Carrie's Anthropology 196m Blog

I spent 7 hours helping with installation last Thursday and about 6 hours creating a "Basketry and Native Plant Conservation" flier that has the dual purpose of informing my co-workers (who are mostly plant ecologists) and museum visitors on the cultural importance of native plants. I'll have copies of it next week.

Total: 13 hours

OK, back to Spring Break ^_^

Hey archaeologists out there...wanna job?

For those of you interested in archaeology, and may or may not have missed my previous post, there have been some updates for the positions available...

I work for a federal agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and they are still looking for 2 archaeology students to assist the current archaeologists.

The jobs will now be based out of the Davis office. There will be travel required to Red Bluff and Redlands, but all travel expenses will be paid by the agency. They are very willing to work with student schedules and won't expect you to travel until school is out.

Requirements: field school and being a student. Really, that's it. The job is a temporary position till Sept. 30, but they really seem to try to keep people on if they like you. They are completely happy to have someone who is just learning. Seriously...it's an awesome place to work!

If you or someone you know is interested please email me (see previous post, or check SacCT for address) and I can get you in contact with my supervisor. They are under a time constraint and can't keep the job open for students much longer.

This week was pretty slow for me as far as lab hours go. I spent 3.5 hours today helping with fabrication and I've spent about 2 hours creating a flier for work that focuses on plant materials used in baskets. Hopefully it will get some more people interested in the exhibit.

Total: 5.5 hours

I got the events schedule today at work for the Native American Culture Days held at UC Davis. They are doing a lot of great stuff for the week (April 5-11), but they are presenting a lecture that I thought sounded particularly interesting:

Traditional and Contemporary Uses of Plant Materials by California Indians; Tuesday April 6 12:00 -1:00 Hart Hall 3201
presented by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) partnering with the California Indian Basketweavers Association (CIBA)
Basketry techniques as well as plant use and management for different goods will be demonstrated and discussed. Current natural resource issues for weavers and others will be discussed.

I'm considering going, even though it is inconveniently occurring the day before our opening. I would still make it to the museum in the afternoon at least. I'd have to miss folklore that day too, so I'll have to talk to Dr. Bishop...but it sounds so cool.

Anyone else interested in going?

for more info: http://ccc.ucdavis.edu/culture_weeks/nacd.html

Wowzers, this was a busy week! Here's what I've been spending my time on:

W 3/10

• 2 hours working on ancentry.com, trying to fill in holes in my research
• 30 minutes meeting with team 2
  

F 3/12

• 1 hour scanning and altering photos, getting them ready to add to the kinship chart
• 3 hours searching CDNC for Cotton related primary documents (and oh my, did I find good stuff!)
  

Sat 3/13

• 2 hours visiting the Slough House Pioneer Cemetery
• 2 hours writing/reading blog posts, writing a draft of the inventory list, and organizing a "plan of attack" for the huge project that is the genealogy chart

Sun 3/14

• 12 hours writing 8 Didactic Texts, 30 labels, organizing 18 photos/documents for Group 2's genealogy chart, emailing my wonderful group what must have been 50 emails and reading all their responses, and researching newly found holes in my understanding of the Cotton Family History.
  

Monday 3/15

• 3 hours finishing up one more didactic text and labels, and organizing everything...and of course more emails. Us group 2 folk were very liberal with our email usage this week! <3

Tuesday 3/16

• 5 hours creating an inventory sheet, reading and editing group 2 panels, applying the groups suggestions to my panels, getting the flash drive of our weeks work safely (God, I hope it's safe) on to the flash drive.
  

Making a grand total of: 30 hours, 30 minutes of work. Well, that's insane...If you're wondering...No. I don't have a life. Just a very understanding fiance and a very lonely cat.

GREAT JOB group 2 - You guys are wonderful!

I found a draft registration card for Joel Sheldon Cotton last week and I thought it was really cool. I assumed that he must have served in the war for a time, even if it's not mentioned in the articles about him.

But now, upon closer inspection, I'm beginning to doubt my original assumption. The Registration card is dated September 12, 1918 - he would have been 43, a little old for the draft. Plus the Obituary mentions that he moved to Ft. Bragg because of his poor health, which is also not really something the Army is looking for in a soldier.

So, boo. I thought I had a great little addition to his story, but I think all I have is a registration card and no actually drafting to accompany it. (well, boo for me...I'm sure he was pretty happy about it)

What do y'all think? Is it possible that this is a sign of him entering the military? or is it just piece of government paperwork that was never used to send him anywhere?

I meant to post this before, but I forgot...Group 4 gave me an idea during their presentation last Wednesday. I like how they posed the titles of their sections in a question form: "What is Consultation?" I think was one. I was thinking of my title being "Who was Joel Sheldon Cotton?"

What if we used the question format throughout the exhibit? I think it would give the exhibit a sense of cohesiveness and flow.

Thoughts?