You know, archaeology really is
everywhere under our feet, but to have
such well-preserved Fremont archaeology
only 15 minutes from campus is quite
unique. We've been able to uncover what
here is a pretty traditional Fremont pit
house.
One of the things that set BYU's anthropology department apart is the amount of technology that
we're trying to incorporate into our
field methods. So in collaboration with
several other departments at the
University, we've been able to develop new
technology, much of which was developed and designed by other students. So some
of the new technology that were using
here includes a wireless network system
that pairs with tablet devices. We have
this archnet. It has its own solar panels
to power it. We have a few stationed
along the site and they make our own little
internet. We have computer science
students actually building an app for
tablets, which allow us to transmit and
save our data on a server that we have.
Anything that we find, it all gets assigned
a very specific number so that we can
take notes on that. So we're taking notes
on everything throughout the day, down to
the very specifics. And it's accessible to,
you know, our directors over in the trailer,
back on campus. It's all there. We're
also using drone technology to not only
record archaeology that we're uncovering,
but also to try to discover pieces of
the archaeology may still be covered
underground. Most of our excavations and
operations are out in remote locations
where there is no electricity or access
to electricity. Over the last seven weeks,
not once have we had to tap into any
electricity. We've had enough solar
energy to charge our equipment, to keep
our server running and to keep our internet here working as well. The other aspect
of archaeological research in terms
of academia and our field schools is to
make discoveries, right? That's why we're
out here. Only minutes ago, one of our
students a found Fremont figurine.
They would make these little clay
figures and shape them in the form of
people.
These artifacts haven't been touched or seen for over a thousand years and you're the
first one that gets to touch it and pull
it out of the ground and then you get to
to help tell the story of who these
people were and how they live their
lives so I think that's what keeps us
going. What's going to be in that next
scrape, what's going to be in that
next shovel full. So we feel that all of
these things together are giving students an edge, and that's something that's very
unique to BYU and our program in terms of trying to really get at that frontier
of technological advancement and methods in archaeology.
