Luke Trout spends his days hiking through dense "poky, sticky" vegetation including cholla and the wait-a-minute bush, occasionally dodging wild pigs, while searching for evidence of the Hohokam habitation dating from 450 to 1450 AD.
by Sandra Deacon, SCA Web Team
As an SCA archaeology intern at the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona Luke Trout spends his days hiking through dense "poky, sticky" vegetation including cholla and the wait-a-minute bush, occasionally dodging wild pigs, while searching for evidence of the Hohokam habitation dating from 450 to 1450 AD.
The son of a rancher, Luke spent hours as a child roaming prairie fields in Colorado searching for arrowheads. Studying archeology in college was a natural next step, even though he knew finding a job would be tough.
Post graduation plans had him working at a ski resort. Then, SCA recruiter Jenny Martin showed up on his Humboldt State campus and her five minute presentation changed everything.
"I had no idea this was possible. When I got this assignment, I couldn't believe it." Luke said.
The savannah grassland where Luke works is a rich archeological site, some of it never surveyed. It is slated for habitat restoration to reintroduce native quail and pronghorn antelope but must first be inventoried to insure no artifacts are disturbed.
"I believe it is important to leave things untouched -- not take objects out of context. I hope these condition reports we are making will help get funding to preserve these sites for the future."
When an artifact is found, Luke and his wildlife refuge co-workers photograph, sketch, note location, and describe it in writing, as well as record the information in a GPS database so as to have two records, leaving the artifacts where they are found.
“We work only on the surface without excavation. We are not seeing classic Hohokam archaeology such as platform mounds, or ball courts. There’s no telling why without undertaking further work in the area.”
On a typical day, Luke and others will hike out to where they left off the day before, and standing 15 meters apart, in groups of three they will traverse back and forth, scrutinizing the ground for the lithic flakes that indicate tool making and potshards of plainware and slipped redware, known for its exceptional red gloss on either side. “It’s not easy to see the ground,” he notes.
The work is physically taxing, but Luke goes hiking on the weekend for fun and is learning to swing dance in a hippie bar in a flash mining town.
Every day brings something new -- owls in the grass, kangaroo rats in the truck, coyote packs howling outside the window at 5 am, and seemingly endless species of cactus that ..."jump and roll their way up your pants." He adds, “We’re hearing swarms of killer bees fly over our heads - we've been told they'll head butt us to warn us if we're bothering them!, seeing tarantula hawks - a huge black wasp that acts as a parasite to tarantulas!, and are wearing our knee-high snake gaiters after seeing several rattlesnakes.”
Being so close to the border brings him in contact with US Immigration Officers; his crew has even been surveilled by helicopter as they worked.
"I've learned a lot," Luke says.
Spending time with the tribal elders at the Tohono O’odham Nation, he has heard their creation story and says he can now easily tell when he is about to find artifacts. “Just about every single site faces north toward the mountain peak and the cave where the Tohono O’odham believe they were created. And if the soil has been disturbed by erosion, the artifacts will be evident often in abundance.”
The most amazing thing he has found? -- an ancient stone ball which a tribal elder said made him think of a game that the Tohono O'odham play barefoot, kicking either a stone or wood ball for a race.
Best of all, he has met world-renown southwest archaeologists and gotten to work daily with his supervisor, Dave Mehalic, an archaeologist with the Coronado National Forest. “My supervisor has been great, really great. He goes out of his way to make sure we are getting the most of our experience. He has brought us on very memorable weekend trips, and even helped set four of us interns up with our summer jobs!”
“This internship is such an incredible opportunity: I have met so many wonderful people, experienced such an exotic new place, and helped preserve the past with a fantastic crew. I could not have been happier.”