Sarah R's Field Blog

Today was our first day of class. I was unsure if I would take this class, but after today I decided this class would be a great experience for my senior year. We spent today stringing the border around our unit, unit 8. We also took pictures of how everything looks before we begin. I am sure that after next week, we won't even recognize our unit. Also, I am going to the videographer for our class, which I am very excited about. I am looking forward to next week when we break ground!

9/21 Today was our first real day of digging. As promised, it was very exciting! We began by surveying all of the units. We then started clearing out the weeds, moss and planting in our unit. We skimmed the top layer of soil and began sifting through the dirt. Amazingly quickly, we found some really interesting stuff. Some of the highlights, which I documented on the flip video, were the two different nails, pieces of glass, pieces of a porcelain cup, orange plastic, brick, slate and our favorite; the piece of a smoking pipe! The sifting was at first kind of cumbersome and unenjoyable, but after we started finding things, it became my favorite part. Our team is getting along very well. We were in agreement on the few decisions we have had--such as wether to focus on leveling the unit, and digging more in at the datum, or trying to make equal progress on the entirety of the unit. We agreed to focus on leveling the unit. I am really looking forward to our next dig day and I hope we have the same great weather as today!

9/28 We began today by surveying all the units. So far everyone looks like they are progressing quickly and discovering some really cool things. Our group has a very large unit so it is taking us a longer time to gain depth. We worked hard today to get to a new layer of dirt and begin a new context. Our second context is JCB 49 and is a mottled clay context. I am very excited to see what we are going to find in this context, since we only just began it at the end of the period. Today we did a lot of troveling and sifting. We found another nail, some more porcelain and another piece of a pipe. It is very exciting that we keep finding some artifacts, but I am worried we will not find any large features. Hopefully once we start making progress on this context we will run into a feature. Clearly, there was a lot going on at this site, since there are so many pieces of coal, slate, brick and glass. I am beginning to get excited about the lab work because I curious to learn about these different artifacts and date them. I think our group is working very well together and made significant progress, considering we were down a person today. I hope that I am able to remain on unit 8 the rest of the dig days, I feel invested in that unit and want to see it through. Today, for the documentary, I also filmed a professor from Brown, who stopped by and a videographer for the Rhode Island Hall dedication. I am also excited to begin making a video with all of these short clips I have been collecting. I have come to learn that the documentation of an archeology site is very valuable and important! My final project will be an integral final piece to our semester. I can't wait to get digging again next week. I really hope we continue to have good weather!

10/5 Today we began digging on our unit, which had been kind of "de-excavated" by the rain over the weekend. Unfortunately, our tarp cannot cover the entire unit so a part of it flooded and there were some new large rocks that had not been there before! We worked hard to maintain our edges and uncover the context from last week. We did a lot of shovel shaving today because we need to get down further and we had not hit any features. At the end of our digging time we began to find a large stone with a very smooth, curved side. We are hopeful that it will be part of a feature but we did not get a change to really trovel around it before we were done for the day. When we were not digging, we took a tour of the John Brown House. This was a really special event for me because I am a US History concentrator and was really excited to learn more about the history of Brown and Rhode Island. The house was very well maintained and so beautiful. The replicated wall paper from the original company was unbelievable. I am enjoyed all of the china and paintings. There were some really cool drawings of Providence, which showed where all of the first buildings were and where the water had been. I also enjoyed seeing the exhibit of the Voyage of the Sally, which I heard a lot about over the past few years in history classes. I am definitely going to encourage my friends to visit the JBH before they graduate, it is a very special place at Brown.

10/19 Our dig today was very productive. After touring the other units, our group was very motivated to really gain more depth in our unit. Though we realize that we should not rush through our process, and that digging deeper is not necessarily our goal, we were curious to see if there actually were features in our unit. We did find a lot more large rocks in our unit, but nothing that we are positive is a feature. We came across some more porcelain pieces, cut metal, brick, glass and large quartz pieces. We are still in the same context but along the Eastern wall we are finding a darker brownish black dirt, which could be a part of the next context. In our mottled context, we are finding chunks of blueish green soil and chunks of bright orange (brick colored) soil. We are very curious about the larger rocks we are finding and we're hoping that next week we can uncover some more, in hopes of discovering a new context or a feature.

Today I also conducted my duties as videographer, visiting all the sites and interviewing the groups about their units. Though the other groups may be having more success in the yard, since they are elaborating on previous findings, our group is doing relatively well in terms of smaller material findings. The group next to us, unit 9, suffered a setback today, since their unit filled with water over the weekend! I hope that we continue to have great weather on Mondays!

10/26 Another beautiful Monday afternoon at the John Brown House! Despite our hard work last week, our group found our unit flooded with new dirt, rock, leaves and sticks. We definitely lost significant depth from last week. Though we were disappointed, we were determined to start a new arbitrary context by the end of the day. We worked hard shovel shaving and sifting. We made sure to level the unit equally at all parts and worked hard to maintain and clean up the walls. We found a good amount of porcelain pieces, especially in the second half of the afternoon (probably because we spent the first half of class just regaining our previous depth.) We also found a few nails, a wire, and some glass and bricks. At the end of class we photographed our new context and measured our progress. In some areas we were exactly 10 centimeters further, but in 2 corners we were significantly more. It is difficult to level our unit evenly because it began so uneven due to the natural topography where we are digging. We had a few visitors today, which also motivated us to work hard and make some interesting finds. We still have not found a feature! But we are very happy to be finding porcelain pieces and white ware. Unfortunately, Laura and I both have practice before class next week so we are unable to come early to begin the digging. Hopefully, we can still continue with progress AND hopefully we won't come back to a filled in unit on Monday again!

11/2

Today may have been our last day of full digging--but I hope it was not! Because of day light savings some people came to class an hour early, including Andrew. While Laura and I were at our respective practices, Andrew uncovered an interesting piece of cloth/old tarp. He also discovered our first official feature: a new context of dark L-shaped soil. Andrew dug out this new context and sifted it, but found nothing exceptional. Laura and I continued to lower the rest of unit to the elevation of the tarp. As we did this we discovered the tarp everywhere! And we noticed that under it there are small white gravel like stones. We are so curious to see what this tarp could be and what is underneath it. On the opposite side of the unit we also found a hollow short brick piece of a pipe, this could definitely be significant because John Brown talks about his pipes in his writings. I am glad we finally began to discover features, I just hope we are not left completely hanging at the end of the digging. I would really like to uncover some of the new mysteries we found today.

11/9

Andrew came early again to class, while Laura and I were at practice. He continued to uncover the tarp so that when we arrived we took the elevation of the tarp and then uncovered it. It was very exciting to pull back the tarp and find all this perfect untouched gravel underneath. With little time left, we decided to try to dig up the gravel in an isolated area to try to gauge how deep the gravel layer is. This proved to be very difficult but we eventually did come to a dirtier and less gravely point, where we were able to take the elevation. In addition to the gravel, we found pieces of pipe, that appear to be old and relate the drainage problems John Brown mentions in his writings. We took a lot of notes, measurements and pictures, which will hopefully be very helpful for next year's group. We really didn't get a chance to figure out what the gravel and tarp are, but we found a small piece of plastic that Krysta told us meant that the gravel is "modern fill." After we recorded all of the necessary information, we began backfilling. We worked really hard and really quickly--so quickly that we unfortunately had time left over to help the other groups! By the time we finished backfilling all of the units, it was completely dark out and we had to use car lights to see. It was a very exciting and difficult last day outside. I am very excited to see what we will discover in the lab. Andrew will be working on solving the mysteries of unit 8, so hopefully he will come up with some good theories!