Sarah's Field Blog

September 14th:

It was a beautiful, warm Autumn day - perfect to start our field season at the John Brown House. After a walking tour of the house's property (which included a summary of last year's units) and learning a few site protocols, we broke into groups and started digging. I worked on Unit 7 today. Unit 7 is on the far Western edge of the property, in line with the site's 0,0 point; Unit 7 is a 1x2 meter rectangle. An earlier STP here revealed what may be an architectural feature - perhaps one of the house's early outbuildings. It was interesting to learn that the outbuildings were likely nearer to Benefit St - what we would consider the 'main street' running past the JBH today - because Power St was the 'main street' at the time of construction, so the house was oriented towards the South (also, towards the water).

The first step was photo-documenting Unit 7. After that, it took our group about an hour to dig out the backfill from the STP previously dug in Unit 7; this backfill was laid by the test pit excavators by lining the pit with a tarp and filling it in with rocks and dirt. The digging/troweling was tough, and we had to be careful to avoid disturbing or dislodging the feature, which is already beginning to reveal itself! The test pit (50cm x 50cm) is at the Southwestern corner of Unit 7, and the visible portion of the feature in the Northeastern corner of the test pit appears to consist of several layered, hard stones. The hope is that, as we dig Northward from the test pit, this feature will continue. Finally, we covered our excavated backfill and the test pit with tarps, and were finished for the day.

September 21st:

Our second class meeting was another beautiful day for excavation - warm, dry and sunny. After a brief walking tour of the units and sharing last week's work, we quickly broke into unit groups and started working. At Unit 7, we began work by photographing the starting conditions of the unit. Then we determined the highest corner of the four corners of the unit using string and a line level. We decided that the SW corner of the unit was the highest point (the datum), and roped off the four corners, leaving a length of strength @ the datum so that we can continue to measure the depth we've dug over the whole unit. The job assignments for the day were as follows: Ben, our trusty scribe; Siham, our intrepid sifter; Carol and I dug. We worked, clearing away the topsoil of the unit; in about two hours of work, we excavated half-a-dozen 5-gal. buckets of dirt. However, this only got us down about 3-5cm across the whole unit; dirt is surprisingly voluminous.

The top soil was generally dry and full of roots. By the end of the day, however, we'd gotten down to some moister dirt in places, and also indentified a chunk of the unit where the soil consistency is much more pebbly. We started to hit the tops of a line of large rocks. These rocks were only present in the NW corner of the unit, and seemed to be inline with the architectural feature in the STP in the SW corner; hopefully this will be a continuation of this feature!! We had to be careful not to be too overzealous digging where these interesting rocks were, and continued excavating the entire unit at a constant rate. Alex taught us a lot of excellent shoveling and troweling techniques.

We found several modern artifacts, including an elastic hairband, plastic beads, and remnants of a plastic cup (?). The most interesting find was a 2001 American dime, found about 3 cm down in the NW corner of the unit. We photographed the dime and documented its 3-dimensional location within the unit, before removing it from the context and brushing it off in order to date it. This let us know that we could not have dug down more through more than 8 years of deposition. While this isn't too thrilling, the find illustrated the importance of using coins to date contexts, and the process of documenting the excavation of an artifact. Team Unit 7 had an excellent day, and left the workday looking forward to next week!

September 28th

After the tour of last week's progress at the other units, our team got to work again. Today Carol recorded, Ben and Siham dug, and I sifted. We had a busy day at Unit 7. We've identified a new context - a gravelly layer around the rocky feature on the West side of the unit. Maybe this is evidence of a later infill? Rubble from the wall? We will also begin documenting a 3rd context on the East side of the unit starting next week, because we had dug down 10cm across the whole unit by the end of today. Because of the rain over the weekend, the walls of our unit had slumped a bit, and the soil was wet.

Things moved pretty quickly, especially after Krysta let us use shovels instead of trowels! We were only deterred by the intense root structure infiltrating our unit. We also had to pause to document and examine several interesting finds. The Unit was rife with artifacts today!! We found fragments of redware and creamware pottery, modern-looking rusty nails, a rusted piece of curled iron (not sure what it is), thin fragments of glass, small chunks of rubber (?) and plastic, a thick fragment of curved glass (from a bottle?) and a little mortar fragment. We also contined to come across the tops of the line of rocks; we were careful to dig around these and not disturb them.

It was an excellent day, and I was sorry we had to finish up, especially since we began finding so many artifacts at the end of the day. After the deluge of paperwork at the start of next week, hopefully we will pick up where we left off and continue to find exciting things! I'm also really interested to watch the rock wall start to take shape.

October 5th

We starting the day by closing context JBH45 @ Unit 7. We had dug down 10cm across the whole unit, and also determined the start of a new context on the Western half of the unit. Closing a context involves taking a closing picture, taking levels of the corners and center of the unit and finishing the sketching and notes on the paperwork. Starting the new contexts involved new paperwork; this references the closing picture and levels of the previous unit. Because contexts JBH50 and JBH51 are going down at the same level, we sketched them together on the JBH51 paperwork. I got to sketch by drawing from a viewpoint above a grid strung across the unit. My sketch, which was mainly of the rocks dividing the unit was rough, but I enjoyed sketching.

Once the photography and paperwork was completed, we began working on the two contexts separately. I worked on 51 (the gravelly western side) while Carol and Ben worked on 50 (the eastern side which is similar to JBH 45). Work was slow, as I was trying not to dislodge the rocks, and the soil was very gravelly and pretty damp. I only removed 1 full 5-gal bucket from my half of the unit today. Fragments of mortar, brick, quartz and lead came out of the gravel, as well as a very interesting "wire nail" and a rusty piece of metal about 1 inch long. We had some visitors from the J. Institute, and Ben gave a very articulate description of our work on Unit 7.

The last part of the day was spent on a tour of the ground floor of the John Brown House. The preserved artifacts are fantastic; I loved the carraige and the furniture. But most of all, I was blown away by the entrance hall of the house. This would have clearly made an impression: the wide hall, the large staircase, the high ceilings the view back through to the end of the house - everything was designed to make it feel grand. I imagined entering this house on a New England winter's day, and what a refuge it must have felt like to its inhabitants - and also the jealousy it might have inspired in those who didn't live inside the house or who would never be asked to be a guest there. Looking at the crude remains of the stone wall in Unit 7 and comparing them to the restored splendor of the JBH interior was a really striking comparison.

October 19th

Today was chillier and wetter at the site, but we still had great weather today. Carol and I worked in context 51, clearing loose gravel, rocks and debris away from the feature bisecting the unit. Siham and Ben worked in context 50. It was more difficult to excavate around the stones, as the ground was wet and filled with more rocks as we dug down. We further explored the dividing line between our two contexts, guided by the soil content and what we were finding. We altered that line so that it basically runs along the Eastern edge of the biggest rocks in the feature. We are almost ready to start a new arbitrary context on the 50 side, as we're down another 5cm there.

Despite the slow-going today, Carol and I found a number of interesting objects. Lots of rusty nails, mortar, brick fragments, and, perhaps most interesting, some white tiles which Elyse says look similar to those that came out of the STP. I found them mostly in the SE corner of the unit, West of the feature, though one was found on top of the feature; this one helped us distinguish the line between contexts 50 and 51.

We also started removing any rocks that easily started to come loose from the wall. These were all fist-sized or smaller rocks, and we removed 20-30 of these. We left the biggest rocks of the feature and excavated around them as best we could; sometimes a brush was the only way to accomplish this. We also found an air pocket that I could easily stick four fingers in under one of the bigger rocks. This may indicate that the wall was destroyed, has slumped or was otherwise disturbed. A constructed, undisturbed wall would not have these pockets in it, but a rubble pile or destroyed architectural feature probably would. Next week, we will likely start by measuring, drawing, photographing and removing the top layer of large rocks from the feature. We've mostl excavated around them, and they are becoming quite loose. It will be interesting to start the next layer of rocks below these!

October 26th

Today was really beautiful yet again, though our tarps were quite full of water from the weekend rains. We were missing two team members this week, but Siham, Alex and I worked quickly. We continued dividing work by the contexts, with one person working on the Western side of Unit 7 (JBH51) and two working on the East side (JBH50). We had several visitors to the site today (both two- and four-legged). Also, it is definitely starting to get darker and cooler much more quickly than in past weeks.

I worked on in JBH51 for the first part of today, and excavated about half a bucket of the gravelly soil, mostly from the Southwestern corner of Unit 7. I removed several more fist-sized or smaller rocks as they began to come loose from the wall. I also worked between the cracks of the top layer of rocks, trying to clearly define their shapes. Later, Alex took over working here, and he began to connect the STP to the area I was excavating, so we can get a wider and more uniform look at the feature in profile. Finds here included several more white ceramic tiles, a ridged brick (unlike the other brick fragments I'd seen here), and lot of rubble.

I then worked on the JBH50 side, which I hadn't done in a few weeks. Siham and I mainly shovel-shaved, getting down to 24cm across the whole unit. (Actually, when we took levels for closing this context, we were at 24 cm across the whole unit, which was pretty sweet considering we hadn't discussed it at all.) We could have started another arbitrary context above it, but the three of us decided not to, as the soil in context 50 has been unchanging throughout the dig. One reason for digging so swiftly today was to expose the Eastern profile of the architectural feature; we excavated about 6 buckets from this side today.

Exciting finds on the Eastern half today included lots and lots of ceramic pieces, nails, glass of varying thickness, some little green flecks that look like paint chips (?), a palm-sized chunk of iron and an absolutely beautiful PIPE STEM! Yay, artifacts!! We closed context 50 at 24cm, and opened a new one (JBH56) below it. This is an arbitrary change, as the soil hasn't changed; we will continue working quickly next week on this side to expose more of the stones.

November 2nd

We started work at 2:00 today, because it's getting dark so early. I didn't get to the site until three, but Carol and Alex were working away on the East side of the feature (now officially labeled feature 2; the East context is JBH56). We focused on the East side for the whole day, and took 5-6 more buckets of dirt out and are down to about >30cm across the whole context. Today we found a LOT of ceramics. An interesting assembly of similar looking white ceramics shards with different patterns of blue glaze came out of the ground; some were glazed on both sides, and we got a number of large chunks (>.5in to a side).

Other finds included a nail, something that looks like one of those white ceramic tiles from the other side of the feature, glass and coal chunks. We also came down on a new rubber sprinkler line. This was interesting as it didn't look like the feature or the dirt above it had been disturbed in the laying of this line. Perhaps it was laid by tunneling through the raised berm that holds back the JBH lawn above Benefit St. It would be interesting to go back in the recent house records to try and find out when this (and the line up @ Unit 9) were laid.

JBH56 started to get a little gravelly as we worked down; this potential soil change, as well as finishing out the 10cm for this context will prompt a context change as the next step at Unit 7. Maybe we'll get to do this next week, maybe it will be up to next year's excavators to work on. We ended the day by cleaning up the side walls, cutting out the copious roots, and working to better define the Eastern profile of the feature. We ended the day with a site tour, which was really impressive, as all the groups made a lot of progress today.

November 9th

Today was our last day of excavation at the JBH. We cleaned up Unit 7: this meant clipping away all the roots, scraping the last bits of dirt from between rocks in the feature, cleaning up the sidewalls, and smoothing the bottom of the unit. We took out one bucket of dirt, which yielded a final piece of white ceramic. We photographed the four walls of the unit, and engaged in some semi-accurate, top-down grid drawings of the rock feature. We took final levels; the East side of the unit was down to about 35cm, and we could see a very nicely defined profile of the feature across the whole unit.

I will be writing the site-wide stratigraphy part of the collective report, and decided that I should have a rough picture in my head of what each unit looked like as it closed. The STP had what Krysta called a "typical New England stratigraphy", which consists of sandy glacial soil, a few inches of "historical soil" above that, and then the dark top soil on top of that. That was clearly defined in the wall of the STP. It was also really cool to see in Unit 6 how clearly the rock feature was defined both the horizontally and vertically - i.e. on the floor and walls of the pit, respectively. It was impressive to see everyone's work.

We spent most of today (was it most of today? it FELT like a LONG time!) backfilling. The backfill pile for Units 7/8 was halfway in between them, so we had to move a lot of dirt a long way. My estimate: at least 200 half-full 5 gallon buckets of dirt = 500 gallons of dirt. Maybe this is exaggerating, but it wasn't so bad with everyone working together. We left the site in the dark, and I, for one, felt really sad to leave.

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