Update on the Red Canyon Stone Circle: As this is written Dr. Laura Scheiber’s field school is finishing up the excavation units for this season. Each meter was divided into 50cm squares and carefully trowelled down with artifacts recorded as they were exposed. All dirt was carefully separated, screen with 1/8th in mesh, then each bucket of matrix was water-screened in 1/16th mesh to retrieve tiny artifacts like pressure flakes. Among the fascinating artifacts recovered were a .44 Colt boxer-primed brass case, an awl manufactured from a horseshoe nail, bits of red ocher and a yellow mineral for colors, more primers, obsidian flakes, a tin concho, bits of spalled iron, and chert and moss agate flakes. What’s immediately interesting is the amount of cultural material recovered. Doc Scheiber is one of the most knowledgable scholars of Plains stone circles, and the prehistoric ones rarely produce this amount of cultural material. It’s slowed the progress of the excavation just to record and process. We’re fascinated by the mix of European sourced vs locally sourced artifacts. It’s a mix of obsidian flakes–sharper than iron, things like the horsehoe nail awl–stronger and sharper than bone. In short, as a first impression, we’re getting a glimpse of the decisions the people were making about what to keep from old technologies: obsidian. And what to add from the new: Steel awls made from horseshoe nails. And the fact that so much material material was left behind indicates a higher standard of living in balance with the increased social and cultural stresses of the early reservation period.