What's in owl's vomit?
Well, in the case of current inhabitants of the Antelope Valley, a distinct possibility is the bones of kangaroo rats. Such evidence, if carefully preserved and catalogued, helps identify - or rule out - similar bones when they are later unearthed at archaeological digs. The information can then be used to deduce the diets of such long-vanished civilizations as the Serrano and Cahuilla Indians.
These are among the real-life tips from real-life archaeologists that will be in the offing Saturday, May 6, when the nation's largest collection of working archaeologists throws open its doors to the public.
This is the first time that UCLA's venerable Cotsen Institute of Archaeology has offered weekend tours.
On view from 1 to 4 p.m. will be more than half of labs where the Cotsen's stable of 75 archaeologists analyze and store their findings.
In addition to the wonders of owl pellets (or, for that matter, road kill), the public can ponder the actual tools that gave the Stone Age its name, a system of identifying pottery with only microscopic slivers of shard and ways of using charcoal to deduce the agricultural practices of the past.
Tour-givers include not just UCLA Bone Lab director Thomas A. Wake - aka "The Roadkill Scholar" - but also a real-life Indiana Jones figure: Christopher Donnan is one of the world's leading experts on ancient Peru, having excavated the richest Moche tombs ever found. Donnan, whose gold-encrusted findings were featured in a 2001 National Geographic article, is known for sleeping in the tombs he discovers to prevent them from being raided.
In addition to UCLA's Bone Lab (formally known as the Zooarchaeology Lab) and Moche Archive, participating labs include UCLA's ceramic analysis, Egyptian archaeology, European, paleoethnobotany and South Asia labs.
The labs are housed in the basement of the Fowler Museum building on UCLA's northern edge. For information, call (310) 206-8934 or go to http://www.ioa.ucla.edu.
Admission is free. Parking on campus costs $8s. Lot 4 is the closest parking structure. Enter off Sunset Boulevard off Westwood Plaza Boulevard.
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