Sneeky? or Am I Missing Something?

Observe the date on the following image for the Rancho San Emidio plat map:

Kern County Abstract Company. 1916. Abstract of Title to The Rancho San Emidio, Situated in the County of Kern, State of California. Made for The Kern County Land Company, a Corporation, Bakersfield, California. Same image in file at California State Archives.

January 1858 by Henry Hancock deputy Surveyor. Sound very plausible, and I took it for granted the date was correct. That is until I found Hancock's original survey notes. 

Notice that the survey was not even begun until September of 1858. Hancock received his instructions on the first of the month and then commenced survey on the 18th. Last time I checked January does not come after September. That is a nine month difference.

Publication Success

During the spring I organised a session at the annual conference of the Society of California Archaeology. After the conference, participants are asked to submit to the open access Articles of the SCA Proceedings. From the session of six participants Clare Bedford (with David Robinson, Fraser Sturt, and Julienne Bernard as co-authors) and myself submitted our articles. So it is official, I am a published archaeologist.

Cattle Squisher

In the field the students affectionately called one of the features a Cattle Squisher. I giggled at the time, "knowing" it was actually called a Squeeze Chute, but I am the one who has been schooled. Squeeze chute may be a more modern name in the United States. As early agriculture station brochures found in the Internet Archive suggest a variety of names including squeeze chute, cattle crush, AND cattle squisher.

Normally I do not suggest using Wikipedia a location of source material, but whomever had done the historical section of the article Livestock Crush has done a lot of work. There are various images of historical crushs (or travail in French). Some are situated outside of blacksmith shops.


My favourite image from Wikipedia:

"2008.04.18.VorrichtungZumBeschlagenVonOchsen.DorfmuseumMoenchhof.33" by Anton-kurt - Own work. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org

 

Up San Emigdio Canyon, at Dominguez Flat is the location of the early settlement. An early 1900 description includes in the list a blacksmith shop. So far archaeologist have not been able to find the supposed blacksmith shop. Perhaps if they find the old location of a crush / squeeze chute, as used for shoeing both horse and ox, the shop could be relocated. Something to think about for latter.

Helping with Older Stuff

My husband is also doing his PhD at the same time. Even though I also had a ton of work to do, his thesis is due at the end of the month. As any good partner, I am helping him out a bit.

Generally, incised stones are the stuff of my other half, but in the last few days, I have seen some VERY cool artefacts. Which is a big thing for me to say, as I have spent the last four years tuning out anything to do with incised stones beyond polite conversation. Your head can only retain so much information, and I feel very selective about what I retain. I need all I can for my own work, even then I often forget things.

One of the interesting things I have observes is the use of one of his caves during the contemporary period by native peoples. In the volume they are glossed over because they contain 'modern' artefacts. In one is a label for a bag of tobacco dated between 1880 and 1960, within a cache of some very amazing artefacts. YET there is no mention of continued use of the cave during the early historic period! Granted the cave was excavated in the 1970s, but that is no excuse! 

I could rant on for ages, but I think I will pin that for latter.

Gratuitous Incised Stone picture from the Monograph from one of the sites my husband is studying.

Day of Archaeology posting

This year I participated in the Day of Archaeology, an open blog to a broad range of archaeologist wishing to give a general overview of what life as an archaeologist is really about. It consists of a wire variety of archaeologists working across the world.

Here is my post for the year:

I am an archaeologist – a very tired archaeologist.

“Piled Higher and Deeper” by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com

My original completion date for my PhD was to be December of 2014. I lost six months due to a family death and there is just no way I will meet that goal. I am now shooting for a March deadline. My dear husband has only eleven weeks until his four year mark and must turn in his thesis for his PhD in archaeology on that date. So our family has two very stressed eleventh hour writers and a never-stop-even-to-sleep toddler. (He is awesome! To the full extent of that great American world).

My Day of Archaeology is a how a typical day goes:

7:00 – Toddler decides we have slept in long enough the sun is up (and has been since 3 am) so it is now time for us to be up. We resist waking up as we staid up the night previous until 2 am working on our thesis. Husband and I decide to cheat and bring the tablet into bed with a bottle of milk. Toddler feels like king of the world getting to watch ”The Incredibles” while kicking mummy.

8:00 – Everyone finally awake, fed, and most importantly dressed.

8:15 – Husband takes toddler to nursery. Yeah, both husband and I get to work today. I feel extra inspiration and excited to work as Thursday was mummy day, the day I get to stay home all day and just be a mummy with toddler. Thursdays are great days – most of the time.

8:30 – Laundry monster!!!! Housework is a huge distraction, long laughed at in PHD comics. I have a theory though. A PhD is a long term stressful event that seems to have no end. Housework also has no end, but when you get a sense of accomplishment when you finish the dishes or have filled the airer to max capacity (thus cannot do any more laundry).

10:00 – Arrive at office at University of Central Lancashire. Decide to go against norm and check email, as I know there is one I really want to read. (I peeked at my email the night before). Glory in receiving information for the former Soule Steel of San Francisco on their production of T-posts. (I do a lot of rural archaeology). The have sent me some great research material. Husband arrives at office minutes after me.

10:30 – Check out a Modern Conflict Conference in Bristol in October, papers due at the end of the month. Put a pin in that one.

10:45 – Discover for Day of Archaeology Routledge has 100 free journal articles. Downloaded a few but for the most part not really my subject area.

11:50 – Husband fetches some printing and brings mine down.

11:00 – Am really excited to read the Soule articles.

11:30 – Finish Soule articles (very short but very promising – hint #133 is a weight). Feel even more excited at having decided to try my luck with the TESS database from the United States Patent and Trademark office.

11:35 – Start to read a chapter of Husband’s thesis on Incised Stones of the Great Basin. The things we do for love!

12:45 – BRAIN HURTS – Can’t shake this dreadful feeling I have already willed away half the day and I have not yet written a single word for myself. I must quite all distractions and get some REAL work done.

12:46 – Start trolling through GPS and photo logs to make sure all artefacts are accounted for in the artefact log for Santiago Corrals in the San Emigdio Hills. (Link is my blog.)

13:00 – Husband surprises me with Subway. Yeah Husband. Start eating but continue working as long as I can do so one handed.

13:20 – Delude self a minute of Facebook is allowed as I am technically on a lunch break.

13:40 – Distracted by a chemistry video on the way different chemicals interact in very cool ways. Can’t remember a single name but the cool feeling remains. (Sorry I can’t seem to relocate the video for your enjoyment. )

14:00 – Get back to work feeling overrides, yet feel like I have forgotten something… Yikes we forgot to sign in for the month per the UCLAN understanding of Tier Four Student attendance compliance. The Government wants to make sure we do not secretly desire to live here forever, and falsely use a student visa to gain entrance. I have missed a sign-in before and received a note that I could be reported to the Home Office if I miss another sign-in. The thought of the Graduate Research Office reporting me to the Home Office feels like some crazy black and white spy movie plot, but a very real fear. Unlikely, but the though of getting kicked out of the UK this close to completing my PhD would kill me.

14:05  – Rally husband and we set off to the Graduate Research Office to sign in. Small talk on archaeology that cleans the air of stress begins.

14:45 – Return to office. Demand of myself more focus. Continue to sort out artefacts for non-feature artefacts.

14:50 – Finish non-feature and send all documents to the printer.

14:55 – Start on description for Feature#1 a pasture with no artefacts but a good selection of wooden and metal t-posts. (Now you understand my excitement about the Soule email.)

15:30 – Finish description and other paperwork for Feature #1 and send to the printer, decide to head upstairs to pick up printing. Actually a fun thing to do as they have builders in demolishing and rebuilding a lab (not for the archaeologist so not sure what is for). The builders have put down sticky plastic to protect the carpets, but someone was not very good at their job, THANKFULLY, and the sensory experience of popping floor bubbles as you walk is highly entertaining and stress relieving.

15:40 – Return from printer and correlate work into respective binders.

15:45 – Check email, and for once have an important email. Finance office telling me to sign a promissory note if I want to get any money off of them. I am very happy to oblige not even thinking about future pay back of student loans.

15:50 – Start paperwork for Locus #1 a homestead which predates the Corrals. Spend a lot of time checking photographs to photo logs and turning them into slides ( A holdover from my CRM days with Pacific Legacy), and check artefact logs.

16:50 – Another trip to the printer another trip across bubble floor. Life is awesome.

15:00 – Correlate. Oh no missed a few documents need to go back to the printer, Oh darn.

15:10 – Get back from printer. Have a quick chat with husband to see who cooks and who get son from nursery. I get the sacred bus pass, and he gets to battle the oven, I win. Toddler loves the bus.

18:00 – Return from nursery find Husband has bought kebabs so we finish watching The Incredible.

21:30 – Toddler FINALLY goes to bed. Ditch all plans for working.

1:00 – Not sure how it happened again but finally make it to bed. Feels like a scene out of Date Night.