Archaeology of College Hill 2009

Monday Sept. 14, 2009

Today was the first day of class and my first visit to the historic John Brown House. We learned the layout of the land, while walking the property and also discussed some of the exciting findings from last year's units. In 2008, they had excavated 5 units. This year we will be excavating 4 units begining with unit 6. The unit I will be working on is unit 8, located next to the newer addition of the John Brown House. It is a fairly large unit, 2 meters by 2 meters, with the highest stake being in the north east corner. My group, with the help of Krysta, roped off the unit and then proceeded to take the measurements on the levels of the ground. I was the scribe of my group and recorded our findings on the field sheets. We also took our first photograph of unit 8, which was a plan view. Sarah, who is in my group, is working on a video montage and she recorded some of the things we did today. My group was not able to begin digging, but the groups working on units 6 and 7 (which are located in the yard, closer to Benefit Street) began removing the backfill from their units.

Monday Sept. 21, 2009

It was a beautiful day out, 75 and sunny- a perfect day to begin unit 8's excavation. We began the class by taking a walk around the yard and listening to recaps about the other units' work from the previous week. Krysta gave us some additional background information about the units for this semester's excavations. Units 6 and 7 are located where there were units last fall. Both units 6 and 7 contained stone structures, one of which may have been a wall and the other possibly a house foundation or architectural structure. Unit 8 is located where there was once a carriage house and some other buildings before the addition to the John Brown House.

After reviewing our data sheet from Sept. 14 we talked with Krysta about begining our excavation. We recorded notes about the surface of our unit before we began the process of removing the vegetation. It was a tedious process, but in the end we removed all the weeds and vegetation to expose some dark, damp dirt. Some of the surface dirt contained balls that are common with potted plants. Therefore, my fellow excavators and I believe that some of the vegetation was purposely planted in the area. Once we had successfully cleared the surface of all vegetation we began cutting into the soil with shovels. Then we skimmed the top of the soil, approximately 2 cm, and put the dirt into buckets which we later sifted. My unit and I found some exciting artifacts, both from sifting and just from skimming the top of the soil with the shovels. Some of the exciting artifacts that we found today include a wire nail, a tack, a shell, charcoal, some glass, a piece of porcelan, a piece of white ware, a clay pipe stem and some orange plastic. We were surprised by the amount of artifacts that were already turning up in context 43.

Once we finished shoveling for the day (we stopped when the soil changed colors and consistency) we used the trowels to even out the ground surface. Overall, I believe it was a great first day of excavations and I look forward to next week!

Monday Sept. 28, 2009

It was another perfect day for excavations in the John Brown property. We began class again with a review of last week's progress. Afterwards, I went back to work on unit 8 and began discussing with my group what our next steps were going to be. We began by removing the tarp and clearing some vegetation and growth. Then we did some trowel work to cut the edges of our unit. We sifted through the dirt and came across some more interesting finds for context 43. There was a large piece of redware and also another corroded wire nail as well as a shorter nail attached to a piece of metal.

We used the trowels to clear off the rest of the looser top soil until we reached a soil that was mottled and looked like clay in consistency. Then we took a photograph of the new context in plan view and labeled it context 49. We did not have much time left before we needed to clean up our area and cover the unit, so we sifted through one bucket of dirt but it did not yield any significant finds.

I am looking forward to next week's excavations and what finds it will bring.

Monday Oct. 5, 2009

We have had great luck with the weather! It was another sunny day for excavating unit 8. Again we began class with a review of last week's progress and visited all the units. As a class we discussed some of the findings that have been kept and documented. After we finished walking the yard Sarah, Andrew and I returned to unit 8. The tarp had been removed and the soil was damp from Saturday's rain. We needed to clean up our unit by removing some of the mottled soil and we began the process of trying to level out our unit. We used both shovel shaving methods and troweling. However, before we were able to make much progress at our unit, we went inside the John Brown House for a tour. Dan was our guide and he provided us with very interesting information about the family that had inhabited the home. I learned that the original house was completed in 1788 and the residents moved in that June. It was nice to see the inside of the house and get to walk hallways and inside the rooms like the inhabitants would have done on a daily basis. The tour and information session with Dan lasted nearly an hour. When we finished the tour we returned to our unit and Krysta helped us sift through the remaining buckets of dirt.

We found a large piece of brick along with some mortar, slate and another piece of porcelain. Today we also had two visitors come see the progress we were making.

Monday Oct. 19, 2009

Today was our first day back to dig in our unit after a period of two weeks. Luckily the sun came out and we did not have to dig in the rain like the forecast had been predicting. We began the day with a tour of the yard and a review of the progress made in each unit. Afterwards, we resumed work in our unit. Since the tarp on our unit is not actually big enough we noticed some runoff from the recent rain as well as fallen leaves in the southern part of unit 8. We began by shovel shaving and focusing our attention mainly on the higher elevation, eastern wall. We wanted to level that off with the rest of the unit so we can be at the same depth. Sarah, Andrew and I were assisted by Alex today. He helped us sift through our many buckets of dirt. Even though we were digging up much soil there did not seem to be a change in soil and so we continued with context 49 for the day. We began running in to some very large rocks near the northern wall and then found more spread out through the unit. We tried to dig around them as best we could and leave them in situ in case they are part of a larger architectural feature. Additionally we found some quartz rocks in the soil. We were unsure whether they are naturally occuring or may have been left accidentally by workers?!

Our finds for today included some cut fragments of metal, pieces of glass, brick and porcelain, as well as a piece of redware. Overall, today was successful in removing dirt from our unit. Now it looks like we are actually making some progress in terms of depth.

Monday Oct. 26, 2009

The weather today was beautiful, especially for a day so late in October. It was warm and sunny. Unfortunately though, the ground was still wet from the terrible rainstorm on Saturday. Today we had one visitor with us for a bit and many others stopped by throughout the day.

Once again we began our class session with a tour of the yard and visited the four units. When we returned to our unit we were upset to find that the rain washed away some of our progress from the previous week. So today we focused our efforts on getting more depth to our unit. We had a tough time shovel shaving because the soil was so heavy and wet. There were also many large rocks that made both shoveling and troweling quite difficult. Despite the seemingly uncooperative soil we managed to finish digging out context 49 by the end of the class period. Krysta offered us some digging and sifting help, and the three of us took equal turns sifting through the heavy dirt. After finishing context 49 we had uncovered a long metal wire that seemed to be coming out from underneath the rock on the North wall of the unit. Additionally, there was a large rock in the northeastern corner, right next to the datum point. Also interesting was the fact that the Southeastern corner had a different type of soil by the end of today's digging. The soil was dark in color and fine in consistency.

We cleaned the walls up and used the trowels to smooth out the ground before photographing our new context. At the very end of class we opened up context 57 and took ground level measurements.

Some of our finds today included pieces of rocks with orange paint, metal, brick, glass, whiteware, pearlware, and porcelain. We also found a large corroded piece of metal and a metal nail. Overall, my entire unit and Krysta were satisfied with the progress in unit 8. We only have one more digging class left and then we must backfill!

Monday Nov. 2, 2009

Today class began at 2 pm due to limited hours of light. Unfortunately, neither Sarah nor I were able to make it to class until 3, so Andrew had to begin working without us. When we arrived at 3, we went over to our unit to find some exciting things happening. Andrew had uncovered a new context, context 58, which was characterized by a change in the soil color. the context was L shaped in the southeastern corner and along the walls. It measured approximately 73 cm east and west along the south wall by 74 cm north, south against the east wall. Context 58 was approximately 12 cm deep. We believe that the soil was put in the ground and is younger than the rest of the soil surrounding it. We took a soil sample to check the color against the book and it was 2.5 Y and dark gray soil when wet. Additionally, in the northeastern corner Andrew had found a piece of cloth. We photographed the new context and the feature.

Then we planned out excavation strategy with Krysta. Andrew dug in context 58 to figure out the depth while Sarah and I dug near the cloth, trying to expose the rest of it. We shovel shaved and Andrew used a trowel. We discoved that underneath the cloth there was a gravel fill. The cloth seemed to span most of our unit.

We discovered a large drain pipe near the southern wall. It is situated above the cloth. Slightly north of the pipe is a large rock.

Some of our interesting finds today, besides the ones mentioned above include more pieces of redware, porcelain, brick, plastic and glass. From context 58 we found a nail.

Monday Nov. 9, 2009

Class began again at 2 today. It was a beautiful day out- almost 70 degrees and sunny! A perfect last day for excavating. I arrived at 3 to find Krysta and Andrew already up at unit 8. They had uncovered most of the tarp and were focusing on the tarp in the southern portion of the unit. They had photographed it and also had removed the drain pipe. We took a few depth measurements while Andrew dutifully recorded the information and data. Sarah and I got to remove the tarp and see what was underneath. The tarp was very fragile and ripped easily. We pulled back the tarp to expose gravel in the southern portion of the unit. Also, when we removed the tarp we found another drain pipe on the Eastern wall. Then Sarah and I proceeded to dig out the gravel to find out the depth. We made some progress, but due to time constraints we only dug to 72 cm. The gravel did not contain any dirt and was pretty much void of all artifacts. However, we did find one piece of plastic. Krysta told us that the plastic artifact meant it was a modern fill.

After we dug through the gravel it was time to wrap up the excavations. I cleaned up the walls for final photographs and in the southern wall I found another drain pipe, jutting out of the wall. Once all the photographs were taken and the paperwork completed, we began the backfill process. It took a while to refill the unit, and once we finished unit 8 we helped backfil STP 3. Then I went with Krysta to drop off the sifters and artifacts bags in the storage shed. When I returned I helped units 6 and 7 finish their backfill. It was a long day of shoveling and lifting dirt. Overall, I had a good time working in the field. My unit was great to work with and it seemed like we were just getting to all the good stuff. It's unfortunate that we won't be able to find out what was under the gravel, but hopefully next year's class will make some great progress and interesting finds!