1997 ACTIVITY PAGE - FLOATATION

1997 ACTIVITY PAGE FLOAT! FLOAT! FLOAT! Did you ever think that you could learn something by throwing dirt into water?? Well, here's your big chance! For this year's activity you are going to need several things:

a bag of dirt from your backyard, or garden or from the woods

a scoop for the dirt (a plastic container will do)

a few 5 liter buckets of water (warm enough to put your hands in)

a microscope

a hand sieve or very fine strainer

O.K. First of all, pull those shirt sleeves up (this can get kind of messy)! Now, put your hand in the bucket of water and start stirring it around slowly in a circular motion with your hand and arm. (Don't splash it) Next, as you are stirring, have someone else slowly shake a scoop of dirt into the water. Keep on stirring!! Add another scoop of dirt and keep on stirring. Add a third scoop and keep on stirring . If you can feel chunks of soil and dirt at the bottom of the bucket, gently break them up with your fingers, try to keep all the soil swirling in a circle in the bucket. Now, take your hand out from the water, what do you see?? Write down on a piece of paper what you see. Take the strainer and very gently scoop off the stuff that is right on the top of the water. Put these things on a piece of paper towel. Look at them under the microscope. What do you see? Describe it or draw it. I'll just wait here until you are done doing that...

Well, hopefully you noticed that the heavy things in the dirt, like big rocks, fell to the bottom of the bucket but that the lighter things floated to the top when the soil dissolved. Under the microscope you probably saw many types of twigs and seeds and little pieces of plants.

Congratulations, you just did floatation!!

Basically, this is what we do in the laboratory or in the field to see what is in the soil or to find any little artifacts that we missed. Some archaeologists figure out what type of seed or plant is in the soil using the microscope. After doing this, they can tell us what plants were growing at the time at the site or nearby it. For instance, if you found lots of sunflower seeds in your bucket or under the microscope, then you would be able to guess that the soil was from an area that either had a sunflower planted there or where birds dropped them or where somebody dropped a big bag of them by accident. Floatation can tell us lots of things!! Good work, floatation takes a lot of time and patience but good archaeological detectives realize how important it can be! TAKE ME TO 1997!