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Archaeology of College Hill 2006
Archaeology of College Hill 2007
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology
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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
[email protected]
It finally started to feel like fall today on site. Although it wasn’t cold the air had a chill to it and the sun shone a little weaker than it has lately. Of course, this made for great digging.
Work in all 6 trenches continued this week and on average they are about 40 cm. deep. Now that everyone has a feel for the site and how to dig the work is progressing faster.
Whit, Stephanie and Veronica worked in C1 today. Happily there were no mice in the trench this time and they managed to recover a nice bead. The soil here, like across much of the site, is starting to become more mixed and colorful, a jumble of black and yellow and white clay, as opposed to the homogenous grey dust we have been dealing with to this point.
C2 had a yellow-jacket infestation early on in the day and had to be abandoned. Prior to that, however, Veronica and Chelsea recovered a pipe stem fragment! This is exciting because a date can be determined for that SU based on the diameter of the central boring. Later in the day Scott, Maia and Mark worked in C2 and found a range of artifacts ranging from a fragment of a pipe bowl, to a black transfer printed pottery sherd with a discernable pattern on both sides! We should be able to find a matching china pattern for it. At the end of the day they uncovered a metal curved object protruding from the bottom of the trench. Scott did a plot of it but we will have to wait another week to see what it is.
Nicole and Doug were in D1 today. They recovered over 83 nails in a 2 hour period, as well as a ton of glass. A pipe stem fragment also came out of this trench – possible the counterpart to the bowl Chelsea found last week, so at least some of the layers should be dateable. Also a porcelain handle with some gilding still present came to light in this trench!
In D2 Cindy and Maddy made good progress recovering several large oyster shell fragments and some black glazed pottery, lending further support to the idea that in past that area of the lawn was used for picnics. Happily, it was less dusty there this week.
D3 saw the advent of another one of the “mystery features’ which have been plaguing it. They seem to be in a roughly circular arrangement now. Tyler and Chelsea spent the afternoon working in this trench
In D4 the clay feature in the middle of the trench was removed to reveal more slag beneath it and a sharply delineated line between burnt earth on the north side (where most of the slag is being found) and a different unburnt soil layer to the south. While most of the artifacts that Dan recovered from this trench were building related, he also recovered with the assistance of Melissa Amaral, a student from 2006 helping out for the day, a piece of impressed glass with the initial “M” or “W” on it as well as an assortment of bright blue glazed pottery.
Jason Urbanus of the Joukowsky Institute came out to help supervise today and get acquainted with the site, as did Tony of PAL (Public Archaeology Lab). Thanks guys! Finally, Noura Choudhury’s article on the dig came out in the BDH today. Check it out!