Ode to Thee Sweet Bucket Auger

In honor of those of our comrades out fighting the good fight, here's a silly poem. An explanation of bucket auger excavation can be found below.

Ode to thee, sweet bucket auger!

My arms are strong, but I'm no jogger
I owe it all to my bucket auger.
Toad’s in my hole, poor little frogger.
Soon to be mushed by my bucket auger.
Spl--oosh! Water table!

Been working all day, I’m getting doggo.
But I keep on twisting that bucket augo.
The soil is deep and dank and boggy.
Not a problem for my bucket augie.
Grind crackle crackle! Channel fill!

That blowhard there is just a bragger!
You s'pose I could hit him with my bucket agger?
The coffee's bitter, should've put in sugar.
But that doesn't matter to my... wait just a minute, that doesn't rhyme!

Down in the river flats, four meters deep
Not enough coffee, not enough sleep
Twisting and twisting till my arms go numb
Bucket auger creaking in the pale autumn sun

Explanation

Cultural Resource Management (CRM) has been a part of archaeology in the United States for over thirty years now. Since the Moss-Bennett Act of 1971, each federally-funded construction project such as a dam or highway must include an archaeological survey to determine what, if any, archaeological sites might be affected by the project. Hundreds of thousands of archaeological sites have been identified and investigated by researchers since then, and, more to the point, the science for the discovery of archaeological sites has developed by leaps and bounds. By the late 1980s, the field of CRM archaeology radically changed. Working with geologists and geomorphologists, we discovered that many river bottom deposits hide intact archaeological sites, substantial archaeological sites, intact because they haven't been affected by plowing.

But how do we find these sites? Experience has taught us that in certain valley areas sites do indeed lurk beneath several meters of soil, floodplain deposits. To date, there are no secure remote sensing methods to identify the presence of such sites, and we are reduced to developing a plan, in conjunction with a geomorphologist, of placing a grid of bucket auger tests over the area that will be affected by the project.

A bucket auger test involves the use of a bucket auger--yes, that's right, a post-hole digger that you screw into the ground--to excavate an 8 inch diameter hole. At each level--usually 10 or 20 cm, the archaeologist stops and pushes the soil through a 1/4 inch diameter hardware cloth, to retrieve any artifacts that might be found. Down you dig, two, three, four and more meters; it can take several hours to get one hole dug, depending on the depth. And you betcha, it's dreary work, and it's usually saved for the end of the season when it's cold and nasty outside, since, unlike for surface survey, the visibility of the ground doesn't matter.