Olorgesailie 2011 Field Season

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a light grey and brown uneven suface floor of an excavation with exposed cobble, fossil bones and stone tools

Day 30 (July 25, 2011): Back to the Butchery

You may recall that we have another excavation going on this season besides the Middle Stone Age site called BOK-2. This other excavation, called Site 15, is one made famous by the fossil elephant skeleton found there along with thousands of stone…
a woman in a blue shirt, high on a hill above a river gorge, looks through binoculars at baboons scampering on a cliff face on the other side of the river.

Day 29 (July 24, 2011): Sunday Funday

Every Sunday the Kenyan crew takes a break from the usual rigors of excavation.  This season their favorite place to visit is Kiserian, a town about 45 minutes away just outside the Rift Valley, toward Nairobi. Today, Katie decided to join the…
A woman in a brown hat, green checked shirt and white pants crouches close to the barren rocky ground as she collects carbonate samples using a small geologic hammer

Day 28 (July 23, 2011): Isotopes

Naomi swings into action: She wields her geological pick in order to reach the level of carbonate nodules in an ancient soil, which she studies using isotope chemistry. (Rick Potts, Human Origins Program, NMNH) …
looking down into an excavation pit, six men work heads down. some excavate with hammers, small picks and brushes, others record excavated objects location measurements.

Day 27 (July 22, 2011): Thinking Outside the Site

Sometimes solving archeological puzzles requires a step back in order to see the big picture. Our second stratigraphic question at hand regards a layer of sediment at BOK-2: is the gray sandy layer at the base of the excavation, part of the…
Five researchers are standing around a group of stone tools on the floor of an archeological excavation. The team is in conversation and one is taking notes in a book.

Day 26 (July 21, 2011): Deciphering the Dig

Kay records all sorts of geological details to understand the big picture of environmental change at Olorgesailie. (Naomi Levin) It was great to return to Olorgesailie and Kampi Safi today…
Looking down onto the excavation floor, many artifacts sit on small dirt pedestals. The 2 meter squares, outlined with twine and nails, are labeled F7, F8, G7, and H7.

Day 25 (July 20, 2011): Puzzle of the Paleo-channel

While I’ve been away in western Kenya, the researchers at Olorgesailie welcomed to camp a member of our field team – John Yellen.  John, who just arrived in Kenya from the U.S., is Alison’s husband and has been doing archeological research in…
In the evening. Alison Brooks is sitting at an outdoor table with cups of tea on it and Rick Potts is checking his phone by a kersosene lantern

Day 23 (July 18, 2011): The Safi Life

Before Rick went to Lake Victoria, we caught him on camera inside his tent. (Jennifer Clark, Human Origins Program, NMNH) It’s Since I’m traveling today by road from Lake Victoria to…