Susana Ortega

September 12, 2011:

Today was the first class of Archaeology of College Hill. Ourfirst meeting was held in Rhode Island Hall 108, where I met nine otherstudents who I will work with for the rest of the fall semester. After anintroduction from Professor Nowlin and TA Muge, we reviewed our syllabus andunderstood that this will be a hands-on course and will require participation.Before we headed out to the John Brown House to start our semester longexcavation, Jessica gave a crash course on the history of the John Brown Houseto understand what we are working with. We learned about the long (confusing)family line and the many owners that were passed down throughout the years.

After having an understanding of the history, we wentoutside and headed toward the John Brown House. As a class we gathered our tools for our first excavation and Jessicagave a quick tour of the three sites that we would be working on for the nexteight weeks. As a class we chose the sites that we would like to work with. I,along with two other students, chose Unit 11, where we will continue the workthat has been done from the previous class. The previous class had discovered awall that was thought to be part of the Hale-Ives House. We began diggingimmediately until we found a tarp that was left last fall. Everything was going rather well except theroots made it difficult to dig out the dirt and we later found out the site wasactually further down from where we were. After finding the correct site,digging became easier without the roots and we even found the tarp. I think mygroup made good progress today and I am excited to see what will fold along the semester!

September 19, 2011:

On our second class we met as a class at the John BrownHouse because instead of excavating we were to take a tour of the museum. Ourtour guide was Delia Goulart, the Exhibition and Vistor Services manager, whostarted us off with a ten minute video of a general history of the house andfamily. After the video, we started our tour and I was excited to see what partof the house remained the same and how it has changed over time.

Delia then showed us the gallery room, where we learnedabout John Brown’s slave trade, his trade relations with China, and Sally’sexpedition. It was intriguing to find some of the luxurious features that Perryhad added such as the electric refrigerator and heaters in the butler’s pantry.Another feather that Perry added, which I thought was gorgeous and my favoritepart of the house, was the bathroom. It included a sunken tub, a ribcage shower(where the water would shoot out from the needle holes), and paintings. Deliaexplained how this was considered over the top during their era and at thattime there was only outdoor plumbing. The most interesting area was what usedto be the diner room located next to the butler’s pantry. Instead of seeingwhat you imagine a dining room would look there were walls covered with paintedillustrations of George Washington and a glass case of a miniature model of thehouse. It was explained that George Washington had visited the John Brown Housebut not the state at the time. In each floor there were four rooms, where wesaw how each room were used, and it consisted of bedrooms, a sick room, areading room, a children room, and etc. Most rooms had mannequins to also helpus visually relieve the experience of the house.

After the tour, we were introduced to Morgan Grefe, anexecutive director of the Rhode Island Historical Society. We used this time toask her any questions we had about the house or questions that were raisedduring the tour. I found the stories of the myths rather entertaining such asthe slave tunnels that were supposedly underneath the basement and the roots thattook form of Roger William’s torso and legs. Now with the tour and thebackground history of the John Brown House, I feel I am ready to continue forwardwith my excavation and feel I am more aware of what I am handling duringfieldwork.

September 26, 2011:

So, today my team (Allison and Hannah) and I continued tobackfill our unit from what we left off last week. As we lifted the tarp out toview our unit, to our surprise, we saw how little we had backfilled from theother week. Due to our error in locating the actual unit from last time, we hadlost time and did not progress far, and we knew we had a lot of work ahead ofus. While we were backfilling, Unit 13 assisted with the GPR, which seemed funto actually work with something I’ve read so much about. Jessica and Sandraalso worked on the total station to locate the fountain, which actually appearsto be under a tree. Because of this, Unit 14 (Sandra, Brian, and Ian) came toour Unit 11 and began to help us backfill, which I was very happy about. With their help, we were able to clear off the2x2m unit and the 1x1m that was added last year. I was very surprised at howmuch we were able to accomplish for the day. However, when we asked Jessica tocome check our unit, we found that we had over backfilled and had dug out thecorner that connected the two sections. With Jessica and Muge’s help, wedecided to open the unit as a 2x3m instead. Muge then helped us measure andused nails and strings to make the new borders of our unit. It was also a veryexciting moment as we lifted up the tarp that revealed the pair walls that laybeneath! After this moment, Muge had photographed the unit to put in ourrecord. Now, my team has to backfill the additional 1x1m for next week and tofinally begin our excavation, which I am excited about. I’m really glad Unit 14had came to help us or we would’ve only accomplished half of what we had donetoday, and I wouldn’t mind if they come back to help us next week as well.

October 3, 2011:

When I arrived to today’s class,Jessica showed us the GPR results and explained to us that an anomaly wasfound. Because of this the three people who were helping us will now open up anew unit to investigate it further. Our unit has now lost the extra help and Unit11 is back to just three excavators. Without losing time, we went to our Unitto start our excavation. Jessica had given us a context sheet for us to fillout, which Hannah filled it out for this week’s work. Our job today focused onopening up the 1x1m square that was just added to our unit.

Jessica then taught us how to usethe Total Station, which I thought was awesome. We were able to map out thepoints and take measurements of the entire unit. Hannah and I worked with theTotal Station first, while Allison helped with mapping out the unit, and afterwe switched. After this, we began to remove the top soil and also began fillingout our context sheet, which was a bit difficult and confusing at first. We didnot need to dig far because the wall was very close to the surface. Aftergathering a good amount of the top soil we began to sift through our dirt. We wereable to find tile pieces, bricks, and we bagged anything that seemed worth lookingover. Sifting was also not easy to work with since it required a lot ofphysical strength. I’m excited that we began our excavation process and cannotwait to continue with our Unit!

October 17, 2011:

When I arrived at the John Brown House, I saw that Allison had already gotten our Unit started. Last time we did not get to dig as much aswe wanted, but instead focused on mapping out site, measuring, and taking datafirst. So this time our goal was to mainly focus on the 1x1m that was added toour Unit and get it leveled to the ground. As we began to shovel, we were sureto be careful because the wall was near the surface, and we tried to digbetween the two walls. We also found it hard to do this because there was a lotof gravel. After a while, we decided it would be best to use trowels andbrushes instead of shovels. This helped because we were able to handle thegravel better and get more dirt out but this slowed down our progress than whatwe planned. However, Muge, came to help trowel, which allowed us to progress alot further. We were able to find a few rusted nails, bricks, tile pieces, andwhat seemed to be some kind of red ceramic, which could be possibly from the wallconstruction. Though we did not level it down, we did make good progress and wewere surprised to see the section closer to the ground. So hopefully by nextweek we could level this section out and will be able to investigate the unitas a whole.

October 24, 2011:

Oncearriving at the Unit, I saw that Allison had already emptied the water that has filled up in the pit and had started excavating. Sincelast week we were not able to level down the 1x1m, we wanted to complete itfor today. So we grabbed our trowels and started right away. As we began to dig, wefound this context to be rocky and made it difficult for us to go in a pace that will allow us to get down quicker. But because we took measurements last week and thecontext was the same, we were able to continue the flow of work withoutstopping. Besides all the rocks we found as we dug we also found brick fragments,mortar, tiles and nails. We also found pretty cool artifacts as well! One was adesigned brick that was still in intact and had a hole that run lengthwise,which Jessica reported a similar brick was found from the previous year. Thesecond artifact was a piece of green glass, which was quite large (compared tothe ones that are usually found) and surprisingly did not break. So by the endof the day we were finally able to get this context leveled, and we can now move onto excavate the Unit as a whole. Though our Unit is pretty big (2x3m), I’mexcited to see what our Unit has in store for us. So I say today was pretty mucha productive day, and now we can start our real excavation for the year.

October 31, 2011:

Today as I arrived at class, I saw that Allison and Hannahhad already started to work, and once again Allison had to empty out the waterfrom our Unit due to all the rain from the week. So this week we openedup three new contexts. Context 84 is the one in the west side of the wall, which isa small triangle, context 85 is located at the center of the two walls, andcontext 86 is in the east side of the two walls, which is a bigger triangle. As Isettled down, I found that Allison and Hannah had already picked their contexts,and I was left with the large context 85, which I have to admit was a bit intimidating.We then took the time to measure each of our own context, which took some ofour class time. Though we wanted to start right away we had to make sure we tookdown all our notes and data before starting.

Once we were done taking down ourdata and measurements, we finally started to dig our own context. Though my contextwas quite large for me to handle alone, I enjoyed my context because I wasworking on the walls and the pathways itself which is pretty cool. However, unlikeHannah and Allison where they were able to shovel their contexts, I found thisto be difficult in my context so I had to trowel instead. This made the processslower than what I wanted, and since the context was large I knew I had a lot ofwork ahead of me. As I began to dig I was saw a pipe that went through thewalls in the northern side which might be the cause of the wall pieces that hascollapsed there. I also found big stones that were hallow underneth with no signs of dirts. I was not able to uncover the stone but will continue to work onthis to figure out what is going on in the pathway. With artifacts, I was only ableto find mortar, tile, and bricks. So next week we will continue our excavation,and I hope I will be something interesting in my context, which is exciting tothink about.

November 7, 2011:

Arriving to class, I noticed how today had turned into abeautiful day and seemed that the weather was on our side for today’sexcavation. It also turns out that this week our Unit had not been covered inwater so Allison had a break from her usual routine. Today’s focus for me wasto get the pathway cleared out as much as possible because today might be ourlast day of excavation. So I as well as Hannah and Allison excavated like therewas no tomorrow! I did not find anything interesting except for the usual brickpieces, nails, and tiles. Since my context did not change and is still as rockyas ever, I was able to continue to trowel and brush my way down to the pathway.Professor Alcock and Professor Cherry, who I had not had the chance to met himpersonally, came to oversee our progress. It was a bit nerve-wracking to have them watch us. I, Hannahand Allison had to show our best excavation skills so they can see that we knewwhat we were doing! They were also helpful in giving more information about theartifacts Hannah and Allison found. Sadly, I did not find anything interestingyet. I was also aware that yesterday Daylight Savings had started, but I did notrealize how early it was going to get dark! By 4:45pm it was dark and we decidedto record our findings before it was too dark that we wouldn’t be able to write.And by 5pm it was just completely dark and we called it quits for our Unit. Sohopefully Jessica will give us one more day to excavate so I can really getsomewhere with my context!

November 14, 2011:

Jessica had given us one more day to excavate so today isour official last day of excavation! It is a bit sad that it’s coming to an endand that we did not get as far as where we wanted but I do have to admit aftermore than a month of excavating we did make progress and did well with our Unit asa whole. And as our last day, it was once again a gorgeous day!

When Iarrived at my Unit, I found that Jessica and Muge had accompanied Allison indigging, and they had worked on my context, which I was pleased because I needed all thehelp I can get for this last day. Jessica broke the news to me that they found interesting artifacts while I was gone. Though it would have been cool todiscovered them myself, I was just glad that they did find something and that Iwas getting help. It seemed that they found a glass bottle top and a weirdceramic that might be a piece of bone, which is really interesting! So as I continuedwhere they left off I focused on clearly the pathway as much as possible before the end of the day, andMuge was able to help me. I was able to find pieces of tile pathways,which was really cool to see, a shell, and more tiles and mortars. So my contextwas constant throughout my digging and did not change. Due to Daylights Saving,today had gotten dark even earlier than the previous week, and so we called it quitsaround 4:40pm.

November 16, 2011:

Today my group came at 9am to record our Unit. Hannah and Iwere able to stay for an hour and forty-five minutes before heading to our nextclass, but Allison had only stayed for an hour. I was really surprised at how timewent by so quick as we were recording the sides of the wall and the contextlayers. This was really interesting do and to learn how this kind ofrecording is done.

November 21, 2011:

Today is our last day at the John Brown House and tomorrow wewill start working in the lab with our artifacts, which is exciting. So today wasa bit sad because we were backfilling! All of our hard work is covered onceagain for only future archaeologists to discovered them. The whole classpitched in and we backfilled one Unit at a time and of course leaving the large2x3m last. Muge made sure we place a 2011 penny on each Unit, and as we coverthe last Unit, our excavation was officially over!! This experience has beengreat and was such a learning experience for me as well. So now we move on toartifacts and analyses!