The 2010 Wenas Creek Mammoth Field School will be our sixth season of excavations of an Ice Age mammoth and associated materials found near Yakima, Washington, during construction in 2005. You may have seen a little of the project in the History Channel documentary "Journey to 10,000 BC." This project employs methods of archaeology, paleontology, and physical geography in the investigation of buried mammoth bones, other bones, and artifacts. Thus far, we have found two definite human artifacts (flakes) a short distance above mammoth and bison-family bones that date about 16,000 years old. We have also recovered hundreds of bone fragments, as well as near-complete leg bones, shoulder blade, vertebrae and toe bones of mammoth, with more than a dozen more partially-exposed and ready for removal in 2010.

Our primary field task this summer is recovery of mammoth bones and associated artifacts (if any) while placing these into stratigraphic and geomorphic context. Specific skills learned will include unit setup, level excavation with shovel and trowel, bone recovery, piece plotting of finds, screening, plan and profile mapping, as well as provenience control with tapes, line levels, and a total station theodolite. We will make use of paleontology techniques such as bone consolidation and perhaps plaster jacketing.