Very impressive beaver complex in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, near a spot we were working. You can see the lodge to the left.
Closer view of the lodge.
Views of the dam. This is an old dam; you can see it on aerial photos from 15 years ago, and notice the willow trees growing out of it. So several generations of beavers have lived here.
Startled ducks flying up from the pond.
Plastron of a huge snapping turtle lying in the woods near the pond.
Artifacts, just little fragments of stone and ceramic. We found some evidence of Indian camp sites in this area, dated by the pottery to 500-1500 AD. This probably means that these streams have been repeatedly dammed by beavers for thousands of years, creating wetlands that were then populated by plants and animals of interest to foragers, since the streams are too small to have been very interesting on their own. The pottery likely indicates the presence of women harvesting and processing plants.
And some photos I took on a very roundabout walk back from the beaver ponds to my car. Here is an old house with its oak tree; these big, lonely oaks are a great marker of old house sites. This interests me partly because I am not aware of any written accounts describing the American habit of planting (or maybe not cutting down) one oak tree near a house. Where did this idea come from? How did it spread? What did it mean to the people who did it?
Remains of a substantial, pre-Civil War house, possibly the homeof a plantation overseer.
Stone chimney base from a cabin that was part of a plantation slave quarter, the home of field hands in the 1820-1865 period.
One of the cool things about my job is that occasionally I can get paid to walk around in the woods and notice things, one of my favorite activities.
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