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What we have is
very unique resource
here at the Springs Preserve,
in the Spring Mound.
And there's probably about
27/26 or so Spring Mounds
found throughout
the Las Vegas valley
and to have one on our property
is a special and unique situation.
And it loomed even larger 
in the life of this environment
when it was a burden
and spring-fed setting.
Because they were a
source of water,
there was a lot of
attraction to animals,
a lot of attraction to people
to these Spring Mounds.
So, there was always a lot
of cultural activity
not just by people but also
by animals and plant growth.
And so, there was quite an attraction
to bring people to these Spring Mounds.
Still today, the surroundings are rich
with evidence of the Spring Mounds'
role as a hunting
and picnic ground
practically paved with pieces
of tools and weapons
pots and fire pits left behind
by historic and prehistoric Native Americans.
There was activity happening
on the spring down going back thousands
of years all the way through probably to
contact with European settlers the
oldest artifacts that we've actually
recovered from the Las Vegas Springs
Preserve from our property here come
from the surface of the spring mound and
these are things that are mostly late
archaic period but as old as the site
and its artifacts are both are worth
surveying for new finds again and again
we've done surveys on the spring mounds
before and like anywhere else in any
sort of cultural area where people have
lived for thousands of years you're
going to find artifacts on the surface
and so every few years it makes sense to
go back and resurvey areas that you've
already been over because over time as
rain falls as wind blows more and more
artifacts become uncovered so the last
time we did a full scale survey of the
spring mound was probably about 2007 and
so we're looking to update our maps
update our information and update the
types of artifacts that we find on the
spring mound here and the current survey
benefited immensely because a team of
eager archaeology students were able to
use tried-and-true methods along with
the latest technology to map the
artifacts they found I'm teaching an
archaeological field methods class at
UNLV and mostly it's
classroom-based but we wanted to have an
opportunity where we could bring the
students out into the field and actually
do some real archaeological work so none
of the students had any experience
really in the field before so this is
the first time that they were able to
find archaeological remains in stitches
so in the ground we started off by
spacing ourselves out along the edge of
the this survey area here and each
student had a bunch of flags in their
hands so we walk across the terrain
looking at the ground to see if we find
anything a student just found a
projectile point so an arrowhead just a
few minutes ago so we'll flag that and
then what we do once we have a whole
bunch of flags in the ground will use
the total station up here which is
basically a mapping tool so we can map
in the location of each artifact that
we've encountered in survey but this
morning we found about 350 artifacts in
about 20 minutes so that tells you how
dense the material here is and it's it's
it's going to be a big job but the
students are having a really good time
so that's that's what it's all about for
the archaeologists as well the array of
structures and utensils provides a
rewarding view of the ancient humans who
lived here the artifacts that we found
during the survey or exactly what you
would expect to find for from a
habitation of people living in a spot
for a long period of time we have
projectile points of course that we
found we have the harv's the roasting
pits the thermal features we also have
pieces and parts of ceramics from
different time periods going back to the
ancestral Pueblo and all the way through
to the Paiute period we also find parts
of grinding stones that would have been
used for processing seeds mesquite seeds
mesquite pods corn any other sort of
vegetable matter you would have ground
into a flour we find some of those here
as well but they still only scratched
the surface of the spring mounts
potential revelations and are hoping to
dig deeper into its hidden possibilities
we know that other spring mounds in the
valley they found mammoth bison camel
early horse have been recovered from
those and we don't exactly know how old
our spring mound is we don't exactly
know if we have any of the
these large megafauna that are located
in there and so ultimately the survey
that we're doing now will lead us to
future work hopefully some larger scale
testing so we could actually do some
excavations into that spring mound and
answer some of those questions but for
now they're looking forward to showing
these artifacts to modern visitors who
will undoubtedly find in them a greater
understanding of the people who used to
make the spring mound one of the
earliest gathering places at the
preserve
