Allison Barker

Week 1 - Septemeber 12:

Yesterday was the first meeting for ARCH 1900 – Archaeology of College Hill - where we will be excavating at the John Brown House located on Power Street. To have us prepared for our first day of the dig Jessica had us read the John Brown House Archaeological Report from 2008 and 2009. We were not able to read 2010. I absolutely loved the history of the house – including the multiple and intricate levels of history that played out at the house and surrounding area. My favorite mention was of handing over the house due to tax evasion. Jessica introduced herself, our TA Müge, and had us introduce ourselves to the class. What’s exciting is that the class is a mix of archaeology and outside concentrators. Therefore, there will be multiple levels of different skill sets.We then went over the syllabus and the history of the John Brown House (basically our readings).

After the first part of our class, we excitedly walked down Benefit Street leaving behind Jessica and Müge accidentally. We then went to a carriage house (there seems to be quite a few in Providence) and got our equipment for the dig. After setting down our stuff, Jessica walked us through potential units. The first is going to be between two previous sites along Charlesfield St where the Hale-Ives House was. The next site is along the fence running parallel to Benefit St where two parallel walls have been discovered. The last site is unknown to me, but they are going to be looking for the fountain/ the slave tunnels (but not really). We then broke into two groups of three and one group of four.

I, along with Hannah and Susana, will be excavation Unit 11 from last year where the wall was discovered. Yesterday, while the other groups were planning where to dig, we were shoveling backfill from last year. There was a mishap and we did destroy some tree roots in the name of archaeology (and found some cool pieces of tile), but eventually we located the 2x2 from last year. It did not take long for us to see the tarp that was laid down from the previous excavation. So hopefully we will be able to uncover the site completely next week and get down to some serious wall foundation discovery!

Week 2 - September 19:

For this week, our class met at the John Brown House on 52 Power Street justa few meters east of our excavation sites. I was very excited to finally go inthe house, after looking at it for a few years, but never gathering the time toactually head into the fabulous home. We went as a class to go see the housebefore excavations really started to understand the inhabitants and thehistorical context better. We went around to the back of the house, which wasinteresting - I thought we would enter from the front - and met Dalila Goulart,the Education and Visitor Services Manager. We were then ushered into a room (the log room)with a huge carriage (the epic Washington Chariot!)(I'm still a littlefrightened that his descendants took it for joy rides in the 50s) and statuesto watch a well made retro documentary on John Brown, his home, and how thehouse has changed throughout history. Also I learned that this house isGregorian, meaning that there are 4 rooms on each floor with a long hallway.How cool is that?!

We started the tour by going into the display room where we viewed JohnBrown's maritime trade with China and also his involvement with the slavetrade, especially the misfortunate Sally expedition. I didn't fully understandJohn Brown's massive fleet of ships that were used for different purposes untilthen. It seemed he had his hand in almost all types of trade.

Some notable features in the house were the early general electric refrigeratorand the heaters in the butler’s pantry, the squirrel room with a squirrelfireplace and wallpaper from zuber (which actually has really cool wallpaper)in the informal dayroom, John Brown’s most beloved corner chair, an early “necessity”chamber pot chair, a beautiful bathroom with a sunken tub, a needlepoint shower(epic!), and a heated sink (all still luxury items), a waistcoat of “OldThunder”, and a beautiful and rare 9 shell drawer desk.

I absolutely loved this house and all the stories, especially Old Thundersending his son-in-law to France during the French Revolution and James Browndescribing the hurricane of 1815 as “blowy”. These stories and viewing theobjects of this lovely house will help me to contextualize this information andto better process finds from my excavation of Unit 11.

Week 3 - September 26:

Today we finally excavated for thewhole time - it was only backfill though. We gathered our equipment from the CarriageHouse and then headed over to our site. My unit would continue withbackfilling, while Unit 13 would assist with the GPR (which seemed really funfrom afar!). Unit 14, with the exceptionof Sandra, would be helping my unit with digging the backfill –which I wasreally grateful for, because I knew we had a lot more to go and wouldn’t finishin this class period. Sandra and Jessica went to try to locate the fountain,only to find that it was under a tree! Therefore, all of Unit 11 and 14 workedtogether to help unearth the backfill.

The backfilling took quite a while,basically the whole 2 hours to uncover, so thankfully we had the help! We wentat the digging vigorously, a little too much actually because we took out thecorner where the 1x1 and 2x2 meet, making us have to resize our excavation forthis season. Now the site is a 3x2 meters. Also during our digging Muge washelping to line the borders of the unit and at the end, after the reveal of thesite, took a context photograph.

Therefore, Unit 11 and 14 willtemporarily join forces and we will need to excavate the 1x1 until it is atground level with the excavation from last season. I’m completely lookingforward to actually excavating!

Week 4 – October 3:

Today, I arrived an hour early to work on our site only tofind the tarps over our site to be filled with water. So, Muge, Jessica,Hannah, and I took turns bucketing the water out of our “cesspool” (it smelledawful!) to try and drain it enough to lift the tarp. However, even with theamount of water we took out, we needed more people to uncover the tarp.Therefore, Hannah and I went to work on Unit 14 with Valerie, where we got ourfirst taste of actual documentation and excavation.

After the rest of the group arrived we went over the GPRresults from last week. This helped to place the last unit near Unit 14 - loosing 6 helpful hands on our site. Thenwe received some help with uncovering the tarp, which smelled even worse whenremoving.We then finally started our excavation on our unit andlearned about documenting contexts. We have now opened a new context andtherefore must fill out the sheet and draw the new context – which was actuallyquite difficult with an uneven 1 by 1 meter square. Once we measured and drew,Jessica then pulled us over to document on the Total Station, which is actuallymore difficult then it looks!

Then we finally began excavation! We quickly would part ofthe wall, which surprised us all. We were expecting it be further down. Andthat we would need to start a new context next time we dig. Along with thedigging we did today, we used the sifter! Which was also quite hard work.Through this we found tiles, but also red rocks looking things. Susanna and Ipulled anything that looked even remotely interesting looks. So that should befun to go through later. But now I feel like a more legitimate archaeologistand cannot wait to continue.

Week 5 - October 15 and October 17:

On Saturday the 15^th, I went to the last hour ofthe Community Archaeology Day. It was a beautiful say, but I actually didn’tget much done. It was so wonderful to talk to parents, other students, and thecurious public about what, why, and how we were excavating. I really felt aftertalking to them that I had learned a lot over a short amount of time – I wasreally surprised I could tell them what I knew! I also bailed out water fromour unit with Hannah and Nick (a lucky volunteer!) to prepare our unit forMonday’s class. I also sieved and used a trowel for the first time today, whichfelt me feeling pretty legitimate

On Monday the 17^th, luckily due to us bailing outthe water on Saturday, Jessica, Muge, and I were able to lift the tarp withjust us. Therefore, I was able to start our Unit 11 new context - 79! I’ve cometo realize how much I really love Munsell and his obsession with dirt coloring.I also need to draw in some distinct rock formation for the context sheet andtake new datum points – making me slowly hate our non 1 by 1 meter. It was thentime to start the excavation with an actual trowel and not a shovel – well westill used a bit of shoveling, but for the most part it was the trowel – a veryprofessional archaeological tool. Susana and I started and were quickly joinedby Hannah. Starting a new context was exciting, but we quickly realized thatthe rubble was annoying and took a terribly long time - only for us to not haveour area level (Muge’s area was level, but not ours).

Today, really come down to our observations. Meaning whichrock/ brick was more important to save then another. Should we move this rock?Or leave it as is? Should we create a datum point for this? Or not? These wereall difficult questions to answer and help me to see the more troublingquestions that press today’s archaeologists. Also due to our lack of finds – wedid find nails, bricks, and ceramics – we seemed to save everything, whileother units did not save as much. So it really all comes down to the individualarchaeologist and what they deem worthy to save. That was a very importantlesson for me today.

Week 6 - October 24:

Again, I arrived early to see what my unit had in store forme. To no surprise it was filled with water again. So Jessica, Muge, and Iagain got the water out of our unit and then removed the tarp. The goal todaywas the remove the remaining rubble from our context 79 and to get to a levelplain with the rest of our 2 by 3 meter unit. We worked very quickly – if Imust say so myself may were impressed by our finesse. It was very difficult however because the 1by 1 is still all rocks, which is a pain to remove and sieve. I’m pretty sure Istrained by back – oh the joys!

But the pain was worth the excellent find we found today. Wefound a great detailed brick with a square hole in the middle, which is unusualfor most bricks, which are solid (at least all the ones I’ve seen). Jessicanoted that similar brick was found before, after I screamed we had foundsomething – she thought I was shouting due to finding a human hand, which wewill in due time. We also found a thick piece of greenish glass. It was quick afew cm long, which is awesome! And we also found more nails (I actually foundmost of the nail – I’m the nail finder of the group), iron (which Jessicafound, I’m not sure we would have spotted that), and a piece of white ceramic(which Susana found I think).

So, we did actually get pretty level, which means that wecan now start excavating our 2 by 3 in entirety. And hopefully we can potentiallyget down to find the foundations of the unit and a hand.

Week 7 – October 31:

Today, I came early again,only to have to empty our site once again with the help of Jessica and Muge.Our water problem has only gotten worse each week with our further excavations.But that’s life. It was actually a really nice day and the water did not smell– which is a good thing – so it wasn’t that bad! By the time we were doneemptying the water, everyone had started to come for the start of class.Therefore, it was time for a new context. We decided to set up three newcontext: 84, 85, and 86. 84 is my context and is on the west side of our site.It’s the smallest (which is why I choose it) and basically a triangle, but thatalso means I cannot step into my context to dig – not something I thoughtabout, but would have been helpful. Context 85 is in between the two walls andthat is where Susana is working – sadly Susana arrived last today and thereforewas last to choose her context. Context 86 is on the east side of walls, whichis basically another, but larger triangle. However, Hannah, who is working in86 is able to step into her context unlike myself. It took us quite a bit oftime (I would say around 45 minutes) to actually plot and draw all threecontexts, which was a pain.

For my context 84, I startedusing my trowel, however, that was not getting me very far. Therefore, whenHannah suggested we trying shoveling (which still feels unprofessional of me) Iagreed, just for time sake (which also does not seem to be very professional).My context was pretty rooty and my sides were not very even. So I worked onevening the sides of my walls and cleaning up the rock wall, but also trying toget down – which I did end up doing. What I didn’t realize though was that withall of us digging separate contexts, it was quite difficult to get sieving doneby ourselves, but I think we worked out a pattern, which is always a positivething!

I actually found some prettycool things today. I found some more nails (somehow I always find the nails),mold (yuck!), and some really pretty painted ceramics. I think the pieces areglazed blue, but I’ll have to do further analysis on it. Hannah didn’t reallyfind anything and neither did Susana, but I might just be biased because I’mreally quite proud of my little ceramic pieces – which is an interesting segwayinto interpretation in fieldwork. I’m really quite sad to be leaving our site.I felt a real bond with it in the past weeks.

Week 8 – November 7:

I arrived early again, but thankfully no buckets to bail outtoday!! This is an amazing phenomenon! So we saved some time with this, howeverwe did need to finish early due to Daylight Savings. It was very difficult tosee and I felt like even if I did find something amazing I wouldn’t be able tosee it. But I thought that this was the last day of digging, so I immediatelystarted to dig down as quickly as possible. I guess I was digging quite fast,because I needed to start a new context, 87, today, which was sort of a hassle.Which, of course, is awful to say, because recording is really very important,but I was much more focused on getting down to the foundation level. And it’sthis type of thinking that really helps to me see the errors in the field –especially with projects like rescue archaeology (something I’m interested in).

I found some very pretty pottery today; upon the inspectionof Prof. Cherry who deemed it pearl and cream wear, which at the time I had notidea what that meant. Hannah also found similar pottery in her unit today,which is quite neat to think about how these sherds would have happened to beplaced on opposite sides on the walls, but no pieces were really found in themiddle. Hannah also found an awesome piece of black glass and Susana didn’treally find anything today (which is quite sad!).

I was actually quite nervous today, when Prof. Alcock andProf. Cherry came today. I’m still not sure if what I’m doing is right. But Iguess practice makes perfect! Today I also worked on cleaning up my sides abit. But this proved pretty difficult in the north tip of my unit where thewest wall of excavation meets the left wall. It is quite difficult to get iteven on this side. Also the roots and rocks in my unit are really becoming apain.

I was really glad that today was not our last dayexcavating.

Week 9 – November 14 and 16:

There was water again in our site, but I have now become aprofessional at digging out the water with Muge and Jessica. This is ourofficial last day of excavation, which is really quite tragic. I really loveour site, even if we’ve only dug for a few days. So, I cannot imagine leaving asite, unless conditions were poor, after excavating for a month plus. We werereally lucky to have no rain this entire time, while we were excavating.

I didn’t really find anything particularly interestingtoday. Today, I was mostly digging down further into my context, while cleaningup that walls and getting it ready for mapping and photographing on Wednesdaythe 16^th. Also today, my goal was to find the foundation of the wallon my side, however, I’m still not quite sure if that was accomplished. We werealso highly debating in the trench today what was the purpose of the walls. Asof right now it is still between drainage and walkway. Once we date ourmaterial we will be able to better determine this.

On the 16^th, I was only able to stay for an hour.In this hour we hand recorded the sides of the walls and the different contextlayers, which was very interesting.

Week 10 – November 21:

This is officially the last day of our excavation and themost tragic – backfilling! It was really quite neat to see everyone’s units,but also quite remorseful filling up all our hard work. It was quite nice tohave everyone working together to reach a common goal. I would say that thecoolest thing today was having us all work together today on all the units. Ithink it was fitting that for our unit, we started the day emptying out theunit of water and ended the day filling it with soil. This honestly was one ofthe best classes I’ve taken at Brown. I’m really going to miss going out andexcavating!