Elise's Field Blog

Week One- 8/9/08

Today was our first class, and we headed more or less straight for the field. I was glad that the area in front of the John Brown house was shaded by trees, as it was a hot day. We got a general introduction to the site to put what we were doing into context (no pun intended), and then split into smaller groups. Our group of three marked out a shovel test pit (STP) at N’0, W’35, 50cm by 50cm. We proceeded to carefully remove the turf layer, and began to remove layers of earth.

Our digging was interrupted by a switch of groups, and we tried our hand at some geophysics. We finished surveying the area began by the other group, and then returned to our STP. There had been some isolated cubic pieces of stone showing up, and these made more sense when we trowelled away a layer of dirt to reveal part of a tile. The mortar had mostly crumbled and mixed in with the soil, creating a light brown sandy deposit around the intact part of the tile. We worked to level off the STP to the layer of the tile, and dry sifted all the deposits we removed. Some pieces of brick showed up here, along with some other objects that were not as easily identifiable. We ended up packing up the equipment later than we intended, due to our enthusiasm over the tile, but we managed to head out of the site by 5:45.

Week Two- 15/9/08

Being one of the first six people on site today, I spent the first part of the session on a tour of the John Brown House Museum. We were given a more detailed history of the house by one of the museum staff that put our work at the site into a more concrete context, as we connected visually with the aspects of the house we were talking about. My view of the site as a potential wealth of information was also furthered by the video overview of Providence’s role in the emerging American economy and of the Brown family’s role in Providence. It was interesting from a curatorial point of view to see how the Museum had decided to present the interior of the house.

Unfortunately we did not have enough time to explore the Museum thoroughly, so we headed back to the STP’s to find that the rest of the group had progressed quite far with the excavating. The STP I was working on last week was proving to be very complex, and not at all straightforward to excavate. I was assigned to the other STP at N’0 W’30, with Whitney and Evie, and we trowelled away the context that was currently exposed. We identified where the context JBH3 ended, and cleaned the area to take a photo of the context beneath (JBH4). Despite the relatively unexciting appearance of this STP, a couple pieces of blue glass, some slivers of white glazed ceramic, terracotta shards, and some small pieces of coal were found- enough to clearly indicate that we had a while to go before we reached sterile soil. We stopped the excavations for the day before we had been able to fully distinguish whether or not another context was emerging below JBH4, and left a cleanly trowelled test pit with nicely defined sides for the excavators who would work there next week.

Week Three- 22/9/08

Although our first excavation units were opened up this week, Whitney and I spent worked at STP N’0 W’35 to, literally, get to the bottom of it. This seemed increasingly unlikely as we kept removing more and more loose rocks, and the ‘feature’ did not seem to be ending. The STP revealed some interesting finds, including a small shard of ceramic which, Krysta informed us, was actually earthenware with an English sponge print from around the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century. We also found some glass shards, a few nails, brick- three half bricks and a whole one- and a hole. The hole was about 50cm into the STP and seemed to be created by slabs of rock that had ended up next to each other in such a way to create a hole large enough for me to reach my forearm into. We reached a point where it was clear that the feature was not ending any time soon, and so we made our best attempts to clean around the various rocks jutting out in the STP. We photographed our work, and then drew a rough sketch of the section of the east wall to give future excavators some idea of what they would be dealing with if the decision was made to open up an excavation unit here in succeeding years. If the cavity and the porcelain shard were the highlights of the day, the many mosquito bites I got were the downside.

Week Four- 29/9/08

This week we opened up the next two excavation units in the north-west corner of the site, adjacent to Benefit Street. After helping to backfill the STP at N’0W’30, I worked on Unit 3, and we marked out our grid square of 1 metre by 1 metre. We photographed it before breaking out the trowels and shovels and proceeding to remove the topsoil. Our plan was to remove the context to a depth of 10cm from the surface in the north-east corner. It involved levelling the centre and other corners and measuring how much of a slope there was in each location so that we could make sure our depth of 10cm was consistent.

The context, labelled JBH 12, yielded the discovery of a nail almost immediately a few centimetres below the surface. Other finds included a shard of pottery that had a mulberry transfer print and was glazed on both sides, suggesting it might have been part of a bowl or teacup, a white glazed shard of ceramic, some terracotta pieces, and a shard of a tobacco pipe bowl. The pipe bowl shard has part of a design on it that was irregular, and so appeared to be incised by hand rather than machine. The context we were removing consisted of damp, dark, loamy soil, and involved frequent use of the root clippers because it was so near to the surface, but another context was appearing underneath made up of a mottled yellow/brown soil. We spent a while trowelling down to the context across the whole pit, and getting it level. With the edges nicely cleaned up, we set up to take a photo of it before packing away for the day and leaving our unit safely covered with a tarpaulin.

Week Five- 6/10/08

We labelled the yellow/brown mottled context JBH 17 and continued trowelling down through it. It was less buggy this week, but a lot colder, although we soon warmed ourselves up with our vigorous activity. This week Unit 3 gained the excavating skills of Jonathon, who gave up an afternoon to come dig with us. JBH 17 yielded some interesting finds pretty quickly, and pretty frequently. Our first find was a sherd of blue transfer print that was glazed on both sides and had a maker’s mark in the shape of clover/flower imprinted on the white side. Other pottery sherds revealed themselves, including one that had a change of surface angle, and was the largest that we had found so far. A nail of about 10cm, nail fragments, a glass shard, coal, and some brick fragments were among the other finds that made it feel like a very successful day.

The context seems to be continuing down below the next 10cm depth we allotted ourselves, and it is possible it is a fill of some kind. We may find traces of the structure that showed up on the geophysics in an earlier context, or it may be that JBH 17 was part of a construction trench for the structure. We levelled off JBH 17 at 23cm below the surface level of the NE corner before dry sifting the last of the removed context for the day and packing up.

Week Six- 20/10/08

After having the long weekend, the last time we dug seems ages ago. The soil from JBH 17 continues past 23cm, but we gave the nest 10cm an arbitrary context number, JBH 23. The soil was very loose, making it a task to level it down and clean up. It was a uniform brown, fairly pebbly, and as we got nearer to the 33cm below surface level, pockets of mortar began to show up in the context.

This context proved very lucrative in finds. We had barely removed any of it, and numerous pottery sherds appeared. One of the most notable sets of finds was about 6 pieces of the same ceramic- a pink sponge print on whitewear, dating from after 1830 (identification courtesy of a mobile phone photo and Krysta’s friend). Two interesting thick pieces of black glass showed up that were very different from the thin translucent glass also found. Also interesting was a piece of red earthenware with a green glaze- it would have been a utilitarian vessel, and the green glaze places it as an earlier piece, as the glaze was out of fashion by the mid-eighteenth century. Lots of nails or parts of nails also came out of the context, lending weight to the theory that this context could be fill in a construction trench. There were also numerous other ceramic sherds, some coal, and lots of brick fragments.

We levelled off the context at 33cm below the NE corner surface level, although this will be another arbitrary context change, as the soil composition seems to continue farther. We noticed that the finds got less frequent as we got nearer to the 33cm level, perhaps meaning that we are getting closer to reaching sterile soil. It will be interesting to see what shows up in Unit 5, which is going to be opened on Saturday, about 1 metre east of Unit 3 in hopes of revealing some of the structure seen in the geophysics, and partially uncovered in Unit 4.

Archaeology Day- 25/10/08

Today was the Saturday of Family Weekend, and the chance to visit the site was one of the events of the weekend, so some of us turned up for an extra digging session. There were a lot more visitors than I expected there would be (not, of course, because archaeology isn’t amazing....) which was a pleasant surprise. Or at least, it was gratifying, but it also meant that I was bombarded with questions (mostly the same questions) about what we were doing, and why. I sort of felt like a broken record explaining our finds from Unit 3 the previous week. I assigned another arbitrary context, and continued to deepen the trench. The finds still came fairly thick and fast, although there was noticeable less pottery than last week, with the bulk of the finds being iron nails, coal, and occasionally some glass. I had a lot of interest in the finds from the visitors, and I made a new friend. His name was Michael; he was 9, and fascinated by what I was doing. His help holding the dustpan and sifting finds was awesome. I (I mean Michael and I) managed to get 6 of the 10 centimetres of the context down to a nice flat level, and cleaned it up ready for Monday.

About a metre away from my unit exciting things were happening. Unit 5 was opened by Alex and Oscar, and after removing the topsoil (JBH 27), some interesting stratigraphy was revealed. They seemed to have several contexts in the same layer, and the soil was strikingly different from what I was excavating a short distance away. A couple of bricks appeared, although seemingly not in situ. I think I am moving over to Unit 5 on Monday, so I will get to see what can be gleaned from this new trench location.

Week Seven- 27/10/08

I left Unit 3 for Unit 5, and got to work with Evie on the rather convoluted contexts of the new trench. We established from Alex and Oscar’s notes that there were two context divisions in the unit, running roughly N-S, and that the two side contexts were both JBH 30 and the central one was a new context that we designated JBH 32. The east part of JBH 30 had been more or less excavated last week, so we just cleaned it up a bit. The West section had not, and revealed some interesting ‘features’, or potential features- an iron feature at the edge running E-W, and a smaller brick, slate and stone ‘features’. It was hard to designate the depth at which to stop excavating, so we decided to base it on the depth of the iron feature as we did not want to undercut it. After we decided that JBH 30 was as removed as it could be we took a photo of the unit with JBH 32 remaining unexcavated in the middle.

Then we proceeded to remove it. Although a difference in context could just about be noted between JBH 30 and 32, the gravelly nature of the soil was consistent. Interestingly, this is similar to what the excavators of Unit 4 encountered in the contexts above the feature they uncovered.....JBH 32 revealed some interesting finds- a brick with a maker’s mark, a section of a ceramic pipe with lead glaze on the interior surface, a potential cobblestone, several flat pieces of iron, and some sherds of white glazed ceramic that were a fascinating geometrical shape. We did not have enough time to finish removing JBH 32, (largely, I maintain, because of the time required to heave the gravel-filled buckets to the spoil heap and sort through the endless rocks) so Team E will return to this undertaking next week.

Week Eight- 3/11/08

We went out early this week at 1:30 as our time in the field is fast running out, and we are losing about half an hour at the end of class due to daylight savings. Krysta was in Tennessee this week, and so Kaitlin came out as a sort of replacement. She and I worked on Unit 5, and removed JBH 32. The stratigraphy was rather complex, and we ended up concluding that JBH 30 continued under JBH 32, across most of the unit. We also identified to other contexts at this level- JBH 35 that was a yellower sandy soil and seemed to be later than JBH 30, with a cut going northwards and down. There was also JBH 36- a dark loamy soil in the NE corner of the unit. It was very similar to the contexts I had been excavating in Unit 3. We found some more of the white ceramic pieces in geometric shapes, and they came out of different contexts, which could mean that one context was removed and re-filled at some point, or it could mean that two out our contexts were filled at the same time. There are also other possibilities, so finding them in different contexts was far from conclusive. Finds consisted mainly of brick fragments, a few nails, and some pieces of asphalt. Interestingly, one pottery sherd came out of JBH 32 that was the same pink sponge print on white wear that we had found several pieces of in JBH 23 in Unit 3. After removing JBH 32, 35 and 36, we were took a closer look at the east wall of Unit 3.

The contexts we had removed were rubbley, and this rubble line is visible in the section of Unit 3, which gives a relationship between the two units. We assigned a new context to the layer below JBH 30, 35 and 36, as some features were showing up. They might be remnants of an architectural feature, or just more fill, but some air holes were revealed where the larger features have fallen against each other. At this point, we're not really sure what is going on in this context, but Evie and I started a drawing of the unit at this stage with a grid square so that next week we can start removing it to hopefully shed some light on what is happening.

Week Nine- 10/11/08

As today was our last day in the field, we headed out early again. I finished drawing the plan with the grid square of JBH 41. I then began to move the rather convoluted context, removing some of the stone pieces that are potentially features. The context was very mortar filled in the south-east area, and a darker brown in the south-west area. This darker brown soil revealed some interesting finds- the piece of iron that had been visible at the top of JBH 41 was attached to a piece of stone, some mortar lumps, and several hefty rocks/pieces of stone.

What I was looking at was very convoluted, and very hard to define in terms of contexts, however what was clear was that a feature was emerging beneath the looser stones of what we had designated as JBH 41. I assigned it a feature number (7), and it was composed of several large stones with air gaps in the spaces. The largest was the stone that was situated in the northern half of the unit, and extended northwards beyond the unit. It looks to be a similar foundation to the one uncovered in Unit 4, and sheds some light on what the geophysical survey was showing us. It is infuriating to come across this just as we have to be thinking about backfilling the unit. With the time constraints, Evie and I attempted to remove the loose around the feature (an impossible task due to the air gaps and awkward angles) and brushed down the rather impressive looking feature that we now were looking at in the unit. We took a photo, and Evie headed off because she was kind of under the weather, and it was really quite cold.

I drew a profile of the north wall (south facing wall), huddled in the unit as the temperature dropped rapidly with the sunset. There was a fairly clear indication of JBH 32, the yellow context, and of the difference between JBH 36 (the loamy soil in the NE corner) and the more rubbley fill of what I’m almost certain is JBH 35- the stratigraphy is definitely confusing in this unit. We proceeded to backfill all the units after laying tarps in them and the physical labour was very welcome as it warmed me up. We were pretty efficient about clearing up the site, and left it looking none the worse for wear, minus some grass, some rocks, and many many roots. Lab, here we come.

Week Ten- 17/11/08

Today was our second day in the lab as we had been in on Thursday morning, although it is arguable how well we functioned at eight a.m. Krysta debriefed us on some basic overviews of the materials we would be dealing with, specifically addressing the classification of ceramics. It was interesting to apply the snippets of diagnosis Krysta had given us in the field to some samples of different ceramics, and to think back to what we had excavated. Having been debriefed, we continued the washing of the artefacts that we had begun on Thursday. Hopefully we will get through them efficiently. It is interesting to see the assemblages from contexts coming together as we break down the divisions based on date of excavation. The highlight of the day was definitely the replica clay pipe.

Week Eleven- 24/11/08

Today Evie and I began labelling the finds, taking them out of the bags to dab some nail polish on and write the context on in minuscule lettering. This will allow us to handle the finds more easily, without being paranoid about keeping the plastic bags nearby so we don't mix the contexts up. We attempted to work through the contexts chronologically, although this was not entirely successful as some were still being washed, dried or, near the end of class, cataloged.

Week Twelve- 1/12/08

The labelling continued, and we are steadily working our way through the contexts. By the end of class I think the end was in sight, although not yet reached. Thanksgiving meant that we lost our section time on Thursday (I was certainly crushed at not being in the lab at 8am, I can't speak for the rest), but the cataloging process is also moving along, and towards the end of class Evie started putting some of the cataloged contexts into the database. As far as object biographies go, I am thinking about looking into the fragment of pipe bowl found in Unit 3, the green glazed red earthenware from JBH 23 (Unit 3), and maybe, if it seems lucrative, the modern can popper also from JBH 23. I want to focus on objects from the units I was working in, that I was there for the unearthing of, as I feel that I have a greater connection to them, and understand their contexts (no pun intended) more thoroughly than if I chose finds from other units. The end of the semester is in sight, and I feel like we have a lot of work to do, both collectively in the lab, and individually outside the lab in our final projects. It's weird to think how far we've come from when we marked out the first 1x1 STP in September.

Week Thirteen- 8/12/08

This was our last class of the semester. We met in a classroom next to the lab to present our final projects to the rest of the class, and some guests from the RIHS and the JBH. Getting to see some of the video clips from Whitney and Kellie's project was a lot of fun- the soundtrack is awesome. Steffi's research on the Hale Ives homestead was particularly interesting for me, as a lot of the information related to Units 3 and 5, which I am in the process of writing Unit Summaries for. It was also interesting to start thinking about the ways in which our work is going to be presented for exhibition at the JBH and possibly in the new Institute next year in RI Hall. All in all it was a good last session for a good class.

2008 Class Members and Field Blogs