Kellie's Field Blog

SEPT 8TH

Today was our first day of class. We started with a brief introduction in the classroom but later headed to the John Brown House where we will be working for the rest of the semester. I have always been curious about the John Brown House and its enormous backyard and I was extremely excited to learn that we would be investigating the lawn.

Once we arrived we split into two small groups, which allowed us to closely interact with Tommy, Krista and Brad. My group was with Krista and Brad first and we started off by going over how to grid an excavation area. We then got right to it and began digging. We split into even smaller groups, groups of three, and measured out a 50cm x 50cm grid with a compass and a tape measurer, these would be our shovel test pits. Steffi, Whitney and I got some extra practice as the first grid we measured out was in the wrong area. By the time we finished gridding out our second area we were pros. Next we began to dig. We took off the top layer of soil and created a sod plug, which we will later put back in place. When we removed the top layer two nails were revealed. It was our first find of the season and boy, was it exciting!

After our discovery of the nails the two groups switched. We were then introduced to geophysical survey. After Tommy explained how the two machines worked we each got a chance to operate them. I was nervous because I was aware of how expensive the machines are and I didn’t want to trip or do anything too dumb. After we each got a go on the magnetometer and the electromagnetic conductor we went back to our shovel test pit, where the other group had been working, and we resumed work. We continued to make finds until class was over. I would say that our first day was a successful day and set a good tone for the rest of the semester.

SEPT 15TH

Our second day in the field was just as exciting as the first. We began by splitting up into two groups of six. While the first group got a private tour of the John Brown House, myself and five others continued to dig in the shovel test pits. I was working with Steffi in the shovel test pit that was producing all the fun finds (the tiles and mortar). Steffi and I uncovered a couple more tiles, cleaned off the mortar and a brick and found more mortar. We were busy dusting off the finds when some visitors arrived. The visitors included a few grad students, Mr. Joukowsky and his granddaughter.

When the first group returned from the tour, it was our turn to explore the John Brown House. I loved the tour of the house. There are so many amazing elements of the house. For example, the glass staircase, the copper sink, the intricate moldings and the old horse drawn carriage that is on display. After the tour we continued working on the shovel test pits until the end of class. If I ranked today, it would definitely be in the top two of my favorite days of class.

SEPT 22ND

Today was our first full class of digging. It was a little chilly but it was nice weather for a dig. Half of the class finished the shovel test pits, in which they found many interesting finds, including: oyster shells and many more bricks, tiles and mortar. There were also two excavation teams working. I am working in Excavation Team 2 with Meghan, Evie and Steffi on excavation pit 2.

We started work by roping off our excavation unit, and I learned it is important not to sit on the rope marking off the unit. We then took the elevation of each corner of the unit, which proved to be a little bit confusing, but after a couple of tries we got it. Our excavation unit is interesting because it contains visible remains of what appears to be some sort of foundation. It will be interesting to being our dig already knowing that there is a feature. We began by digging down so that the unit was level and ten cm below the highest corner.

By the end of class, we had successfully made our unit a uniform 10 cm below the highest corner, discovered 2 different contexts of soil and uncovered some interesting finds. Our most exciting find was a spigot that has a pipe around it. It appears as though the pipe is hollow because the soil was just falling through it. It was an exciting first full day of digging and I am looking forward to discover what our excavation unit has to offer!

SEPT 29TH

All weekend I was nervous about the prospect of having to dig in the rain but as the weekend came to a close so did the rain. It was still a slightly overcast day but it wasn’t cold and it wasn’t rainy so I really couldn’t ask for more. We started the day by emptying the tarps of the water and when we took the tarp off I was surprised about how effective the tarp actually was, I was expecting a small swimming pool. Once the tarp was off we starting digging. We finished exploring the sandy context. The soil under the sandy context was the same as the soil surrounding the sandy area, which was interesting and easier for paper work purposes. We were trying to get the whole unit down to 20 cm and in doing so we revealed more of the features in our unit (the spigot and the foundation) and came across a few fun artifacts. We found a piece of white glazed ceramic, pieces of glass, plastic and metal, and we also uncovered a metal strip that connects to the foundation feature. I am excited for next week because I think that another two and a half hours of excavation will reveal some interesting finds.

OCT 6TH

Today we continued to dig in excavation unit 2. Today was the first day that I felt comfortable with all the paper work, which was good considering I was scribe for the day. Last week we were trying to get it down to 20cm but ended up only getting it to about 16cm. Our goal today was to try to get the unit to a level 20cm. By the end of the day we were successful but getting to 20cm was a journey in and of itself. We uncovered the usual brick and mortar pieces but we did find one brick piece that had the makers mark on it. We also found a little America flag piece, it is probably my favorite find yet! Near the foundation and the metal strip we found a cinder block, which is barely exposed, but cool nonetheless. We finished the day at 20cm, cleaned it up nicely and took a picture.

For my project, Whitney and I are in charge of the media, so we have to record the findings and new contexts, etc of all the groups. Because this is my “job” I was there to witness many exciting discoveries. My favorite moment was when unit 1 found a Styrofoam coffee cup that said “Mr. Donut” on it. They were curious as to who this Mr. Donut character was and began doing some research. Ben googled it on his iphone and we learned that sometime in the 1980’s(ish) it was sold to Dunkin Donuts and is now the name brand that we all know and love today. Today we also had many visitors and it was really exciting to see their reactions to our work.

OCT 20

Today was another fun day in the field. It was a nice and sunny fall afternoon. We continued digging in Unit 2 in context 22. Our goal was to get down to a uniform 30 cm, but we ended the day just short of that at 27-28 cm. However, on Saturday we came out and dug for a couple of hours and were able to get down to 30 cm. When we reached 30cm we declared a new arbitrary context.

We did not make too many extraordinary finds, though we did find some rusty nails, mortar and asphalt. We did uncover a few bricks in the southwest corner, which will be interesting to see as we continue to dig.

I am still in charge of videoing so I was trying to find a balance between digging in my own unit but also keeping up with the finds in the other units. I have found that I really enjoy doing the video recording because it keeps me up to date with what is going on in the other units.

OCT 27

Today Unit 2 lost a valuable assest; Evie was moved to Unit 5 so it was just Meghan and myself left to dig in Unit 2. We began digging in our arbitrary level JBH 29 but only a few centimeters down we came across a new context. This new context is a little sandier with a lot of clay-like pockets. There are also some pockets of possible mortar. We did the paper work for this new context and began to dig. We only dug for about 10 minutes in this clayish context but we did not come across any extraordinarily awesome finds but it was fun to dig in a different type of soil.

We have exposed some more bricks and possible foundations, which will be interesting to further uncover next Monday. Today I also continued to film for my final project. We had a visitor from the Rhode Island Historical Society. He is an architect that has done some work with the John Brown House and it was interesting to get his opinion about our excavations.

NOV 3RD

Today was our last full day of excavation and as so, we were trying to uncover as much a possible. Megan and I worked a lot in the Southwest corner trying to uncover the brick pileup down there. We removed a few bricks as we had been working around them for some time and they were beginning to come loose. Once removed, more bricks were revealed; however, it appears that none of these bricks are cemented/mortared together- they seem to just be in a pile.

We came across a couple of interesting artifacts. We found a great piece of black ceramic, I think that it is a rim due to its shape…I am interested to examine it more closely in the lab. We also found a lot of charcoal…maybe there was some sort of fire? Other than that, we found more of the usual: nails, brick, asphalt and mortar.

The time change really threw me off because it was dark by 4:45 so we had to quit early but I do look forward to next week when we can continue to uncover that “brick pile” in the Southwest corner.

NOV 10TH

Today was COLD. But I got over that quickly because there was a lot of work to be done. Meghan and I cleaned up the unit for a Final Picture. We also took pictures of all four walls and our features. Once all of our pictures were taken we had to draw the stratigraphy of the walls, which was more work than I had anticipated because unlike the other groups, we had to map two walls rather than just one. The final drawings of our wall turned out really well and I wasn’t even mad that I had been lying in the dirt taking the measurements.

The next step was to backfill our unit. We put a tarp down and threw in all the dirt we had sifted through. Shoveling the dirt into buckets for our ‘dirt brigade line’ really warmed me up. It was kind of eerie because while we were backfilling the moon was already out…but at least it was out because it provided some light. It was a good last day of digging and I am looking forward to working in the lab.

NOV 17

Today was our first long class in the lab and it was nice to be inside and not out in the cold New England weather. We started off the day with a brief introduction to different types of pottery: earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. Krysta brought in examples of each type, which was really useful due to the fact that I would consider myself a visual learner. We also had a guest lecturer from RISD who went into more detail about porcelain. She was very interesting and I especially liked the story she told about how the Germans figured out how to make porcelain: they imprisoned a scientist until he figured out the secret “recipe” for porcelain. The objects that we looked at included beautiful plates, pieces of pipes and glass bottles. The lecture was very informative.

After the short lecture we continued to clean our artifacts. I was cleaning the artifacts from one of the STP’s, but I didn’t realize until today how many tiles we actually found. There seemed to be a never-ending supply of them, but the nice thing is that they are easy to clean. Next week we are going to try and finish cleaning all the artifacts.

DEC 21ST

Today we cataloged and labeled our artifacts. I learned how to label artifacts…and now I will share with you, the reader, this wonderful process: 1. Pick a place on the artifact that you want to place the label. Try to pick a spot that will be least useful when trying to analyze and identify the artifact. 2. Paint the area you chose in Step 1 with a thin layer of clear nail polish. 3. Let nail polish dry. 4. Write the context number as small as you can on the area where there is nail polish. This is the process of labeling artifacts. I thought that this process was very interesting. I like that if you mess up while labeling you can simply remove it with nail polish remover, hence putting down a layer of clear nail polish. On Thursday we should be finishing up labeling and cataloging the artifacts.