July 28

This morning, under the direction of Mrs. Carole Leezer, the Associate Director of the Center for Archaeological Studies, Texas State University, five students were digging in the lawn in front of the Aquarena Gift Shop.

The students already found some artifacts and Mrs. Leezer was listing these artifacts on a form. One of artifacts was a rock. To me, it was a piece of rock, but from the eyes of Mrs. Leezer, the way of chipping was not natural, but by men. She considered the rock was a tool for making other tools. I found out that one of the artifacts was a shell, but it was a snail shell, not a sea shell. She mentioned me that the Aquarena Center area was the camp site for Indians about 7, 000 years ago. She also added that the excavation of the lake, near the submarine indicated that there was human activity around 12, 000 years ago. Mrs. Leezer gave me the web site for the organization.

http://www.txstate.edu/anthropology/cas/

Yesterday afternoon, I briefly stopped by the Pecan Grove, at the excavating site again. At that time, five students were still digging, shifting, examining, and listing all information on the brown bags and the forms. Mr. David Yelacic, a staff of the Center for Archaeological Studies was examining some artifacts on the picnic table. There were three chunks of soil which came from the same excavation site, but interestingly, each soil had a different color. He was comparing each sample of soil with the Mensell Soil Color chart, and listing each on the form such as the color, collection site, and the depth.

Also, Mr. Yelacic found a small piece of flint from his digging site. To me, it was just a tiny flint with sharp edge, but he drew the picture of an arrow-head and placed that flint in that picture. Amazingly, that small flint did fit in that arrow-head picture. He was able to analyze each artifact from his experiences, knowledge, imagination, and his passion. He held that flint and said that the part of arrow-head was in the hand of a person who lived many thousands years ago.

A squirrel was acting strangely in this morning at under the Bald Cypress tree beside the biological research site. The squirrel was digging a shallow hole and rolled over in that shallow hole as if scratching its back. The squirrel repeatedly rolled over and did that scratching acts in that hole. Then, it started walking toward the lake with its tail high, and the squirrel brought the tip of the tail to its head, but turned around to walk toward the Bold Cypress tree and jumped. I was surprised to see that the squirrel jumped that high. Then the squirrel started digging another hole and rolled over in that shallow hole too. I wondered whether the squirrel was trying to rid of something from its back, or just a showing off its young energy.