We're on our way to Casas Grandes
in Chihuahua, Mexico.
We're on our way to an excavation.
One of my big questions
is to try to figure out
what are the roots of Paquime
or what we also call Casas Grandes.
What makes it
unique is its cultural influences
from other places.
They were breeding Scarlet Macaws,
there are shells that were imported
over 250 miles from the coast.
We also find architecture that's similar
to that of the ancestral Puebloans.
Every shovel full of dirt that
we pull out is providing new data
and information on
the ancient people
who thrived in the desert.
We dug a trench, and that trench
revealed a floor,
and we kept expanding that floor.
And it kept growing
and growing and growing
until we had a nine meter diameter house,
which is the biggest
Viejo period communal structure
known.
Lots of what we can learn about a site
comes from the context of the artifacts
or their relationships
to each other in space.
And so technology
is really helpful in doing that.
For example,
we have a total station
that allows us to map
in with millimeter precision,
everything on the site.
We use drones on
many of the archeological sites
we work on.
So we'll take multiple images
across the entire site
and stitch them together into one,
what we call an orthomosaic.
So a mosaic of all those photographs.
When we're excavating, you know,
you're not getting perfectly
preserved structures.
So I've enlisted the help of an artist,
and she's been helping
to create an interpretation
of the floors that we find
or the little partial
walls that we find.
Archeological illustration doesn't
seem to be that big of a field,
and so it's really cool to feel like
almost on the forefront of something new.
This is the first project
where I've invited
a large group of students
from the National School of Anthropology
and History of Northern Mexico.
So their professor,
Dr. Nora Rodriguez, will be here.
And not only will
they be working
with our students from BYU,
but they'll be working with the professor
to learn how to excavate.
This is their first excavation.
It's important
that the people from different countries
not just work together but become friends,
It’s pretty, pretty important for the research.
Many of these students
haven't been to Mexico.
Some haven't been out of the country.
So they get immersed in
not only the language,
but the food and the culture.
There's different types of pottery
that has like fingernail
indentations in it,
and I think that's cool because
you can tie that specific
thing to a specific person.
We always are really respectful
of the people
in the past
because they're with us.
Having that
spiritual connection to archeology.
It changes everything for me.
We are learning about
people in the past,
how they lived their lives,
how they dealt with human problems.
Archeology can shed
light on so many things.
You really have a lot of respect
for the people when you see very closely
what they did.
I think it’s
in understanding the past
that we can better understand
our current position
so that we can make better decisions
moving into the future.
I don't think there's anything better
than to see that
light go off
when they pick up that artifact and go,
“this is what I want to do.
This is what I want to keep doing,”
and then to help them
realize the connections
that we can make with the past
and how that can better our lives today.