This morning,
we left the desert laboratory in Tucson, Arizona.
The lab sits on Tumamoc Hill
a popular recreation area.
We headed to Sonora, Mexico,
where we rendezvoused with archeologists
from the National Institute
of Archeology and History in Hermosillo.
I've never been on any kind of scientific expedition.
This is my journal of what it was like.
We're stuck in the sand
and one of our trucks has an overheating radiator
and we're in one of the most remote places in North America.
But this gives us time to explore,
and there is always something interesting to look at.
We get unstuck
and the radiator cools down and then a few minutes later
we get stuck again,
which is always a good opportunity to look at plants
or look at the sunset.
Pedro, do you see that line?
That dark blue...
Yeah.
So that is Earth's shadow.
Really?
Yeah. Think about it.
So the right after sunset, I mean, that makes sense.
And then boom.
Whoa!
Eventually we make it to our destination
and set up camp.
In the morning,
I see this prickly poppy blooming next to my tent.
It's a flower I know well.
And it makes me feel at home.
I even water it.
So this is an aerial overview of kind of the core site.
And this shows our last field
season years ago when we were doing excavations.
This right there is where the Clovis point was found.
And then here
this is the vicinity of where the mammoth remains were found,
including molars and tusk remnants.
This is a site where 10,000 years ago,
human beings coexisted with megafauna like mammoth
species that are now extinct.
The archeologists are using drones to survey the area
and the topic of drones and documentary comes up.
I say I think
drone shots are overused for the most part,
and they represent such an inhuman point of view.
But sometimes you need that perspective to understand
where you are and the scale of a place.
We'll go into the dunes tomorrow.
But today we're just at the edge of the dune field.
One group scours the area for artifacts,
placing a red flag wherever they find one.
The other group does a deeper excavation.
So we're recording all the data that we need
to start excavation, what kind of sediments they are
if we have material on the surface to start digging.
We are looking for the corners
of the posts from last season
to make a more accurate grid and expand from
where the archaeological artifacts were found.
Often what
archeologists are doing is they're there digging
with brushes.
So we we joke about spending a lot of our lives sweeping dirt
Every inch of the site that's excavated
also has to be screened to make sure they're not missing
bones or artifacts.
What does it say?
If you put it here and it sticks
it's a bone
not a rock.
So we're looking for really small bones
from rodents, from reptiles that you wouldn't
be able to see in the bigger screens.
So as we're walking around out here
trying to imagine what this was like, 1000,
5000, 10,000 years ago, it's just so arid now.
But there must have been some sort of big playa
filled with water and attracted animals out here.
And people, too.
There's so many layers of stories and narratives,
human and non-human, geological,
ecological, spiritual, and then the day to day
i■m definitely in a data collecting mindset.
But in the back of my mind, there's always the human story
and of course
the individual stories of the people who were here.
And there's a sense of reverence for the items
and the landscape that we're standing on.
Well, first of all, I feel
very privileged to work in this kind of place,
because this place has evidence of the most ancient peo
that have inhabited this contine
And apart from that this place is amazing
I really like working here
because the mountains, the dunes make me very happy.
And just being here is a totally different experience,
because you are away from the ci you can camp in a place like thi
It makes me very happy.
You know, scorpion fossils
Also luminesce.
Really? Yeah.
It's a structural glow sort of thing.
Yeah.
It seems like the best way to capture the feeling at night
of being totally cut off from the rest of the world
in this luminescent
place is to take long exposure, still photos,
and knit them together to create the illusion of movement.
I sleep
better out here than I have in over a year.
It seems like a place where anxiety
can't reach.
All of the music
you've been hearing is played by Robert.
He's constantly serenading us.
The theme of plants
leading us to amazingly cool archeological places
is a serious theme with this project.
So this plant is the remnant I'm holding of Sand Food
or Pholisma sonorae and a truly incredible desert plant.
This is a parasitic plant.
So what happens is these plants have these roots
that go deep into the sand below and they're tapping in
to these other perennial plants and parasitizing their moisture.
So when it's this is fresh,
these stems are about yea round
white, full of water, and they taste it.
Earth water is this beautiful, earthy desert
flavor to the water.
So we came here because I wanted to see the fresh ones
and found them while I was doing so.
Kayla and Jay got a little bored
when I was freaking out after finding the sand food,
and they dropped down in this bowl
and then just started finding artifacts left and right.
So I don't think it's coincidence at all
that this really rare plant that is one
of the most important food and water sources for people
in the desert, Hia C-e■ O■odham relied heavily
and rely heavily on this plant for nourishment in the dune.
I don't think it's any coincidence
that this is a pretty robust population.
We're finding them scattered all around this
blowout.
And the fact that this blowout
has so many archeological artifacts,
I don't think it's a coincidence.
Robert tells me
that these dunes are the Grand Canyon.
He explains that the Colorado River
eroded these grains off the sides of the canyon
and carried them hundreds of miles
to this area.
On our final morning,
Robert finds the largest scorpion yet
and talks about how most of the animals we're encountering
have probably never seen another human being.
Before we leave,
I'm asked to take the group picture.
As a filmmaker, I'm always on the outside to some degree.
But that lets me see these worlds
I get to drop into with fresh senses.
An archeological expedition
is an interpretive dance
and a flower is an old friend.