Museum Work

Gamarjobut,

The first week of working at the museum has finally arrived. My job is to go through every bone and see if it is entered in Martha's database, and if not, I must enter it in to our new data entry file, which creates a data table directly. I started with the cervids, and of course, I started with the teeth. First the uppers, then the lowers. There was definitely some deja vu from my extensive work with the Site 12 bovid teeth in the fall for bones class. Thankfully, that knowledge actually came in handy because almost all the teeth had not been entered in Martha's database. I completed this daunting task in a day and a half. I just finished up the humeri tonight. So far so good. No cut marks or anything exciting yet, but I did find a tooth that was glued on backwards. We have been working up until 6 or 7, right when the museum guards with the assault rifles and AK47s kick us out. A little overkill on the security precautions, if you ask me.

I was able to watch the Spain-Germany football game. Pretty boring until the second half when Spain took over. Should have been 3 or 4 to 0 with all the missed opportunities.

We are actually planning on going to Dmanisi next week just to see the site. Reid is excavating the medieval stuff at the site and they have found several interesting things, coins and such, and I am excited to see some of that stuff.

Monday, we are starting our feeding experiment at the zoo. We are feeding horse limbs (which is what they feed them anyways) to the striped and spotted hyenas, the jaguar, and the Georgian wolves. We will go to the zoo four times over the next two weeks and do this, and observe the animals chewing on the bones and then collect the bones, boil them, and then examine them to see what kind of markings are left by the teeth. We will then use these to compare the collection from Dmanisi and see if there are any similarities with the surface modifications on the fossils. Should be a fun experiment.

More pictures and updates to come.

Nakhvamdis,

Reed