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Mathew Sisk (msisk)
Brooklyn / Stony Brook, NY,
United States of America
Gigapans: 16
Snapshots: 31
Bookmarks: 0
Last Visited: March 01, 2010
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The same coverage without the numbered reference points.
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The top of the Abri Castanet excavations of 2009 at approximately midseason. This photo contains the known points that I later use to reference the image into the excavation grid. Some problems with a loose screw on the gigapan unit have lead to occasional images being out of focus.
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The Abri Blanchard / Abri Castanet cliff face before two large refuse piles were removed.
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A detail of a bone, taken with a different camera and stitched with the gigapan software.
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The Abri Blanchard / Abri Castanet cliff face after two large refuse piles were removed.
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A 360 view of the Castel-Merle Vallon outside of Sergeac in the Perigord region of southwestern France. The vallon has 9 Paleolithic archaeological sites spanning the Mousterian, Aurignacian, and Gravettian periods. the active archaeological site of Abri Castanet is visible.
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An overview of the entire south excavation area at the 32,000 year old archaeological site of Abri Castanet in sw France. The image was taken with me sitting on a foot wide ledge 12 feet above the floor.
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Artifact Detail: Endscraper
Created: March 1, 2010
Taken From: Castanet Excavation 2008
Comments: none - add a comment
Total Views: 0
This object is a partially buried endscraper on a retouched blade. The production of blades is a characteristic of the Aurignacian. They consist of a long, thin blade of stone with a several smaller flakes removed along one part. These smaller flakes serve to resharpen the edge which was dulled from use. On endscrapers these flakes are removed on one or both of the narrow ends. Endscrapers are traditionally assumed to have been used for scraping hides, but the analysis of wear and traces on the edges of tools indicate that they were sometimes used for a variety of tasks, including working bone, butchery, and carving wood. This particular object was analyzed by a specialist in traces on objects, but after 32,000 years none remained. Other objects from Castanet have yielded some traces of having been used to cut animal remains.
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Bedrock
Created: March 1, 2010
Taken From: Castanet Excavation 2008
Comments: none - add a comment
Total Views: 0
The Aurignacian layers at Castanet rest directly on bedrock, shown here. The bedrock consists of platy limestone pieces relatively loosely held together. During the excavations, as we walk across the bedrock it breaks apart, into platy pieces and dust. We find many of these plates in the Aurignacian layers, and occasional artifacts under plaques of bedrock, indicating a likelihood that the Aurignacian people lived on a similar surface.
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Limestone Block
Created: March 1, 2010
Taken From: Castanet Excavation 2008
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Total Views: 0
This is an example of a medium sized limestone block in the archaeological horizon. When looking across the surface, most of the objects are these blocks. Most of our excavation surface is made up of limestone blocks from the collapsed rockshelter and the bedrock. The sediment in between the blocks contains most of the archaeological material. While excavating we piece plot any of these blocks that are larger than 10 cm. This allows us to analyze the density of blocks and determine volumes of sediment with the blocks subtracted.
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Referencing Difficulties
Created: March 1, 2010
Taken From: Castanet Excavation 2008
Comments: none - add a comment
Total Views: 1
Sometimes, the distortion and decrease in resolution on the margins of the Gigapans makes it difficult to locate objects. For instance, there is an important object in this area, excavated on the same day as the Gigapan was taken, but it is either under the blocks or the location of the object does not perfectly match the referenced object. The object, likely under the whitish piece in the center of the snapshot, is a piece of bone worked into a tool to retouch stone tools.
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Hole in a Limestone Block
Created: March 1, 2010
Taken From: Castanet Excavation 2008
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Total Views: 0
Occasionally, we find a block of limestone with a hole in it. The Aurignacian people in the region often bored holes in stone of the overhanging rockshelter, called “Pierres à anneaux” in French. These holes are thought to have been used to suspend objects from the ceiling. The presence of a series of these holes along the mouth of a shelter is usually assumed to be for hanging skins to close off the opening of the rockshelter or cave. Individual holes further back are thought to be for hanging individual objects. At Castanet, the shelter subsequently collapsed, so when these holes are found we analyze them very carefully to know what part of the ceiling they came from. In this case, the hole is natural, but several of these holes have been found at Castanet.
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Artifact Detail: Burin
Created: March 1, 2010
Taken From: Castanet Excavation 2008
Comments: none - add a comment
Total Views: 0
Underneath the whitish object is a worked stone tool. It is a tool type known as a burin. Burins are made in a unique way and have a thick durable edge that work very well for chiseling or gouging tasks. This edge can be seen on the bottom right edge. Burins are common in most Aurignacian assemblages, but are very rare at Castanet and a few other sites. This can be taken to indicate that the Aurignacian people at Castanet were a different population with different tools or that they were doing different tasks at the site.
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Artifact Detail: Tooth
Created: March 1, 2010
Taken From: Castanet Excavation 2008
Comments: none - add a comment
Total Views: 0
This object is a tooth from an herbivore, likely a reindeer. It was more than likely brought into the shelter as part of an animal that was subsequently butchered. Teeth are very dense and preserve fairly well, making them one of the more common objects found in Paleolithic sites.
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Barcode System
Created: March 1, 2010
Taken From: Castanet Excavation 2008
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Total Views: 0
Each object, sediment sample and bucket of recovered sediment is given a unique barcode. Using scanners like those at a grocery store, this allows us to very quickly access all of the data associated with any particular object or sample from our database.
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Sieved Sediment
Created: March 1, 2010
Taken From: Castanet Excavation 2008
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Total Views: 0
These are the screens holding sediment that has washed, sieved and is drying and waiting to be sorted. When sieving we use two screen sizes. Most of the material is found in the smaller screen. Because we excavate slowly, when we find objects in the screens we know its location within a few centimeters even if it was not found while excavating. An example of the material found in smaller screens can be found at http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/8505/.
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Sediment Buckets
Created: March 1, 2010
Taken From: Castanet Excavation 2008
Comments: none - add a comment
Total Views: 0
The sediment from each active excavation unit is saved in these buckets (labeled with it's unit, the date and details of the stratigraphy). These buckets are then washed, sieved and sorted. This allows us to recover any small objects that were missed when excavating. At Castanet, one of our primary goals is to recover material related to the production of beads and jewelry. Because these objects are very small, nearly all of them are found after the fact in the screened samples.
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