Our class met for the first time on Monday September 8. Students were introduced to the John Brown House and its landscape, and then learned the basics of establishing a site grid and survey strategy. We returned to the area of interest located by the May 2008 geophysics survey and conducted two additional geophysical surveys with the help of Thomas Urban. We also began to excavate two shovel test pits (50x50cm) along an E-W transect that may intersect outbuildings and an earlier excavation area from the 1960s.
The class gathers around STP N0 W35 to learn how to lay out a shovel test pit.
The shovel test pits were placed on our site grid at 5 meter intervals (the orange flags), along a transect that runs E-W from our datum point, which is visible here in the foreground.
STP N0 W30 before excavations
Stephanie delineates STP N0 W30 with her trowel before removing the sod with shovels.
Megan and Ben team up to excavate the first context, JBH1, of STP N0 W30. Megan straightens the walls while Ben shovel skims.
All of the soil from the STP excavations are screened through 1/4" mesh. In N0 W30 the screeners found several nails, glass, plastic, and a screw from context JBH1.
By the end of our first class, the excavators of N0 W30 reached the top of the next context, which they distinguished from JBH1 based on its more compact and soil color change.
Just 5 meters to the west, the first excavated context from STP N0 W35 (JBH2) proved to be quite different from that in STP N0 W30 (JBH1).
Here in STP N0 W35 the top context, JBH2, was a loose, dark soil with abundant quantities of small stones or gravel. At a depth of about 10cm, excavators located the remains of a ceramic tiled-floor and mortar.
The ceramic tiles do not appear to be part of a structure, at least not at this point, but their close association with mortar in the STP raises a lot of interesting questions and possibilities that we will certainly be unearthing more information about next week!
