NINE MILE CANYON, Carbon County — The crew members were down on all fours, working with hand tools in the dirt, as the double-tanker truck rolled by on the single-lane road just a few feet away.
Their trowels loosened up the hard soil, which was carried to a sifting screen where small artifacts…
“We rarely, rarely get to excavate in the canyon,” said Jody Patterson, principal investigator for Montgomery Archaeology Consultants Inc.
“Being able to look at some of these sites — being able to excavate — we’re finding out stuff we had no idea existed out here, in places where we didn’t know they would be,” he said.
The pit house Patterson’s crew is excavating is the first of its kind to be found so far up Nine Mile Canyon, he said. It’s also the first to be found with a burnt roof, which means the site could provide “a snapshot of daily life” once it’s completely unearthed, Patterson said.
“It’s extremely exciting,” he said.