Arma Veirana 2022 Season Post 2: We Made It!


From left to right: Caitlin, Sarah, Ari, Lia, and Kyle

2 planes, 3 trains, and much walking later...we arrived in Erli, Italy! A phone was stolen, bruises were acquired, and boy did we sweat, but we made it and are getting settled into life in our quaint, picturesque Italian village. The tall, impressive mountains remind us of home in Colorado, yet with a mix of the lush green of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The people are tanned and smile often, and we feel very welcomed here. We've even befriended several cats and dogs already!


The lay of the land

In Erli, medieval buildings and alleys from the 1200s lead to beautiful spaces.


Like the Cappella Madonna della neve Erli (Madonna Church) 


The students' house. We are grateful for the washing machine and many windows to let in the breeze!

The stunning view from the balcony

Kyle saw deer last night! They were walking up the main road right past the student house and the restaurant where we eat our meals (da Lisetta).

Sitting down to breakfast, buon appetito!


Lab work

We wasted no time and got to work straight away on Tuesday. Each morning around 9 am we take a small, steep path down from the house to the lab, which is situated in a church. We work our way through faunal material from Arma Veirana, each coding bone fragments from different lots within the cave site. We use two programs to enter data, an Access form and ArcMAP. To see details on the bone fragments, which can sometimes be only a few millimeters long, we utilize Dino-Lite digital microscopes. If we find cutmarks, percussion marks, or toothmarks on the bone, we take a photo and store it for later use. 

Here you see a piece of bone lit up by the Dino-Lite. This allows us to see in greater detail what surface modifications (like cutmarks) are present.

For reference, we have 3D images of bones and several textbooks and notes that help us identify (when possible) what a piece of bone belongs to in the skeleton.

If we can identify a bone by bone type, side, and animal (deer, bear, etc.), we can draw it in ArcMAP. This allows us to later calculate minimum number of elements and analyze surface modifications.

The view up the Neve valley from the lab




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