Brandon Tomasso's Field Blog

Week 1:

As Arch1900 met for the first time, I could sense the excitement we shared for the upcoming excavation season.

In order to better engage with our research and guide our initial survey of the JBH property, we reviewed highlights from previous years’ excavations and discussed the features we sought to explore. For instance, several historical property maps drawn for fire insurance companies demonstrated the former existence of a structure in the corner of the property (on Benefit and Charlesfield Streets) that once belonged to the Hale-Ives family. In addition, we glanced over some geophysical survey imaging, which highlighted features such as a wall along the Benefit Street side of the plot, possible trash pits and a possible kitchen structure close to the JBH.

After becoming acquainted with the project, we set off for the field to see the site for ourselves. We toured the site and considered potential unit placement. One group decided to begin uncovering Unit 7 above the wall structure that had been discovered on the Benefit Street side. Another group ventured to establish two new units. In order to further explore the possibility of a fountain toward the southern portion of the site and potentially make inferences as to the site’s drainage, we plotted a 2 by 2 meter unit in the area. We also set up a 2 by 2 meter unit on the Charlesfield Street side of the site where the Hale-Ives home once stood.

Erecting the units certainly proved to be a scrupulous task. In order to do so, we needed to form a perfect square, as well as align the plots by directional coordinates using a compass.

Now that we have gotten our units straightened out and established a clear game plan for the excavation season, I cannot wait to get my hands dirty!

Week 2:

After being particularly fascinated by the prospects of finding a fountain and shedding light upon the drainage features of the site, I chose to excavate Unit 10.

As our first order of business, we established our unit datum point on our Northeast corner. The unit datum point is the highest point of the unit and is used as a frame of reference for the elevation measurements taken at each stratigraphic layer. We then marked the boundaries of our unit with orange flagging tape on all four sides. Additionally, we photographed the unit both before and after excavating.

Before breaking ground, we conducted a surface survey of our unit. We noted the moist, rich soil condition and chunks of uneven grass deposits. We managed to find a Bud-Light Lime cap, a mouse head, a long gray feather and a piece of some sort of food/candy wrapper. We disposed of the mouse head, but collected the rest of the artifacts for our study.

Eventually, we broke ground on the site. We skimmed a two cm layer off the surface to begin and sieved each bucket. Upon making a great deal of progress in good time, we continued to dig until we were roughly 4 cm deep. Some of the highlights from the day’s finds included a small piece of pearl earthenware with a royal blue pattern dating to the 1700s/early 1800s, slate roofing tile with a ribbed pattern, some clinkers and several beer bottle caps.

Obviously, the site’s contemporary use will not be very difficult to determine.

Week 3:

In order to prepare for our upcoming research and gain a better understanding of the excavation site, we ventured to the RI Historical Society Library and toured the John Brown House.

At the library, we learned about the society’s extensive collection as well as the process through which research materials can be reviewed. The process of obtaining materials is painstakingly elaborate, so I am very grateful to have been given such an early start. I now have some direction and will know exactly how to approach my research when the time comes. Since I am now a card-holding member, I can make day-trips to the library whenever I wish!

Our tour of the John Brown House was absolutely fascinating. I cannot believe how beautiful the home is. It contains wonderful works of art, family heirlooms and authentic household items. Everything is arranged to replicate the way the home looked in John Brown’s time. Through our tour, we gained invaluable insight as to the man behind the home and the times during which he lived.

John Brown can be considered the “Donald Trump” of his time. He engaged in banking, politics, farming, boating, fishing and chocolate production as well as the slave trade. He founded one of the first banks and one of the first insurance companies in the United States. He even sent the first trade ship to China (evidence of such trade is prevalent throughout the home). In addition, he sent trade ships to India and served in both the State Assembly and US Congress. He was a fifth-generation Rhode Islander, descending from Chad Brown, who came to Rhode Island with Roger Williams.

I also found it intriguing to learn that Marsden Perry, the man who inhabited the home after the Browns, likely leveled the Ives-Goddard Home for the sake of having a nicer landscape and a marble fountain. Hmm…I suppose he made our excavation all the more interesting.

Week 4:

Despite the heavy weekend rainfall, the soil was in peak condition to excavate. I was extremely surprised by the quality of the soil today. Given I spent the majority of the day sieving the soil, I was particularly grateful for this fortuitous anomaly! The excessive roots, however, caused me a great deal of difficulty. It is important to carefully sift through the roots themselves so as to ensure no material remains are entangled within them. As such, the roots slowed the process quite a bit.

Despite our initial impressions, we did not reach a new stratigraphic layer today. We made significant progress in “weeding” the site of its roots; therefore our next day of excavation should prove much more productive.

This is not to say the day did not yield some wonderful finds, however. Highlights from the day’s finds included another piece of blue glazed pearl earthenware, a large portion of a white brick with remnants of an inscription, as well as an iron nail.

Week 5:

Two weeks have passed since our last day of excavation. A BDH reporter was on site to view our progress and write a piece.

After her departure, we redefined the walls of our unit and continued digging. Throughout class, we continued to see hints of a new stratigraphic layer. Eventually, it grew clear that we had reached a new context, as the soil became increasingly claylike, dense and mottled. We recorded measurements of the new context’s depth.

Additionally, today’s dig prompted a great number of finds. Most notably, we unearthed several pieces of pearl earthenware (matching the previous piece we found), blue glazed porcelain and white earthenware. White earthenware dates to the 1800’s and is the first ceramic to be mass-produced. Pottery makers accomplished this through mold casting, a new technique which enabled faster production as well as sunken relief designs, popular in the Victorian Era.

More is soon to come, as the ensuing context is chalk full of ceramics. As always, I remain quite hopeful.

Week 6:

Things proceeded merrily until I struck something curious about 30 minutes in. Excitedly, I rushed to carefully unearth the seemingly massive find and inspect it more closely. I had no such luck….I had only found a pipe to the sprinkler system in the yard.

As Krysta informed me, when the sprinklers were installed, the company shot the pipes into the ground from the bottom of the hill at the end of the yard. As such, this high-powered system gravely disturbed the context of our site. This may explain why we found the pearl earthenware and other older finds so early in our excavation; only a centimeter or two deep.

I shovel-shaved the area surrounding the pipe so as to fully uncover it, and we marked off the south side of our plot with orange flags so as to avoid making contact with it. We can no longer dig in that section so our prospects for research have diminished a great deal.

On the bright side, we found numerous pieces of ceramics (several with ornate designs), marble, mortar, nails and glass shards. It was most certainly not a bad day’s work!

Week 7:

At the start of class today, we gave another curious visitor a tour of the site and Cindy got some great footage of our unit updates.

We made stunning progress and found a great deal of ceramics, glass, nails, bricks and mortar. Our ceramics varied greatly in design, including red, black, blue and green. We also found some less generic glass pieces. One is the bottom of a small vial and another bears an inscription consisting of the letters ‘D,’ ‘Y’ and ‘E’ (?).

We worked with a sense of urgency, knowing well that our days on the site are numbered before we shift to the lab. We worked swiftly but scrupulously in order to ensure we did not miss anything in our haste.

Week 8:

As our last day of fieldwork commenced, no fountain had been unearthed, but we had discovered a plethora of fascinating finds ranging from ceramics to faunal remains. As the day drew to a close, little had changed except for our focus.

No longer were we concerned with meticulously excavating the site. Rather, we struggled to persevere through one of the most grueling tests any of us had ever faced: a chilling Rhode Island rainstorm. Our screens were no match for the mud and we were no match for the cold. Nothing could flow through the screen and we could hardly move our fingers enough to discern between artifacts, clumps of mud and rocks. Eventually, we came to our senses and took Krysta’s advice to forget scrupulously screening the mud. As such, we recklessly abandoned our approach and began to hurriedly trough through the remaining portion of our last context on our hands and knees. We bravely threw ourselves into the pit and worked diligently to “salvage” whatever we could before losing the opportunity to work further on our unit. Unfortunately, hardly anything turned up and we felt as though our efforts had been futile. On the bright side; however, we had reached the layer of Paleolithic glacial fill, thereby indicating we had gotten through a great deal of our last context.

The ensuing trek across campus with the artifacts was equally as grueling. We made it in one piece, however, and started our work in the lab. We divided the artifacts from each context by material and either washed them off or dry brushed them. Some artifacts were too fragile to wash so they were left alone.

Week 9:

Today was an eventful day of final documentation and backfilling. To begin, we analyzed the North wall for stratigraphy in order to discern the change between layers. We identified each layer using Munsell samples and marked the changes with an etched horizontal line using a trough. A scaled graph of the north wall stratigraphy now reflects our final results from the excavation. In order to compile the graph, we measured the depth of each layer going West to East on the North wall. We photographed each wall of the site as well.

We successfully backfilled Units 10 and 12. The excavation portion of our study has officially come to an end and our unit has been put to rest.

Week 10:

We completed our last day of backfilling this week. With all the units closed, we left the site for the lab.

In the lab, we continued cleaning and sorting our artifacts by material type. It continues to be a pleasant surprise when a washing reveals an artifact we did not notice before.