Another part of unit 1 is the research assignment. Angela gave us a MASSIVE list of resources to wade through for ideas. It was pretty daunting and I put it off until I had a good chunk of time on my hands. One link that really struck me was the work of Christopher Locke and his modern fossils. I have always had an interest in paleontology and a big part to the involves creating moulds of the fossils, particularly items like dinosaur footprints which need to be kept in situ for future study. It is amazing what can be gleaned from the footprints. For example human footprints have been discovered in white sands national park in the USA which have confirmed that people were there as long ago as 23000 years ago, putting the date back by about 6000 years before previously believed. Equally remarkable in my mind was that they were able to tell that some impressions were made by a woman and child walking side by side and at some point she picked up the child to carry him on one hip – all gleaned from an impression in the rock.
https://archaeology.org/issues/november-december-2021/features/new-mexico-ice-age-footprints/
It was also great fun to see that some of the modern fossils created by Christopher Locke were like my objects from Fin 231.
