Max Mankin's Field Blog

Posted at Dec 01/2010 11:07PM:
Week 11 (November 29, 2010)

This week, we spent all of class in the lab. After Krysta gave us a brief overview on projects, presentations, and object bios, I got to work with my unit cleaning our remaining artifacts. After washing all of the artifacts from the two contexts, we counted them by material. We had a bit of trouble distinguishing between whiteware, pearlware, and creamware, so Krysta helped us out. Porcelain and stoneware are fairly easy to differentiate. Context 64 featured far fewer ceramic sherds and mortar clumps than context 69. These statistics aren’t so surprising, considering the yard is no longer occupied like it probably was when the JBH was a full time residence. Also interesting is that context 64 had more evidence of alcohol consumption than Context 69. I suppose this is also not so surprising, considering the extensive evidence we’ve found of such behavior throughout the JBH yard. In fact, a Bud Light Lime cap may actually help us determine a TPQ for the context.

After our artifacts were sorted and counted, I tried to do some research on my first object for object bios. It’s a piece of salt-fired stoneware, but because I have less than 5% of the rim of the vessel, it’s difficult to get a reliable circumference/diameter from the charts. With Jessica and Krysta’s help, I estimated it’s diameter to be ~17-22cm. There is also a bit of a lip at the bottom of the piece. Considering it’s a rim, this indicates that the vessel was only ~3cm deep, so perhaps it was a milk pan or something similar. Krysta indicated that vessels of stoneware such as this were rarely used for cooking, though that doesn’t rule out the idea that maybe the vessel was a pie plate. I’m currently looking into dating the piece. My other objects are glass with lettering embossed in it and a piece of modern-looking cement-type material with a “7” on it. I’m not sure what this material is yet, so I’m going to ask Professor Sheldon if he has any ideas.

Posted at Nov 28/2010 09:54PM:
Week 10 (November 22, 2010)

This week was our last week in the field, so all we did out in the yard was backfill unit 11. I moved buckets this time instead of shoveled. Once that was finished, we went to the lab to continue cleaning our objects. The hardest ones to clean were those we excavated on our last day of digging when it was pouring, because the “artifacts” were mostly mud. It reminds me of that joke when someone puts too much ketchup on their fries and you say, “would you like some fries with your ketchup?” Cleaning this week was basically the archaeological analog of too much ketchup: “would you like some artifacts with your mud?” Regardless, we worked through it and developed a good method to rapidly clean many objects. First, the objects were poured from their bag into one of the white Styrofoam trays. Then, the water sensitive objects (metal, mortar) were removed. We poured a tiny bit (perhaps enough to barely wet the bottom of the entire tray) of water into the tray and swished it around. Then, we held the tray at a slight slant, allowing the very muddy water to dribble to one end while friction kept the objects at the other. We poured the muddy water out and repeated the process with new clean water. This got most of the objects to the point of recognition, at least, to allow for finer toothbrush cleaning. We have one more bag of artifacts, from our first context, to clean next week.

Posted at Nov 19/2010 01:40PM:
Week 9 (November 15, 2010)

This week was our second to last week in the field. I began class by completing my total station survey of the property. We mapped in the boundaries of each of the units, finished a topographical survey, and outlined the parking lot. I did my best to walk in a nice grid during the survey, but I guess we’ll find out just how good my grid was once we plug the results into a computer for visualization. We also mapped in some manhole covers on the surrounding streets so we could eventually georeference historical maps. In the process of doing so, Jessica and I met a nice older gentleman who lived and grew up in the house on the SW corner of Benefit and Planet Streets about 50 years ago. He was very interested in what were up to and told us that the streets hadn’t been widened or moved for at least 50 years. He also told us that Stonewall Jackson, of Civil War fame, lived in the house across the street from his on the NW corner of Benefit and Planet. Eventually, it got too dark for Jessica, who was aiming the total station’s laser, to see the prism on the mobile post, so we had to quit. We hadn’t quite finished at that point so we went out yesterday (Thursday) to finish outlining the parking lot and mapping the walls in unit 11.

After the survey, I helped backfill units 12 and 10. This process consisted of several people with shovels putting the dirt from the sifted piles into buckets. Then, several people would take the buckets and pour them into the units. A few students would walk around the units and push down the dirt. I was surprised how much harder backfilling was than digging. I suppose that because we know there’s nothing of value in the dirt, we can really shovel it quickly. It was sort of sad to backfill our unit, considering all the time we had put into excavating it. It had to happen eventually though, despite our attachment to it. Though I’m a bit sad about not excavating anymore, I am excited to see how my total station data worked out and to sort and analyze objects.

Posted at Nov 11/2010 09:54AM:
Week 8 (November 8, 2010)

I was admittedly upset that Monday was our last day of digging. When we arrived, the tarp was covered with about a foot of water. Unfortunately, in moving the tarp, Olivia and I spilled much of the water into the unit because the other two members of our unit were not there yet to help. After bailing out the unit with buckets, a la small sailboat, we started digging and sifting again. Dampness from the spilled water made the soil easier to remove but significantly more difficult to sift. To sift such wet soil, dry dirt was needed to soak up some moisture from the mud. In this process, my gloves were ruined, as digging through the cold wet dirt with bare hands was a sure recipe for frozen fingers. We uncovered glass, pottery, and more iron nails, though the rate of doing so was much slower than in previous weeks because of the wet soil. Eventually, we reached a new context, which Krysta said was a glacial till deposit, indicating the end of human contexts, aside from Paleolithic Native Americans who may have interacted with this glacial till context. Approximately 30 minutes before sunset, we trowelled in a last ditch effort (no pun intended) to excavate as much as possible before having to backfill next week. It started to pour after about an hour, making things that much more difficult.

After digging, we went back to the lab in the carriage house to wash and dry artifacts. The process begins by separating metals and mortar from other, washable objects. Bone is a special category, as it can be washed but must be handled with care lest it disintegrate. So, washable objects (pottery, class, stoneware, etc.) were toothbrush scrubbed in tubs of water and placed on (well-labeled) screens to dry. To stay organized, it is important to only wash artifacts from a single context at any given time. We will continue with washing next week, as there was not enough time to clean all of the artifacts.

I was particularly pleased when I was walking back to the shed to grab a mesh sifter and two ladies came up to me and they asked me if I was doing an archaeology project. It’s nice to know that they didn’t think of us as “blue collar” laborers, like the people who gave us ‘unfriendly’ looks because we were covered in dirt. One of the woman was a high school science teacher and seemed very happy that I was a chemistry major doing archaeology. I didn’t catch the other’s name or job, but looked suspiciously like Gina Borromeo, the ancient art curator at the RISD museum.

An afterthought: being able to listen to Lady Gaga while cleaning artifacts was legit.

Posted at Nov 03/2010 06:21PM:
Week 7

This week, I began the afternoon by setting up the total station. With the total station up (I’m getting faster at setting it up), Jessica and I ran into an issue where the handheld data collector gave an error message upon data collection until we flipped the laser a certain way. Once the setup was working, we collected data on a datum point we established last week. This way, if the total station were in a different position or orientation this week, we could compare it to a stationary datum point and adjust for the change. Then, we collected data on the perimeter of the property. Jessica walked along the outline of the yard with the prism in about 10m intervals. As we proceeded with the outline, I got much better at maneuvering the total station and focusing the station’s lenses on the prism. Several spots on the outline and unit 10 were blocked by trees, so next week, we’ll have to set up the total station at a datum point other than the granite block.

After taking data on the yard outline, I returned to Unit 12 to dig. We’re still finding pottery sherds, iron nails, and mortar, but haven’t found evidence of any features (aside from the irrigation line), sadly. Interestingly, the “smooth rocks” of the last two weeks are disappearing. I only found one this week. Given that this week was our second to last week of digging, we really put the pedal to the metal and excavated another ~25cm of dirt. Despite fewer “flashy” finds in our unit (Unit 10 found an intact perfume bottle and Unit 11 is still excavating tiles and the wall), our morale is still up, mostly because my fellow archaeologists are all awesome. My last thought is that this week, it was cold. I’ll have to bring gloves for next week.

Posted at Oct 28/2010 11:53PM:
max: Week 6 I started class this week by helping my unit dig. We found more of the same types of items, such as nails, glass, white rocks, coal, mortar, brick fragments, and pottery. Also, I found about two dozen oddly smooth, perhaps 2 cm long pebbles. They all had a bluish tint to them and appeared to be polished. The smooth pebbles stood out because the rest of the rocks we’re finding are jagged, have sharp-ish edges, and more typically colored (i.e. brown, green, and grey) New England rocks. I’m not sure what that’s all about, but perhaps they’re from a walkway of some sort…?

This week we were formally assigned our final projects. I’ll be working on the GIS/Landscape survey project. After about an hour of digging, Jessica and I set up the total station over our datum point, a granite marker embedded in the ground near the patio of the JBH. Setting the station up is the hardest part, I think. The steps involved are:

1. Screw the station itself to a well-anchored tripod. 2. Center the station over the datum point using the downward pointing laser in the total station. 3. Level the legs of the tripod. 4. Return to step 2 until leveling no longer causes the station to deviate from the center of the datum point. 5. Level the station by turning two dials in opposite directions with a side of the station parallel to those two dials. 6. Level the station by turning the third dial with a side of the station perpendicular to that dial. 7. Measure the height of the station. Note: measuring straight from the datum point to the measuring line side of the station added almost two centimeters because we were measuring a hypotenuse instead of a vertical segment. 8. Turn the station on and start collecting distances and angles of far away points by focusing the station’s laser on a movable post with a porro prism on it.

This week, we only collected locations of several immobile points which we could use as secondary datum points in case we are unable to see points of interest from the original datum. The secondary datum points included a nail in a log near the driveway to the north, a metal rod holding up the fence to the west, four drill holes in the stone wall to the south, and a chip in the marble patio stone next to the JBH to the east. I’m excited to start mapping in the landscape for next week!

Posted at Oct 18/2010 10:25PM:
Week 5

This week was our most exciting yet! The finds were rolling in, and we started excavating the new context! So, after two weeks off from digging due to “Fall Weekend,” we resumed. It appeared as if the roots had somehow re-grown in only two weeks (or maybe I’m just bitter). Regardless, much of my time, especially at the beginning of the class, was spent hacking through roots, moving topsoil off the first context, and sieving that top context (JBH64). Sieving yielded some great stuff, like many pieces of what appears to be a blue and white glazed plate dating to probably the 1700 or early 1800s, a dead but somehow intact cicada with rather juicy guts (ew), many pieces of coal (diagnostic of a context dating to a period after 1860 – interesting that they’re appearing in the same context as pottery dating to an earlier time period), many glass shards, some more iron nails, and slate flakes.

After we had excavated the first context, we brushed the unit off to make it look nice for a picture, photo- and video-documented our progress, took levels (corner depths ranged from 13-26 cm below the datum point), and started digging into the dry, clay context (JBH69). Interestingly, this type of clay soil doesn’t usually appear at such low a depth, as it is generally deposited from glaciers. This probably indicates that the area was backfilled at one point with soil from another area. Perhaps when the fountain was taken out, it left a hole in the yard which needed to be filled in. Regardless, this second context proved to be much more difficult to dig through, not only because the soil was dry and clay-like, but there were many more large rocks embedded in it than in the first topsoil context. Brandon showed me that just because the rocks were displaying white gouge marks from the shovel does not mean that they’re special in any way. In fact, most rocks yield white gouge marks when scraped like that. Between the first and second contexts, we found more pottery/plate fragments, a piece of glass with an “S” on it (this is exciting for diagnostic purposes, though given the previous evidence of alcohol consumption, maybe it’s just Smirnoff), coal, a curved piece of green glass from the bottom of a bottle (rum?), nails, and some brick. Also, there appear to be many pieces of white marble-type rocks. Maybe this is wishful thinking given that we know the fountain was made of some sort of white marble, but there are a bunch of white rocks. The other groups have found a new wall and a pipe with its manufacturer’s or owner’s initials on it. Admittedly, I’m a bit jealous. Of course, our unit is a big unknown, so I’m still pretty excited about it.

Posted at Oct 18/2010 09:46PM:
Week 4 (October 4, 2010)

On Monday, we continued digging in unit 12. Unfortunately, excavation was seriously hindered by a massive network of roots. My job, as “root guy,” was to take the rather scary root saw and slash through roots. I found that for thinner ones, machete-style hacking worked best, as long as you grabbed one end of the root and kept it under tension. For thicker roots (some were about 4-inches in diameter), I had to saw through them. In fact, as our walls developed, you could see cross sections of cut roots in the unit walls. Other highlights of digging included an iron nail, coal, glass shards, and some more stone/earthenware. The most interesting one was a piece with white and blue patterning on it, but there were a few others with white tin glaze. Also, this week I was the unit’s scribe. That was fun, but sort of a pain because in between digging I had to jump up and record things whenever people found them. Toward the end of the day, we started to determine the extent of the new context full of tan, dry clay-type soil. Hopefully it won’t be too difficult to dig through next week.

Posted at Sep 28/2010 04:17PM:
Week 3 (September 27, 2010)

This week, we first toured the RI Historical Society Library. It’s clear that the library’s resources on the JBH and historical Providence are vast. That said, I think the hardest part will be locating appropriate resources, for two reasons. The first, which is also a good thing, is that the collection is just so big. There will be so much to dig through and skim. Second, the methods provided for finding appropriate documents are not what we, as spoiled-by-Google Generation Y’ers, are used to. I haven’t used a card catalogue since middle school and I have never used a microfilm reader. My favorite part of the visit was leafing through JBH-related documents, most notably a Projo article on secret slave tunnels under the JBH and letters written by John Brown in the 1700s. Brown’s handwriting proved a challenge. I was particularly excited about deciphering the words “you” and “Chimney” in one of John Brown’s letters.

Next, we walked back up and over the hill to the JBH Museum where the curators gave us a tour of the entire house. Highlights included the (root of the) tree that ate Roger Williams, giant portraits of the Brown family members, china from China dating to the 1700s, an exhibit on John Brown’s slave business, and original furniture from the era of the Browns. I also appreciated how, as our tour guide Mary mentioned, the museum curators left evidence of both the Browns and Marsden J. Perry’s occupations of the house. The more I learn about John Brown himself, the more I find him fascinating. Brown stood at over six foot five and apparently was a true “go-getter.” It seemed, in fact, that just about nothing would stand in the way of him and his business ventures. In knowing Brown’s personality, I feel I can relate to him. While I may not have gotten along personally with Brown, his work ethic is definitely something I admire and share. This makes doing archaeology on his property even more interesting. One last thought is that it is amazing that the first three presidents of the United States – Washington, Adams, and Jefferson – and countless other historical figures (Brown and Perry by themselves, for instance) all walked through the house a few hundred years before us. Excuse the blended idioms, but we are truly following in the footsteps/walking in the shadows of giants. It’s rather humbling, motivational, and inspiring all at the same time.

Posted at Sep 26/2010 06:05PM:
Week 2 (September 20, 2010)

On Monday, we picked up our digging tools and walked to the JBH. My unit – number 10 – hopefully corresponds to the area where a large white fountain once stood, as seen in an (aerial?) photograph from ca. 1950. Based on the 2009 site report, the fountain was presumably installed under the ownership of Marsden J. Perry sometime in the early 1900s and removed during the 1960s when the RI historical society renovated the property to put in a parking lot.

Brandon, Cindy, Olivia and I started our first day of true excavation by establishing a site datum point, or origin. We chose the northeast corner stake of our pit for the datum. As such, an (x,y,z) coordinate with respect to the origin datum point corresponds to west, south, and elevation. Using twine stretched between two corner posts of the excavation pit and a bubble level, we got an idea of “horizontal” and measured the elevation of the other stakes of the unit.

Next, we photographed our plot and conducted a surface survey which yielded a beer bottle cap, a candy wrapper, and a dead mouse. While we kept the bottle cap and wrapper for our artifact bag, we discarded the mouse after photo-documenting it in the interest of biohazard safety. We observed dark brown/black, loosely packed top soil. Photographs always faced north.

After a week of anticipation, we started to dig. We had two shovels, so at any given time two group members sieved on ¼ inch mesh and two group members excavated. While avoiding the edges of the plot in the interest of maintaining strong, straight walls, the diggers attempted to “skim” off dirt to keep the floor of the pit level. I found that the best strategy was to hold my flat edge shovel almost horizontal, get behind it, and push with my arms and legs while throwing my weight behind the shovel. That way, there is enough force on the shovel to break through most of the roots in the plot. For the more stubborn roots, the root saw -- a rather terrifying serrated hunting knife – was very useful. All of the excavated dirt was placed in orange five gallon buckets (the ones with warning labels about infants drowning in them) and brought to the sieving station. Sieving was more difficult for me – Brandon has done lots of sieving before though so he taught me a good strategy where you jerk the sieve back and forth a lot until most of the dirt falls through onto the tarp. Then, you break up large dirt chunks by rubbing them around on the ¼ inch mesh and discarding roots and grass. Sieving turned up a bunch of artifacts, including a piece of white stoneware with blue patterning on it dating to the late 1700s, some small flakes of wood painted red, a piece of slag (this is the most exciting find for me, given my previous research into iron smelting), and another beer bottle cap. We skimmed off about 4 inches (~10cm) total to reveal a layer of hard packed soil or clay just below our loose top soil. Hopefully, it won’t be too difficult to dig through that hard packed layer next week.

Posted at Sep 19/2010 03:42PM:
Week 1 (September 13, 2010)

The first meeting of Archaeology of College Hill consisted of a brief orientation to class logistics and a history of the John Brown House (JBH) property in Salomon 004. The property itself is actually owned by the Rhode Island Historical Society, who has been kind enough - though in my opinion we’re technically doing them a favor if you ignore our effects on the landscaping - to allow us to dig on their property. After our classroom session, we walked to a carriage house to pick up excavation tools, and brought them to the lawn of the JBH. What struck me is just how close to campus the JBH Museum actually is and how I had never known about it, even after three years at Brown. While I may more oblivious than most, I’m guessing the vast majority of Brown students who pass through the College don’t realize its existence and never benefit from such a resource.

Next, Krysta gave a brief tour of the property and oriented us to landmarks, such as where the Hale-Ives House (HIH) would have been, the JBH, Charlesfield and Benefit streets, and the cardinal directions. There are several possible spots to excavate, as indicated by a geophysical magnetometry map of the property. Spots include a patch in the middle of the lawn where a fountain was seen in an aerial view of the house, near a mysterious hole and metal grate in the yard near the house, and at the north end of the property near the foundation of the HIH.

We settled on three locations, pending more information about the mysterious drain hole. The first was Unit 7, which four students unbackfilled to reach the tarp which had been laid down last year in the pit. The second location was above the suspected remains of the fountain in the middle of the lawn. The third digging spot was at the northeast end of the property where the magnetometry survey indicates a buried foundation, presumably the front wall of the HIH. For the two new plots, we used a bit of trigonometry (sqrt(2) = 1.414) and triangulation to layout 1x1m squares using stakes. Sadly, by that point, it was ~5:30 and the class was over, so no ground was broken.