It was some years ago when I worked on this rather large project down in a remote corner of the Western Mojave desert. The location was pristine and I doubt whether too many others ever ventured there. We drove up there in 4×4 vehicles with RWR along a barely maintained desert road. The road was hewn out of desert basement and in some spots even RWR’s Chevy powered LandCruiser had difficulties. In one spot that was memorable, we got the jeep wedged tight between two opposing walls of sandstoney looking granite faces. Its important to note that I said sandstoney looking. If it had been sandstone we coulda done something quick. Instead the granite was stubborn and did not want to budge. We decided to camp there that night and work again after a night of carousing with a fire, beer, homemade chili, and stories. I know I’ve mentioned that archeologists do indeed love all those things. The fire was this spark of yellow and red which was a tiny break in an otherwise wonderful starry night. I happened to look up and the stars were incredible blue flashes against the tapestry. Never had I seen the evening display like that. There were no city lights to dim it and I could lay on my back and watch the swirling universes in my mind’s eye all converging to compete. After a few beers (or more) and a few bowls of chili (or more), we slept. The night turned really cold as it does in the desert and in the morning frost peeped at us from the ground. It was really cold.
We got the jeep free and headed on up the barely made road to our project campsite. That place was perched against three walls of competing small canyons and it had been used for the same purpose before. There was trash. Bottles, cans, paper. Our biologist shook her head and started picking it all up. We all pitched in. Soon the desert was desert again and not modern trash dump.
Its worth noting in this little story that what we archeologists also found were old trash dumps for the most part; all swirled and tossed and changed around. We used to laugh at the geologists humorous expression of the “law of super position”. Look it up and see what it is. Its funny in a few ways 
But then we were in the field, walking at 30m intervals. We were hunting again. But this time trash hunting of the remaining bits and pieces and detritus of some age-old trash dump. It never took long to find something and we fould this rather amazing prehistoric archeological site with literally thousands of flaked stone tools right on the surface. Our maps told us it had not been previously recorded so we set about recording its location, what it may have been, and its extents. This is part of archeology I enjoyed the most and it most reminded me of the age old saying “the mind wielding a trowel”. I could put my imagination in full gear and hypothesize all sorts of possibilities.
At the end of the day, we returned and were full of the site and its potential. We all talked about the modern trash dump we had cleaned up at the campsite and the wonderful prehistoric trash dump we had recorded. Its kind of humorous and I used to wonder – and perhaps still do – what future archeologists will think of our trash dumps. I know when we left I wanted to do better and not let future visitors see the worse side of people.
Another time, another place it dawns on me was Edwards AFB in the Mojave Desert. I had been walking this long electrical transmission line for some days with a biologist and botanist. Today was the day we teased the hell out of the botanist! Yesterday had been my turn. Dave was the focus of so many jokes and innuendos he finally stopped telling us the latin names of each flowering plant and mumbled to himself about how unfortunate it was to be out in wondrous nature with two uncaring slobs. Of course we really did care; but when you do “multi-discplinary fieldwork” you learn that science is only part of the endeavor. Fun is the other part. This story coalesces with the other as we found two sites close together. One historic shack and one prehistoric site. They blended together due to the whims of nature and the desert. Erosion and deposition, Rick would say when I took him out there. Then he uttered the most famous of sayings about a uniquely shaped artifact I found on the ground. I asked innocently, “what do you suppose that is, Rick?” Without a moment’s hesitation, he announced he knew. “Why its a parfumdafloiter of course”. I just stopped and almost asked him what that was but I saw the glint of the eye.
Archeology was not only fun and challenging but it often meant we traveled over very interesting and significant ecologies and cultural resources and I learned that the desert tortoise and the plants and the projectile points all combined and that we must look at the total picture. Don’t paint more trash there though, okay?
