Class Journals 2007 - Stephanie | Archaeology of College Hill 2007

Week 1: September 17, 2007

Last Monday was our first day working in the field at the First Baptist Church. I arrived at 1 pm, eager to see how an excavation site is initially set up. Previous to Monday, my only field experience had been about a day and a half of digging at a Pueblo Indian site in Cortez, Colorado. Although I somewhat knew the basics of digging in a trench and screening dirt, I had never observed how trenches are initially set up. So, I was very intrigued to see how we go about setting up a trench and making sure it is a 1m by 1m square with 90 degree angles.

After working a bit at creating the trenches, I had to leave to go to my 2 pm Chinese class. Luckily, it was fine for me to leave and come back to continue the excavation process. Once I returned, the group had already separated out to work on 4 different trenches, beginning to remove grass and starting to dig. I went to trench C1 to help Dan and Natalie finish digging their first SU (Stratigraphic unit). I found myself really enjoying sitting outside in the grass, just digging. The weather was beautiful, not too hot, so it was quite comfortable and nice to be outside. Definitely better than sitting in a classroom for over 2 hours! During the course of our digging we found several small pieces of glass, some rusted pieces of metal (looked like they might be part of a fence) and some chunk of material that seems like it might be coal. There was also an abundance of a sort of bulbous root found during our digging. Although we cannot deduce much from these artifacts found so far, I am already starting to wonder what the pieces we found could mean. Perhaps we found evidence of an older fence from a previous construciton period. Who knows! I am excited to see what we find next.

After we reached 10 cm in depth, the end of our first SU, I went to help Nicole, who was already in the middle of her second SU, at her trench. During the course of the day, we also got fitted for dust masks, which I am sure will be very helpful when that pesky wind blows dirt all over the place during sifting! At the end of the day we cleaned up, covered the trenches with tarps, and took some notes. I can't wait to see what the rest of the semester brings in this course. Since I am anthropology major, I am eager to see if this class will influence me to get more involved in the archaeology aspect of anthropology. The idea that we can learn about the past not only from history texts and other historical documents but also from the actual evidence of life left in the ground is incredible to me. Though history often tends to record only the significant figures who stand out across time, archaeology gives us hints about the lives of real, ordinary people. I can't wait to see what else the FBC will reveal to us about the previous inhabitants of Providence. Just hope the weather will be nice again next time!

Week 2: September 24, 2007

This week I started off at 1 pm working with Cindy on trench D4. We were trying to dig around a clay layer in the middle of the trench, and attempting to determine where its layers were. I hadn't worked long, though, before I had to leave again for my Chinese class at 2. Once I got back, I was placed at the same trench I had worked on the first week, trench C1. Much to my surprise, when I pulled the tarp off that was covering the trench, a little mouse scurried out from underneath! Luckily, that was the one and only mouse I saw that day. I started to dig SU 2, which definitely proved to be more interesting than SU 1. After a while, when Whit came over to help me and keep me company, we started to find a lot of interesting items. There were plenty of glass sherds, as well as some rusty nails, coal, asphalt, a piece of pottery, and much more. I must say, the most interesting of the things we found were two glass sherds. One sherd was a relatively large chunk of a base of some sort of medicine bottle, definitely an interesting find! The other was a piece of glass with some kind of painted or enameled design on it, mostly red. It was difficult to determine what the design was, but I was curious whether, with any research done, we could find another example of that kind of design. Last semester in a class on material courses, I wrote my final paper on glass tableware artifacts from the site of Smith's Castle in Rhode Island; hence, I have some previous knowledge about and interest in these pieces of glass we are finding now.

The weather was quite nice once again, and I enjoyed sitting with Whit and talking while we dug. The rest of the day was just enough time to flatten out the bottom of SU 2, finish sifting our dirt, take some pictures, and record notes in the journal. We were starting to hit a layer that might be different and muddier than the first (we weren't sure), so we stopped SU2 at about 18.5 cm down from the surface. I am hoping that I get to work in the same trench again because I am eager to see if we find any more of the same vessels from which the two interesting glass sherds came from. However, Whit was also telling me about the multitude of interesting artifacts that came out of another trench he was working on, so maybe I will get to spend some time in there as well.

I am looking forward to our next dig; the deeper we get, the closer we get to the past and what it has left behind for us! So far, this class has only reinforced my interest in archaeology and discovering amazing things about the past through a fascinating method!

Week 3: October 1, 2007

Well, this week we had the first dig of October! It was a nice day, slightly cooler than usual, which I definitely viewed as an advantage. I showed up at 1pm and got to work on trench D2 with Cindy. I did not know much about this trench, so I enjoyed working in some place new for a bit. I got so involved in finishing up a level in D2 that I was almost late for my 2 pm class! I must say, I am definitely getting a good workout heading up that hill twice in one day (not to mention my 2 pm class is on the 3rd floor of Sayles Hall!).

After class, I chose to work in C1 again since I knew it best, and joined Veronica and Whit. We enjoyed talking with one another, although three was definitely a crowd at some points during our dig. However, our sifting work was extra easy since we had three pairs of hands to help. We found lots of interesting artifacts, such as glass, coal, brick pieces, and metal nails. I found a small piece of blue-on-white pottery which I was very excited about. I wonder what it can tell us once we get back to the lab and analyze it. Veronica also recognized a possible kind of volcanic rock which was very light in density. Since our trenches are getting deeper, it is definitely getting more difficult and tiring to bend over and dig. However, this is also a good thing because the deeper we get, the farther back in history we go! And, I am hoping that the deeper we get, the more interesting artifacts we will find.

Also, soon after starting SU4, Whit and I realized we were hitting some kind of new natural level, much more clayey and reddish. Kate advised us to stop SU4 at this level, so we only got down a few centimeters more before the end of the day. I am quite interested by this new natural level, and I am eager to excavate in this trench again next week so I can see what happens next. It's interesting to think that we find single pieces of glass supposedly from several different vessels. Where did the rest of the pieces of these vessels go? Are they simply further down in the ground and we haven't uncovered them yet? Are they hidden somewhere in the ground outside of our trench? Or is there another explanation entirely? I think it would be quite fascinating to find more pieces of, say, blue-on-white pottery so that we would have more pieces of the puzzle to study. Hopefully our next dig will yield some great results!

On another interesting note, I was very excited to see an article on our class in the Brown Daily Herald! I think it's great to spread the knowledge of what our class is doing, and how easy it is to get involved. Archaeology isn't all about Indiana Jones and traveling to far off, mysterious places. Sometimes, some of the most fascinating and significant archaeology can happen right in your own backyard! Sometimes I feel as if other people have a hard time taking archaeology seriously, so I thoroughly enjoyed reading the newspaper article; I hope it shows more people how relevant archaeology can be in today's studies of histories and past cultures.

Well, I can't wait to get back to the site next week! Until next time.....

Week 4: October 15, 2007

This week, our time was divided between excavation at the First Baptist Church and learning about remote sensing at the Nightingale-Brown House. At 1, I headed over to the Nightingale-Brown House, where for a while I was the only student there! Eventually a few other people showed up, and we learned about how to set up lines across the property so that remote sensing can be done at even intervals, or transects, to control the physical parameters. We were almost done with setting up the grid when I had to leave for my 2 pm class.

After my Chinese class, I decided to head to the First Baptist Church to dig first. There was a small group there, and I ended up digging in the famous D1 trench with Mark. Within a couple minutes of digging, I had found a bone right in the middle of the trench! It was very exciting! Now I am no bone expert, but it looked to me something like the end of a humerus maybe, a couple inches in length at most, with that sort of double rounded end. Kate thought it was probably animal (hopefully it is!), and Mark and I went through the procedures to make the bone a special find, recording its coordinates, etc. Before I could really even get into digging again after the find, Mark found another piece of bone! It was quite the exciting day at the church, considering we only spent about an hour excavating! Discovering the bone pieces really made me think about how they may have gotten there in the first place. Why did we only find two pieces of bone at one particular horizontal layer? Is it simply because the other pieces of the skeleton decayed, or is there a more complicated explanation for how those particular pieces of bone were deposited? I am hoping that once we go into the lab, some of these questions can possibly be answered.

At a little after four, the four of us switched with everyone else at the Nightingale-Brown house. It was really interesting two learn about how magnetometry and electromagnetic sensing work. We each got to take turns walking lines with the GEM II, keeping a steady pace with the machine close to the ground for accurate readings. The purpose of the GEM II is to pick up anything in the ground that is electrically conductive. Scott, Mark, and I ended up staying a little extra after class to help Tommy finish the walking the lines across the property. The weather was really nice, and I enjoyed spending some quiet time in the beautiful yard of the Nightingale-Brown house. I am really anxious to see the results of the remote sensing tests we performed to see how much information they can actually convey. Who knows, maybe something really exciting will show up in the results!

On another note, I really enjoyed this week's section. Jason Urbanus came to talk to us about the history of Providence. I had no idea it was so interesting! I am not from around here, so I definitely learned many 'fun facts' about Providence that I didn't know before. Even though it was 9 am, I stayed wide awake for the entire section!

Overall, I must say this week was certainly both very productive and fascinating too!

Week 4: October 20, 2007

Saturday was Community Dig Day at the First Baptist Church so that members of the church could come help us excavate and see what we were all about. I was placed in trench D2 with Scott, working to make SU 7 level with SU 6. Scott and I each found a cluster of pottery sherds in SU 7! The pottery looked like some kind of of pearlware or creamware, but I couldn't be sure. Most of the broken pieces were pretty small, smaller than a thumbnail. Scott and I wondered if both clusters could actually have been part of the same vessel or dish. Hopefully in the lab where we can all put our brains together, maybe we can figure out what these pottery sherds once constructed!

I enjoyed having visitors at the excavation who seemed really interested in what we were doing. It gave me a different perspective on our excavations, a different view than the one I usually have in a class-mindset. Since not too many people showed up, we only dug for about an hour and a half. However, it was a nice start to my Saturday!

Week 5: October 22, 2007

This week, I started off working in D2 with Cindy. We worked on leveling out SU 7 (I believe) until it reached the level of SU 6, which is a strip on the eastern side of the trench. I was very lucky to find the majority of what is most likely a pipe bowl; I was very excited about the discovery! We did not call it a special find, but documented it and took pictures. There were no maker's marks on it that I could see, but I wonder if we will be able to learn anything else about the pipe bowl once we get into the lab.

When I came back after my 2 o'clock class, I worked on trench D4 with Maia. I must admit, I found it much easier to dig in this trench than in D2 because it was much shallower; D2 is much deeper so far and it often hurts your back to bend over while working. I find it easiest to lay on my stomach and dig when we start to get very deep down! (Needless to say, I also get very dirty). Anyway, the composition of the soil in D4 was also much more complicated; it appeared to be a kind of mish mash of all different types - clay, loose dirt, and plenty of rocks! Kate told us that most likely many of the rocks were a result of the trench's close proximity to the road, which makes sense. Not only would construction result in a lot of rocks in this area, but also simply the constant action and movement on Angell Street often kicks up rocks and other debris into the church yard. We continued to dig a new 10 centimeter arbitrary level in SU 6, leaving a darker charcoal-looking strip called SU 5 at the northern end of the trench. We only found one piece of pottery (it looked like it was glazed), but found several pieces of glass (mostly flat glass, like from windows), metal (especially nails) and bricks.

I really enjoyed talking to Maia, and it definitely made the time pass by more quickly. We also felt each other's pain when we carried our heavy buckets of dirt to the sifters!! It took us awhile to realize we should start sifting when our buckets were only about half full! It was a beautiful day, and hopefully next time it will be as well.

Week 6: October 29, 2007

Well, this was the last day of full digging at the First Baptist Church. I have to admit, I'm kind of sad that we are almost done. It feels like we just started! However, I know it's for the best since this week it was already starting to get pretty cold. I'm not sure how well I could handle digging in the trenches during the beginning of winter!

This week I started out in trench D4 on my own, a particularly rocky trench. I worked on cleaning the eastern wall of the trench, which was not as vertical and straight as it needed to be. Not much was discovered during this wall clean, only some bits of glass, metal, and brick. It was pretty chilly, especially in the shade, so I had work gloves and hood on. Kate said that with my sunglasses on, I looked like the unabomber! It was pretty funny.

After my 2 pm class, I worked with Maddy in trench C2. While I had been gone, the decision had been made to start quartering the trenches into 50cm by 50cm squares in order to get down as deep as possible for the rest of the day. I dug the northeast quadrant of the trench, while Maddy dug the southwest one. The trench was getting so deep, I found it easiest to lay on my stomach and dig that way. Needless to say, I got pretty dirty! Besides a lot of worms, I mainly found pieces of brick and metal. No revolutionary discoveries this time! Not wearing gloves and laying on the cool ground left me pretty frozen by the time class was over. Believe me, I am definitely bringing gloves next time! It seemed to me like in this trench, we may have been starting to reach sterile soil, but I couldnt be sure. I am curious as to whether we could have found more interesting artifacts if we had kept digging deeper.

Next class, we will be taking soil samples, drawing plans, and backfilling the trenches. It is amazing to consider how quickly several weeks' worth of digging can be undone within a few seconds of backfilling! I must admit, I am slightly dreading the potential hard labor that lugging around backfill soil will entail! Hopefully it won't be too bad. I am more looking forward to getting into the lab and studying everything that has been found. I feel as though there are several discoveries from many of the trenches that I do not know anything about yet. I can understand the feeling archaeologists must get when they are carrying out excavations; I am sure many of them must find it quite fascinating to get into the lab and start studying the artifacts that they have worked so hard to find. I am certainly eager to experience that aspect of archaeology now. I have studied artifacts in a lab before, but never artifacts that I myself have dug up.

Well, that's all for now. All I can say is, I hope tomorrow isn't too cold!!

Week 7: November 5, 2007

Well, this week was our last day in the field. I must admit, it was bittersweet. It seems like we had only just begun digging! It's crazy how quickly time passes. Anyway, I started out working in trench D1, attempting to draw a top plan of the trench. I must admit, it was a little confusing at first trying to figure out exactly how to make the necessary measurements with a level measuring tape and correctly eyeing where certain features were. What we had previously learned in section definitely applied here; just as we had practiced, we needed to clip a measuring tape to a level line and use this as our reference point for making measurements in the trench. By the time we had made and measured a few points of where the quadrants were, it was already time for my 2 pm class. I have to tell you, I was definitely happy that this was the last time I had to walk up the hill twice in one day!

When I came back from class, I was put with Cindy and Whit working on taking soil samples in trench D2. We had to take at least one soil sample from every stratigraphic unit, usually more if the unit was more than 10 cm in depth. Also, the soil samples had to be taken at the same distance from a set corner of the trench every time, to keep things more consistent. The samples were then put into labeled plastic bags, and the location of where the samples were taken were marked on the section that had been drawn for that trench. The three of us working as a team turned out to be pretty effective, so Kate made us the soil sample team for all of the trenches. I feel pretty lucky, and also pretty guilty, considering we got out of having to backfill most of the trenches!

As we neared the end of taking the soil samples from every trench, it got pretty dark outside because of Daylight Savings Time. By the time we were at the last trench, we could barely see anything! After we were done with taking soil samples, Cindy, Whit and I joined the rest of the class in finishing filling up the last two trenches. I can't believe how lucky we were getting to do the soil samples; even backfilling for the last 15 minutes of class was hard work! Plus, it was pretty cold outside and after being outside for awhile, my gloves weren't helping much anymore.

Now that we are done working in the field, I am looking forward to seeing what lab will be like (I'm sure not getting dirty will also be a nice change too!). My topic for my final paper is brick (how exciting!) but I am hoping that the brick found from the trenches can reveal something interesting about the history of church and maybe about how it was built. Well, next time I will update with some of my findings on the bricks of the FBC site!

Week 8: November 12, 2007

Today was our first day working in the lab. All we did was work on cleaning all of the artifacts we had found. We each had our own bucket of warm water and a toothbrush to use to scrub the artifacts. I had actually cleaned artifacts beore at Crow Canyon, so I thought it was cool that I had been through the process before. It was interesting to see all of the artifacts other people had found, such as pipe stems, beads, pieces of glass and pottery, and metal objects. We were not supposed to clean rusted metal objects or shells in case we might damage them. After we washed the artifacts, we laid them out on drying racks. Next week we will probably start each studying our individual artifacts/topics. My topic is brick, so hopefully I will be able to gain some useful information out of the artifacts I will study. I hope I will figure out how to analyze brick pieces and what they could mean!

Working in the lab was definitely interesting, certainly different than working in the field. Hopefully after next class, I will be able to update the 'Brick" portion of this wiki with my findings. Until then...

Week 9: November 19, 2007

Today we each began to work on our own separate projects. Since mine was brick, my first task was to separate all of the brick pieces out by SU and trench for easier research later on. Each SU within each trench got a different paper bag. Unfortunately, there were so many brick pieces that it took me the entire class period to organize them all! Even with other people helping me, it took me the entire class period to finish. The hardest task was distinguishing between brick pieces and pottery pieces; some look so similar it is virtually impossible to tell the difference! I also counted the number of pieces from each level and wrote this on each paper bag. Next class, I will start weighing, drawing, and studying the brick pieces (probably the largest ones in particular) for my report. I haven't been able to analyze any bricks/brick pieces in detail yet, but I definitely discovered some large ones that could hold particular meaning for my paper.

Hopefully next time I will have more to report back on the progress of my brick study.

Week 10: November 26, 2007

This week I continued studying the brick artifacts. I weighed all of the brick pieces by SU; this information can be found in the Brick section of the wiki. D1 and D2 seem to have the largest amounts of brick, especially in SU 8. Hopefully we can soon get some dates for each SU, maybe using pipe fragments, because I am really interested to find out when SU8 relates to the history of the construction of the church. I have been enjoying working in lab, especially drawing the artifacts. The only things I have left to do are to measure the dimensions of some of the brick pieces that I am focusing on, and maybe take some more pictures. I am also planning on researching more into the difference in brick color; there seems to be a fair amount of more orange-y bricks. Perhaps this can help relate to the time period in which the brick was made. Unfortunately, no stamps or maker's marks were found on any of the brick pieces, so it is going to be pretty difficult to date the bricks or possibly identify where they came from. Hopefully with more research I will be able to get somewhere in terms of learning something new about how the First Baptist Church was built. Overall, lab work has been interesting and enjoyable although bricks aren't exactly the most diagnostic of artifacts!

Week 10: December 3, 2007

This past week I just continued to work on my brick project in lab. In class on Monday, I finished early, so I did not have to stay in lab the whole time. I drew another picture of a brick sample, so I now have three total. I also took more pictures that I had forgotten to take earlier, as well as measurements of the six brick samples I am focusing on in my project. I have posted the samples I am examining under the Brick section of the Wiki. I have made numerous trips to libraries, collecting books for my research. I haven't been able to find too many helpful books on bricks, but I have gotten a lot of information on the church and its different phases of construction.

Today (December 10) we each gave our presentations on our projects at the Joukowsky Institute. I really enjoyed listening to everyone's presentations and hearing about the research they have been doing. The presentations kind of wrapped up the class in a way, and we got to see the results of the whole semester's worth of work. Now I just have to finish my paper for Friday!

Stephanie
Field Team
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