dig mystery

[naked snake]

ok folks,i go to texas about twice a month and my trip takes me through an area known as muddy boggy or clear boggy. this particular spot is just south of tupelo oklahoma on a curve on hwy 48.
i have on my last 3 trips observed a dig taking place as pictured. i have stopped to visit these guys,all have texas plates on thier vehicles. they are not very forthcoming with info as to what site they are digging. only that they have founds considerable chips and flakes.
the mystery is why in this ditch? why not oklahoma archeologist? does a dig this small usually go on for nearly a month?
both sides of the hiway is being dug. it is approx 100 yards north of the present clear boggy creek bridge. settlement maybe? there was a civil war battle fought near hear but 30 miles to the east.

[cgode]

Jimmie Hoffa?

[naked snake]

if it was jimmie,he's scattered out !!

[neralich]

neat pics.. alot has to do with soil conditions, weather permitting, time and workers/volunteers, etc. so, i would say for sure it could take up to a month.. alotta sifting goin on their and that's very time consuming. look at the different colors of soil.. hmmm, differant horizons???? every archaeological dig i've ever visited, everyone was always gracious in explaining what they were doing and what they hoped to find or accomplish.. kinda weird they were skiddish... is it possible that maybe the dig was being done by the highway department and they plan on rezoning or something??

[naked snake]

no idea on the hiway dept. the only info the guy would offer is that the site had been compromised in the past by a land owner and his bulldozer.

[joshuaream]

Since it appears to be outside the ranch fence and on the easement of the road it's probably a CRM firm that was hired by the city/county/state goverment to check something out prior to the goverment doing something. CRM (Cultural Resource Management) firms are private companies that get paid to check out sites prior to expansion projects. So the why in the ditch is probably because someone is going to expand that road, or widen a ditch, make an off ramp, etc.

Surprisingly most construction/expansion projects (especially those related to a goverment) want nothing to do with University archaeologists and students, since they tend to treat everything as a learning experience and take a long time. A long time on a dig might be several seasons (years.) Working a site for a couple of months is pretty darn fast. University people tend to be chatty since they are excited about what they are doing, CRM people are usually trained to be quiet about what they are working on. They probably don't need reporters, school groups, local tribes turning the site into a temporary tourist attraction, nor do they want collectors visiting the site when they aren't there. (And if they told me they were digging a folsom site I might be tempted to help curate some material for them.)

[naked snake]

very good points there joshua. i'll be going back down soon and keep checking on it.

[eddies]

If there at it that long,i bet there finding some cool stuff