After two years of delays due to high water and a couple false starts we’re back at the site this weekend with a full crew of volunteers–many veterans from previous digs.   Here’s a link to a story published this week in the local paper.  

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20212313&BRD=2703&PAG=461&dept_id=555139&rfi=6

Lynn Alex is back again with 4 other staff-members from the UI Office of the State Archaeologist (OSA).  Ron Vogel is back too representing the UI Department of Physics and Astronomy.  He brought  equipment to test the feasibility of using ground-penetrating ultra-sound to locate bones. Herb Dircks is here with his grandson Cyril.  Herb is a rapid protoyping consultant in the UI Engineering Design and Prototyping Center where he has been making duplicates of sloth bones to aid our research, using computed tomography (CT) scans supplied by the the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering.   Dr. Rob McAfee http://www.sloth-world.org/ is driving in again from Doane College, Crete, NE; and Don Johnson is also returning representing the Eastern Iowa Paleontology Project.  Andy Clack flew in from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, where he is studying ancient DNA under Hendrik Poinar in the Ancient DNA Centre.  

There’s no way to thank everyone here for volunteering their time, in near freezing weather, to move the project forward.  More tomorrow. . . . Dave