Evie Schwartz's Field Blog

Week 1 (September 13, 2010)

It's Day 1 and our team of untrained "archaeologists" gather at the site of the John Brown House. Our task: to lay out a few units for excavation. Our tools: a geophysics map of the site, 2 measuring tapes, a handful of stakes, and a compass. Our questions...

1) What is the mysterious foundational wall found during last year's excavations of unit 7? Was it part of an outhouse not depicted in the old maps? How was this structure related to the John Brown House and the history of the site? Are there material remains which could give us more insight about the material culture of the people who occupied this site?

2) Where was the monumental fountain, which (according to an old drawing) used to stand in the middle of the landscaped grounds? What was the source of its water? On a related note, where are the remains of the general drainage system, which supposedly was built to alleviate the John Brown House from dealing with run-off from farther uphill? If we find remains, what can we learn about the topography and history of the site and the innovations and technology of the time?

3) Where is the foundational wall for the front side of the Robert Hale Ives House (now demolished and largely forgotten), which (according to an old drawing) had an elaborate front entrance on the Charlesfield Street side? If we find it, what can we learn about the architectural features of the house from the foundational wall? What kind of artifacts lie buried in the so-called "builder's trench" along the foundational wall and what can these artifacts tell us about the material culture of the occupants of this house?

These 3 groups of burning questions guided our choice of locations for the units for excavation. As I stared at the dirt and grass on the surface of the yard, I wished we could see through the surface to the unknown layers beneath. It's exciting and nerve-racking to realize that over the course of the next few weeks, we will not only uncover these layers, but will gain the tools and skills to see our finds like archaeologists and historians.

Week 2 (September 20, 2010)

Excavation has begun! This does not mean that we instantly begun shoveling up heaps of dirt. As appropriate, we have started out slow so as to insure that the process is methodical.

We began by giving each unit a number, continuing chornologically where last year left off. My group will be working at Unit 10 for the rest of the semester, where we hope to "stumble" (carefully of course) upon the front foundation wall of the demolished Robert Hale Ives House. Before breaking ground we first needed to photograph the surface of the entire unit and measure elevations with a level. The photograph was taken facing north, with a trowel pointing north to act as a make-shift compass, a meter stick along the edge to provide context to judge the dimensions of the unit, and a chalkboard to indicate important details about the unit and the first context. Next, we tied a string to the stake at the corner with the highest elevation and used the string and a level to determine the difference in elevation at the other 3 corners and in the center of the unit.

Now we were ready to break ground. Our goal was to essentially shave off 2cm worth of top soil and sift through. We used large shovels to do most of the digging, buckets to carry the dirt (and, in this case, mostly moss) over to the tarp, and a large hand held wooden sifter to isolate any artificats from the moss and dirt. To ensure that we did not dig outside of the boundaries of the unit, we used a simple barrier method of prevention--the human foot. We stuck a foot between the boundary and our shovel to do most of the digging. When we return to the unit for our third week on site, we will tackle the rest of the top layer with a smaller tool, the trowel, which will enable us to more carefully stay within the lines.

Finally, the most important thing we did this week was to make a complete record of "the context" using a pre-printed standardized excavation form. On this form we listed a variety of technical details, including the unit number, the context number, the photos taken, the excavators names, the digging methods used, the elevations at each corner and in the center. In paragraph form, we also described our reasons for a new context designation and general notes about our process and our finds. We were sure to include a description of the consistency and color of the moss and soil throughout. The form also leaves a substantial gridded space for a plan view drawing.

And what did we find this week? As expected, not much yet. Since it's only the top 2cm, any artifacts found cannot be particularly old. We got very excited though when we discovered an "ancient coin"...dating all the way back to 1982. Then we realized, wait a minute, just because it was minted in 1982 doesn't mean it was deposited into the ground that year. Oh wells. It had turned green (yay!) during its time underground and it was the first evidence for us that sifting works. We also found some other odds and ends of recent items, such as a piece of styrofoam and a cigarette butt.

Week 3 (September 27, 2010)

No excavation updates this week. This week was dedicated instead to exploring the resources available through the RI Historical Society.

We began with a "fieldtrip" up Power Street to the RI Historical Society's resource Library. The library houses and protects a vast number of primary sources related to the history of RI, such as old manuscripts, photographs, maps, directories, etc. We were given step-by-step instructions on how to search for relevant sources and how to make requests to view the items housed in the closed stacks upstairs. The task appears a bit daunting and time-consuming, since requests can only be made a few times of day and since the search process requires not only online searches, but also manual searches through the card catalog and paper inventories. At the same time though, it is exciting to have this opportunity to look at primary sources and fit the puzzle pieces together, rather than just reading the pre-digested narratives provided through secondary sources.

For the second part of the class, we returned to the John Brown House site, this time to take a tour of the house itself. After walking by it for the past few years and spending the past couple weeks working in the yard, I was surprised to discover how large the "mansion" really is inside!

Week 4 (October 4, 2010)

We returned to our unit for excavating in earnest! I was eager to get a lot done. My parents visited this weekend, and I have to admit it was a bit disappointing that I did not have more to show yet. And since next week we don't have class again, we all felt a sense of imperative to work hard and efficiently.

And hard work it was. I soon discovered that sifting is hard manual labor. After an hour of sifting, my arms definitely ached and I was forced to switch over to digging. Though I'm rather clumsy with the large shovel, I discovered that the troweling is my forte. It became my mission (and naturally obsession) to give our unit perfect walls. On hands and knees and trowel in hand, I proceeded along the entire boundary of the unit, attempting to create perfectly vertical, flat walls. Yes, I'm a bit proud of my work.

But even more so, I think our whole group deserves to be proud of this week's progress. Our first context yielded our first truly significant artifacts and we reached our new context! We were surprised how clear the transition from our first context to our new context appeared. When we return in two weeks, we will leave behind the dark brown top soil and proceed into our new context of the orange clay-ey soil and dirt mixture. Meanwhile, the new artifacts we've collected included pottery and glassier porcelain fragments probably from the target period and reminiscent of the ceramics on display inside the John Brown House. We also discovered a large purposely-cut triangular stone block and some pieces of terracotta--both welcome signs of architectural features, which are hopefully connected with the Ives House!

Week 5 (October 18, 2010)

Very exciting day! After 2 weeks absence (and after performing the prerequisite procedures for a new context), we ventured down into our new context, where we are no longer encountering only isolated finds but are beginning to discover whole clusters of significant material culture and architectural remnants!

We want to be extra careful now not to disturb any architecture if it's still in tact. So we are proceeding in these areas with caution--shoveling only at the edges of the unit and reserving the areas directly around these clusters for careful troweling.

Here's my brain dump about the new context:

1) Soil description: orange clay-ey soil mixed with dark brown dirt. Notable presence of a lot more stones, large and small. Scattered appearance of what looks like dark black charcoal.

2) Material culture: remnant of a smoking pipe! with the manufacturer's seal on it. Sounds like Ben wants to choose this for his artifact analysis.

3) Architectural features: clustered in the center of the unit and continuing in a southernly sweep all the way to the edge of the unit. a) bricks. hard dark red pieces and wet disintegrating bright orangey-red clumps. b) nails. rusted and twisted. according to our professor, must date back at least a century (she can tell by the head and shape). c) mortar. attached to numerous rocks and alone. d) clusters of stones. we are approaching these stones with caution instead of immediately forcing them out of the ground. are they related to each other? or to a wall beneath them?!

Week 6 (October 25, 2010)

This week, we really learned how to dig! We were being all cautious at first cause we thought we were coming upon something significant architecturally (wishful thinking I suppose!) but Krysta came over and told us to abort "mission trowel." And then we discovered the power of teamwork... Ben and I have perfected a new system, which I think is definitely faster (although I might just be biased since I got to abandon the shovel and stick to tools my own size). Basically, ben shovel shaves and dumps the dirt to the side and then I come along with a trowel and a dust pin and transfer the dirt piles into buckets to be sifted by Laura. That way, ben doesn't have to go back and forth with the heavy shovel between the unit and the buckets.

And so we barreled through our digging (even without the help of Allison, who was unfortunately absent), continuing into section until we were forced to stop when it got too dark (an unfortunate consequence of daylight savings time and the onset of winter). And alas, as Krysta guessed, no linear architectural feature to be found. But, no worries, plenty of artifacts, especially lots of rusted nails and other iron pieces (that seems to be our thing in this unit), including this really gigantic and crazy-looking piece of iron that reminds me of a wishbone.

Week 7 (November 1, 2010)

Once again, we dug furiously, this time with the help of Allison's father! I desperately tried to keep up with my trowel and dust pan as Allison, her dad, and ben speed dug.

And turned out, we had a fantastic day of finds to show off to Allison's. Artifact-wise, we found a couple uber exciting finds...

1) a tiny glass perfume bottle! A whole container with the perfume company embossed on it and, most surprisingly, with the cork stopper still intact! Even stranger, the cork is attached to thsi metal cap thing that has a screw on the outside. Neat. I think Allison wants to claim this for her bio since she found it, but I kind of secretly hope I can steal it from her...

2) pretty glazed piece of pottery. I say pretty, because it's blue and that's my favorite color. It's probably the largest shard we've found and probably not too difficult to identify since it has a very distinctive stripey pattern.

Next piece of exciting news, we labeled a new context and it's not an entire layer of our unit. Lucky Unit 73 only takes up the northern eastern corner of the unit. I'm not actually sure if it deserves to be labeled a new context since the soil seems the same, but then again, the area does seem to have a lot of architectural pieces very closely related to eachother. Allison's pretty confident we're coming upon a wall, but I don't want to get our hopes up again quite yet. Plus, I kind of suspect that if there is a wall, it's deeper in our unit and so we should keep digging quickly before the semester runs out!

Week 8 (November 8, 2010)

Last week of digging. So sad :( I can't help wondering what else we could have found if we'd had just a couple of more weeks...

We dug through Context 73, bringing it down to the level of Context 68. We found a whole bunch of huuuge bricks and stones of various sizes so we made piles of them and counted them. Unfortunately, as I sadly suspected, no linear architectural feature under our promising clusters of brick, metal, and stone. Never fear though...plenty more nails were recovered and some glass too.

To close up, we cleaned up the unit to take our final picture and our final leveling (I took my familiar post, staring at the bubble in the level). I also got to bring out my hidden drawing skills, when I was put in charge of making the drawing (to scale on a piece of grid paper) the north wall of the unit. After we finished with all our methodological documentation procedures, it got dark and we ventured over to the lab for the first time, where Krysta and Jessica introduced us to a whole new process of fieldwork -- the sorting and cleaning of the artifacts. We sorted artifacts into a tray to be washed and a tray to be dry brushed. The washing was honestly much more satisfying, since it was so quick and easy and had such great results with the pottery and glass. Brushing the iron with a toothbrush was a lot more tedious and time consuming. We finished Context 73 today, but I can't imagine how long it's going to take us to brush all the iron from Context 68 next week!

Week 9 (November 15)

We closed our unit. By which I mean, we took our huge dirt pile and put it back into our Unit. What took us all semester to carefully remove, took a mere hour to replace. It made me a bit sad inside.

But I still had fun. I got to be a "stomper". This means, I marched back and forth across the unit, using my feet to compress the dirt being dumped back into the unit. Apparently, a very important job, or else we will end up with a mound over our unit when we're done. I was only a bit obsessive compulsive about trying to even out the dirt and make sure it reached the edges of the unit. And then, we did it again with Unit 12. Unit 11 will have to wait until next week. Surprise surprise...it got dark.

So we ventured back over to the lab for some more artifact brushing. Bring on the nails!

Week 10 (November 22)

We filled Unit 12. Then off to lab we went once again to finish off the brushing of the nails. And surprisingly, we succeeded in finishing all of the artifact cleaning for our unit! We also finalized our object bio choices. I'm really excited cause I get to do the perfume bottle after all!! And guess what? it still has its scent in it. How lovely.