0ft): Smarter and Work

AUGUST 25,I972

Jﬁ‘yaufl’laqedt‘i' Jmsmaoaemw...

by Bob Sparks

What, you ask, do Grinnell stun
dents do with their summer vncar
tioiis 7Most engage in some sort oi
appropriate ”real world” activity"
like for example, working in Papa‘s
bank or campaigning for the candi-
date of their choice, or maybe just
sitting around reading novels. A few,
however, (fortunately for Grinnell's
reputation, a mere handful), do
really weird things: like spending a
month digging among Indian ruins.

Actually, the word is “excavation,"
as any of the four students who par—
ticipated in last summer’s project
will quickly point out. Bill Johnson,
Priscilla Murray, Martha Wacker
and Bob Sparks were the archaeor
logists, appropriately chaperoned,
of course, by Professor Ralph Luebr
ben (Anthropology) and his Wife.
This intrepid crew left Grinnell
after finals last Spring in a pair
of trucks packed high with camping
gear, surveying equipment, and, of
course, shovels for the dirty work.

«on.

in spite of such distracting panoramic views as this, the expedition

achieved its goal and uncovered both pueblo and kiva.

J

‘.

The excavators, left to right; Priscilla Murray, Martha Wacker, pro.
lessor Luebben, Bill Johnson, and Bob Sparks. Not pictured but every bit
as essential; the cook and camp tender, Mrs. Luehben.

photos hi Eon Spark:

On the last day of the digging
the students uncovered the skeleton
of an adolescent Indian who was
buried at least seven hundred years

ago, The bowl and mug presumably 8"-

contained offerings to sustain the
soul in the afterlife.

I}

Well, i guess I can’t avoid it any
longer. Either I get a column pounded
out, or i confess to Dagenais that
l agreed to write one only in a rare
moment of weakness.

I could have backed out them. You
see, Dagenais’ original plan last May
was for me to do a “political'
column, I was in the coffee house,

immediate reaction, familiar to
many profs, was to get the assign-
ment changed. “Well, surel'd like
to try a column But would you mind
if, ahem, I didn’t stick strictly to
politics ?Don has seen me pull
that one enough times belore; I'm
surprised he fell for it. Neither olus
was too sharp that morning.

On The Task 0f
Writing A Column

by Jim Alt

 

hiding behind a Newsweek, when Don
came in and sat down. I should have
been on guard when he completed
three full sentences Without a single
reference to John Maynard keynes.
That hadn't hoppelletluto either of
us--since January.

Anyway, Don‘s idea was that I
should try a political column My

Which he must he realizing just
about now, if he’e rent! this far.
I can almost hear him asking,
"Where's all going with oils thing”"
Let me try to explain, I honestly
did try to stait this column before
now The literary world lost a hil-
arious satiric column on “The Death
of the Women's Gym” when [dis-
covered that there wasn't really any-

ception of a few brief trips to other
areas ofparticular archeological in—
te’rest in the Four Corners Area,
the only breaks in the digging were
quick evening jaunts to Cortez in
order, as P .Luebben would say,
“to wash our snuggies."

By some curious quirk of fate, the
site not only survived the repeated
onslaughts of four inexperienced ex»

The kiva measured 4.5 meters in
diameter and was approximately two
meters deep, Roughly three tons of
dirt were removed. In the center
of the kiva is the firepit, backed
by the deflector and fed by the vene
tilator tunnel,

thing very funny about it. it was
especially hard to thinkiof something
funny to say about the “tourlater
now" letter that President Leggett
sent us. l had looked forward to
a semester-long all-campus debate
and at least four or five good col-
umns on the subject Leggett’s hold
action-~it’s easier to be hold on an
empty campus, apparently—may
have been prudent. But an open diSr
cussion would have been a lot
funnier.

Then there was the Booby Fischer
column, Art Buchwald and about
nineteen others got to that one first,
though, and I decided not to add
any more ink to the Bach’s collec-
tion, Besides, that column would
have left me vulnerable to criticism
from any prof who has watched me
reluctantly approach an independent
project Fischer only stalled tor a
few weeks, I once made it nearly a
full semester. So, out of fear of
Voertinan, that column was also
scratched.

For Dagenais’ benefit, I next tried
a column on the Dcmocrats’ doings
ovcr the summer I even had my
sources all gathered , the Repubr
licans’ national newsletter “M0n»

cavators, but actually yielded sub—
stantial numbers of artifacts. The
work went so well that the surface
portion of the pueblo was uncovered
in only two weeks, leaving time for
a thorough excavation of the assoc-
iated Kiva.

The blank stares would seem to
suggest that some readers are not
Overly familiar With terms like
“Kiva” and “pueblo.” An oversight
only. The people who inhabited
Northwest Colorado at the hirn ofthe
last millenium are called the Anar
sazi. The word means ”the old
ones ” They were farmers, lived in
Small villages called pueblos,
and worshipped their gods in circue
lar pit rooms called Klvas.

The people who are the subject of
P Luebben’s investigations wereof
the same cultural stock as those
who built the cliff dwellings at Mesa
Verde, but chose to live on the
plateaus and in the open rather than
retreating to the shallow caves. They
all disappeared at or about the same
time, roughly 1300 A o .

Now, nearly seven hundred years
later, a major effort is underway
to discover how these people sur-
vived in what is at best a mar-
ginal environment.

Grinnell is one of the few small
colleges which supports a sustained
archaeological research project.
1972 was the fifth summer that the
Luebbens have spent at lsmay, and
the fourth in which students were
involved. To date, three pueblos and
their adjourning Kivas have been
excavated, and the area is so rich
in ruins that the Luebbens See no
likelihood of exhausting the supply
before they exhaust themselves.

if archaeology conjures up pictures
of Tutankhamen's tomb in your mind,
then you probably would not be suited

for the field But if you are a ‘bit
more realistic about the proportion

of unrewarded Sweat to spectacular
discovery, then fieldwork ofthe kind
sponsored by the College is a great
opportunity to get acquainted with the
profession.

Breakfast at 5:30, at the site by
7 no, lunch at noon, followed by
either dish duty or a “bedsore

day”; Rolling Stone’s “Fear and
Loathing in Miami Beach”; a pile
of “Des Moines Registers”; and
some incoherent notes taken while
watciiing Walter on Tv The problem
with that column was that it was
supposed to be serious, and it kept
coming out funny. And after the

Eagleton episode, I couldn’t tell just
which Democrats needed psychiatric
help. iknow lwas depressed.

And I think I’ll wait a While before
tackling the attempted bugging of
Democratic National Headquarters,
l have confidence that Attorney Genr
erai kleindicnst—-you know, the guy
who replaced John Mitchell when
Mitchell resigned to head the
Committee to Re-elect the President
--will get to the bottom of it before
election day, After all, Richard the
First has promised his full Coops
eration in the investigation rm sure
that Richard will find a reasonable
explanation of why the Committee
channelled all that money to the five
men Caught in the Watergate. I would
never accuse a person of treachery
on the basis of incomplete evidence.

For the same reason, i won‘t write
about Martha Mitchell's claims that
she was beaten by Richard's security

hour, start digging again at 1:30,
quit at 4:30, bathe and Sup, wash
some potsherds and at 9,30 call it
a day. .

Is the work hard Physically, yes;
mentally, not very, What is the most
important qualification? willingness
to work, and in addition sharp eyes
(the better to spot the artifacts) It
would be sate to suggest that 99%
ot the participants enjoy the exper-
ience greatly; the other 1% shouldn't
even be in the field.

The greatest danger, contrary to
popular belief, does not come from
the occasional rattlesnakes (two this
year) or the giant centipedes or even
the tarantula spiders. The only real
threat to life and limb is the frigid
water of the “shower”~b hose
tied to a tall fence post in the midst
of an unused sheep pen. 40 degree
water can really hurt when combined
with a brisk wind and a sun hidden
by clouds.

Mrs. Luebben’s cooking would be
a danger as well, at least to those
prone to overweight, were it not for
the more than adequate exercise.
in a word, she can COOK ,

The tate would not be complete
without some mention of the specs
tacular find brought back by this
year's crew. Popular literature
would have the public believe that
human burials are a dime a dozen
in archaeological areas. On the can,
trary, human remains are ex~
ceedingiy rare. This year the lsmay
complex yielded a virtually complete
skeleton, carefully folded in a fetal
position, and provided with pottery,
offerings to supply its needs in the
afterlife.

The remains are ofayouhg adoles-
cent, and clearly show signs of the
common Anasazi practice of skull
deformation. Careful analysis of
these materials should permit an
accurate determination of age and
sex. With exciting finds such as this,
it becomes a virtual certainty that
this series of excavations will con
tinue. In fact, Professor Luebben is
probably already planning future
expeditions. Who knows what won-
ders lie just beneath the surface,
waiting to he uncovered 7

.v’

P ukka Sahib

agents. But don't you think that it
was good of John to resign from
his job with the Committee, too, so
he could care for poor, hysterical
Martha ?He presented a touching
example--ali too rare, these days
., of a high public figure putting
his family before politics.

Besides which, none of the above-
mentioned possibilities which I
decided to forego bears on The
Issues of the election And, as weall
know, elections are decided on The
Issues, not on personalities or
on reckless accusations made inthe
heat of a campaign. So I promise to
keep sticking with The Issues

1 had some other ideas, too, but
I had to throw them out or save them
for later. i was sorely tempted to use
Jack Anderson's make-it-uperyou
-go—along technique, but l'm not a
good public apologizer. I finally
had to fallback 0n the old gimmick
of writing a column about writing a
column.

So now Don knows where this
column was going I realize that rm
not a Labowitz or a Doppeit. but
Don knew that when he took me on.
Maybe I'll think oisomething to write
about next week , i .

 

