Allison Iarocci's Field Blog

Today while introductory was quite interesting. First we had a short lecture about the history of the site. I really enjoyed looking at the old plans and maps of the area. I think that there is a great wealth of written material that will help us with our excavation from the archives around Brown. Then we went to see where the materials for the actual excavation are stored. Storage and taking care of our materials is an important aspect of the project. Then we actually went on a site tour, which was really interesting to me because my dorm room in Keeney overlooked the site and I really had no idea of the history that laid on what I thought was just a field and parking lot. And for the rest of the class we learned how to actually mark off a section for excavation. It is a lot harder than I imagined, I probably need to brush up on my geometry! I will be really careful not to knock over any of our posts!

I was surprised at how much I understood and would not have understood during the lecture and in the readings , if I had not taken the basic field archaeology class last semester. I am excited to see the things I learned about in action because I found it hard to visualize what I read. I really enjoyed the mapping of the site. I remember reading about how spots are chosen for STPs and actual excavation, but getting to look for flat areas, or reading the geothermal map was nothing like I imagined. In addition, I am really beginning to see just how much time we will need to spend in the lab to analyze what we find. I look forward to finding things, but am curious to see how patient I am with the centimeter by centimeter sifting process.

FIELD BLOG TWO: SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

Today was a beautiful day to be outside. It was about seventy degrees which made class great fun. The first thing we did was bring the supplies over to the site, which is a chore, but necessary. The three sites were named, 10 being the Robert Ives house, 11 being the wall site from the previous year, and 12 being the fountain site. Then we divided up into three groups, I am now working at site 10 with Laura, Evie, and Ben. The first step was to lay out the tarp on a not so grassy spot. This will be where we put our backfill for the rest of the semester. The next step was to have Laura, record the topographical features of our site before digging. Then we did our photographic documentation. It is very important to remember we take the photos in the north facing direction with the trowel pointing north, and the meter stick along the north edge. Then we measured the latitude (I am forgetting the correct term) of our site. Then we learned how to shovel off the first layer. It is a lot harder than I imagined. There was a very heavy moss covering which was difficult to cut up. We have to be very careful to leave a few inches from our orange line because the moss can tear up the dirt under it and outside of our box. This dirt we removed later with a trowel. It took us a long time to clean off the ground covering and sift it. The sifting is very hard physical labor. We ended up having to break down the moss by hand. We found a few items, most notably a dime from 1982 in the west area of our plot. We didn’t realize we didn’t need to get the measurements again, but we did them anyway and it turns out we removed a very even layer of dirt. I think that we will have an advantage in keeping a level surface because our plot is on a very flat section of the JBH. The dirt in the area was slightly sandy which may indicate something below because it isn’t a normal topsoil. Finally, we ended by return the tools to the carriage house shed and went to section. I am curious to see if we actually end up digging where the house was and if we will find any artifacts relating to those who lived there. Also, I would like to figure out what the tree near our site is to determine if we will have problem with roots as we continue to dig. I think that the area has a lot of potential.

Field Blog Week Three: September 27, 2010

Today could not have been better timing for our indoor activities because it was a typically grey, foggy, wet Providence fall day. I am starting to realize how difficult digging in the rain and cold is going to be.

We began our class in the Lobby of RI Hall and then walked over to the RIHS (Rhode Island Historical Society) Library, which is over near Perkins, about ten minutes from the main green. It is a nice unassuming building, nestled among private historical residences. We had to leave all of our personal belongings and could only bring in paper and a pencil. They have very strict rules to protect the library's resources. Then we were given our membership cards to the RIHS, which are good for the whole semester. then were given a wonderful tour of how to use the library. The RIHS library is in a transitional phase of creating their online catalogue. So tehre is a pretty good online catalogue, but we will be using a card file system. This is something I am completely unfamiliar with, but think I can figure it out. Also, we were introduced to the different file systems, including how to find photographs and microfilms, another new thing to me. Also, we learned about requesting items. It sounds like they have a lot of amazing information, but it is clearly going to be a very time consuming activity to do research there. They laid out some sample information they found on the JBH. I was particullary interested in the information they had on the wall paper.

The next place we went was the JBH museum. We were introduced to the house, and the 'chariot' in the back 'wood shed.' The chariot is the oldest American vehicle and was used by John Brown himself. Also, we saw the Roger Williams root, something which I studied last year in an anthropology class. Then we divided into two groups and were given a tour of the house. I had already toured the house last year on parent's weekend, but this waws even better because our tour guide, Dan, was able to answer all of our questions and give us a more personalized tour. I really liked the mix of media and the narrative of the different people who have lived there. I got a great sense of the evolution of the house through time.

Section this week was very short, but I think I finally understand Harris Lines, which is really exciting! The way that Jessica took apart the diagram section by section made it all come together.

OCTOBER 4, 2010

This week was a great week at site ten. We began this week by carefully getting all our shovels, buckets and equipment from the carriage house, avoiding our little friend the skunk, who has also made it his house. The weather was really miserable, cold, about 60 degrees and on the verge of raining. Luckily, the rain held off until we headed to section.

I was designated the group recorder for the week. We were faced with the challenge of digging in the cold wet mud. It was hard because there were a lot of thin, but extensive root systems and lots of rocks. We began by shoveling a few inches off of where we left off. It was the same context, but we began to see motling. Mottling, as Krysta told us, is when there is a mix of two soils. It was our dark top soil, and a more orangey almost clay colored soil. Our golf for the day was to get as much of the dark top soil off so that next week we can begin a new context. We were able to shovel all of the top soil off, Evie did a beautiful job of cleaning the walls up, so our site ended up looking very professional if I do say so myself! Although, with the rain, we are going to have to do some clearing before we start the new context in two weeks.

Today we also made some amazing finds! We found lots of small pieces of glass, clear, light green and brown. We also found a small bead type thing, perhaps it is made of glass or plastic. It might even be a bullet from a small gun, like a BB gun. Also, we found several terra cotta chips. Most importantly, we found several pieces of pottery. There was a large shard, with white on both sides, which Krysta told us is porcelain, while the other pieces, which were white as well, are just ceramic. She tested the pieces by tapping them because they make very distinct sounds. Also, we found a few stones that seem to be cut, perhaps chink stones, stones which wool have been placed in a wall.

In section we talked about the readings, especially that by King. Then Jessica gave us several maps to analyze. The more I look at the maps, the more I see, the better I feel about the location we have chosen. Also, I really like the organized fashion of the fire maps. Finally, I really liked getting to see what people have valued enough to map through out time.

I feel really good about our choice of the site location. I think we have found an area that will hopefully teach us something about the Hale-Ives house.

October 18, 2010

Today was a lot of fun. We began by doing a quick check-in at each site to sort of see the progress everyone has made. I was a little discouraged because during the break it rained and our site had been covered by leaves and some top soil. We wanted to go ahead and clear off this new covering and get to the new context of mottled, "calico" soil we had seen on October 4th. However, as a group at site 10 we decided that music would be fun, so we brought speakers and were listening to fun music like Abba, which got us excited to dig. As we were removing the top soil and getting to the new context we made some amazing discoveries!

The most important find today was the section of pipe. I picked it up first as we were clearing the north east corner. My first instinct was that it was bone, but then after picking it up it clearly felt like porcelain or some sort of ceramic. I quickly assumed it was a pipe, I probably jumped to that conclusion because on thursday i had been looking at the fragments in the RI Hall exhibition, and talking about the history of them in Holland with my grandparents. We notified Krysta, who told us this was a great find because we had the pipe's foot and the mark of the maker. I am curious to see what that ends up leading us to. I hope it has something to do with international trade with the Netherlands.

The other major finds were nails, a piece of iron, brick pieces and residue, and pieces of mortar. Kyrsta was able to identify that the nails are quite old. There was rust residue around where we found the second one in the center area of our site. The iron was found near the nails, and near a large patch of rocks which we are going to further excavate. It is a large triangular piece with corrosion. The mortar has been found through out the site and during sieving, this may indicate that we are going to hit some sort of structure.

The soil this week was very rocky and varied greatly in colour. We took our first colour samples and recorded them. This may allow for us to cross reference the soil type with other soils seen in the previous excavations at the JBH.

In section we discussed the final projects and object studies. I am pretty excited about a few of the options. The rest of section we discussed the reading and the issue of integration of interpretation in excavation. I wrote my CR about this week's readings, so I enjoyed the conversation.

NOVEMBER 01, 2010

Today was the most exciting to date at site 10. I missed last week because I had Pneumonia, so it was helpful that we began with a quick site check in at each site. I also brought my father, Joseph Iarocci Brown University Undergraduate class of 1981 to help dig. Our goal was to explore the increasing amount of slabs of iron we were finding. We had our music playing, and the sun was shining. We found lots of iron slabs, pieces, and nails. Also we found a stake made of iron. The most important moment came right after a piece of blue, black and white very shiny, almost metallic coloured poreclin was found. My father unearthed a small bottle. I quickly brushed away the dirt and debris by it and we realized it was a complete bottle, including a cork with a silver screw in it. The bottle is about three inches high and made of clear semi thick glass. The inscription shows us that it was a perfume bottle. It was located near a large stone, that when excavated is sitting on mortar and in association with other large stones. We have isolated that and a cluster of bricks in the north eastern corner to be a new context, context 73. We continued to dig and found more nails and iron. Also, there has been a lot of charcoal and tar pieces along with several pieces of smelting. The smelt looks just like the artifact we found earlier we thought was a bead. There appears to be a new soil type in context 73 that is thicker and darker.

We spent the end part of class after the sunset at 5:34 trimming roots. one of the biggest challenges at this point is the abundance of roots. The area we are now calling 73 is riddled with a large quantity of thin small white roots while the rest of the site has large thick roots that we have tried to cut away. I think they are pulling artifacts and perhaps disrupting the architectural feature.

As a group, we really want to find more this season so Laura and I are planning to head out Saturday at 10 and then Ben and Evie will join us later to get a couple more hours of daylight work in this week.

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

Today was our final day of digging which was really sad. Last saturday Laura and I did go out and worked on context 68, which turned up a few more nails and some pottery, but mostly lots of roots. We did put a tarp over the site at the end because we realized our group spends too much time clearing debris. Today we decided to get context 73 to the same level as 68. It took us a while, because we began by removing the large bricks and rocks we had orginally thought to be part of some architectural structure, but appear to not be because there was nothing under them. We found some brick with green glaze which is old and exciting. Lots more nails and iron and brick pieces. I foudn it very intersting that near all of the major clusters of roots there was an increased amount of finds.

When context 73 was level with 68, we called the entire site context 68 because the soil was the same dark brown with some orange and black mottling. Ben cleared a significant amount of roots as well at this point so we could measure the levels and photo document it. Then we tried to shovel shave the north west meter by two meter plot, but the rain started up and the sun set at 4:30 so we were not able to accomplish much more.

Then we put the tarp back over the site incase we decide to come back out on saturday. Then we carried the artifacts to the carriage house.

At the carriage house we learned about the process of cleaning and storing the artifacts. It is crucial that they are cleaned properly (either dry brushed or washed gently by hand) and that they are labeled and stored with their context numbers. We cleaned all of our artifacts from 73. most notably a large iron chunk now appears to be pully part of a window hardware. This is an interesting find in conjunction with some of our other iron pieces, the metal cords, and the window glass. Laura will be looking into that more in her object bio. I eagerly await to figure out what we have found. Also I really enjoyed getting to see the finds from the other groups. Site 12 has amazing pottery and i really like site 11's tiles

November 15, 2010

Todays activities were all about closing up the site for the 2010 season. We began by making sure all our paperwork was in order and we had all our Munsel soil colours and measurements and papers labeled. then Ben and Evie were incharge of marking off and drawing the northway to show the three contexts we saw this semester. They were pretty similar in terms of colour. If I remember correctly our maximum depth was about 41 cm. Laura and I were responsible for taking photos of each of the walls. We logged the photos and half way through the camera died so we had to get Krysta to take photos on her blackberry. Then we began the sad process of filling the site back in. we began by laying a tarp down, then throwing all our stones and bricks on it. Then we (with help from unit 12) shoveled dirt into buckets and threw it and stamped it down. Then we folded up the tarps and went and helped fill in unit 12's site.

Backfilling is really challenging physically, but goes very quickly, even in the dark. It was sad, but satisfying to fill in our site and see just how much we really did uncover. My only wish is that we had been able to extend the site's southwestern corner and that we could have dug even deeper. I look forward to working in the lab.

November22, 2010

We began class today by filling in the last unit, unit 11, which took not very long because we all were there. Then we went to the lab and finished washing our items. We actually got through both unit 68 and 65 which was exciting. Lots of brick shards and weird rocks that I dont exactly know why we saved. A couple of us had a change of heart for our final object biographies. I chose to replace doing a brick with the word york on it with coal (we realized we had a very high concentration in our site!) and my other objects are the 3 pieces of pipe, including the joint of of the base with the maker's mark, and a large metal stake. I was looking around at the other units finds and noticed that what unit 12 had thought to be a piece of bone was actually another large segment of pipe! We also came to the realization that the volume of nails our site has is very unusual.

i enjoy working in the anthropology lab. It is really relaxing to wash and brush items. Its amazing how much they change once they are clean!

November 29, 2010

We spent the beginning of class listening to Krysta explain various dating techniques for items like pipes and glass. We learned about different types of pottery and how you can date them if you have certain aspects, like a ridge or lip.

Then we organized our items and bagged them up. I spent a lot of time trying to decide what I was going to put in my display for the RI Hall exhibit. I was sort of annoyed that everyone left before they labeled their items because I have to label them for them. However, I think I am going to be okay with the exhibit because I've decided to also label the bottom of the cloths i put the artifacts on.