Ian Brownstein

Week 2 (9/19/11):

Today we visited the John Brown House museum to get some background information on the property we will be excavating over the course of the semester. The house is maintained by the Rhode Island Historical Society and is the oldest house in their possession. The house was built by John Brown, a wealth merchant who moved to Rhode Island before the revolutionary war. We began the tour by watching a video in a building, now attached to the house, which had originally been used to store wood for the houses use. This building, the only brick auxiliary building originally associated with the home, and the only original auxiliary building still standing, had been attached to the house during modern renovations. The film spoke of the Brown’s influence in the state and during revolutionary war aswell as going into some detail about his mercantile practices.

After the movie, we walked through the house, learning its layout andthe reasoning for it being built as it was. The house was built with four rooms on each floor and faced Narragansett Bay. The first floor was for entertaining guests and dining, the second and third floors were for living. Each room had its own story, which was revealed to us by Dalila Goulart, the Education and Visitor Services Manager, who lead us through the house. She constantly had to point out details in each room to let us know what was original to which era and how it would have looked when John Brown owned it. In this process be learned quite a bit about not just what the house was like when the John Brown first built it, but how it evolved over time. We also had to imagine what each room would have been looking out to since the city itself has changed even more drastically than the house. This was hard to visualize since we were so used to thinking of the house in its modern setting but revealed a lot about the houseand why it was built as it was.

Finally, after the tour, we meet with Morgan Grefe who answered our questions about the house. She also mentioned some of the folklore about the property and her encounters with people who believe these stories, such as the slave tunnels to Benefit St and the cells in the basement, over her years in Providence.

Week 3 (9/26/11):

My unit did not start excavating today but we joined the group that was digging down to the two parallel walls which had been excavated overthe last few years. We dug out 5 square meters (a 2mx2m attached to a 1mx1m) of backfill to reach the level of previous excavation which was marked by two buried tarps. We used shovels for most of the work and transferred the earth from into buckets so it could be carried to a pile of unearthed backfill we were making nearby. The tarps were held down in there corners by large stones which helped guide our digging. As the area was further revealed, we used trowels, dustpans, and a broom to clean off the tarps. When we went mark out the corners of the grid we noticed we had dug to far into the corner that connected the 1mx1m and the 2mx2m. After some discussion we decided tomark the site as a larger 2mx3m and that we would excavate the new addition to the grid next week. After this, we removed the tarps and reveled the walls beneath.We ended the day by taking photos of the site and covering up our work to protect it for next week.

Also today, GPR was started on the other side of the property (along Charlesfeild St) and a total station mapped out the location ofthe unit I was supposed to work on in the future. It ends up that the anomaly found in magnotometry, which we were hoping to excavate, is located partially under a tree and can therefore cannot be excavated. We will hopefully have a new location to start digging next week or we will permanently join the group I worked with today.

Week 4 (10/3/11):

Today my group broke ground on Unit 14. We positioned this unit above a strong, rectangular GPR anomoly located about 1m below the surace. Based on the shape and size on the anomaly (I don't remember exactly but on the order of a few meters by a few meter) we are hypothesizing that this is one of the auxiliary buildings contemporary to the John Brown House. The anomaly is also parallel to Charlesfield St. suggesting that it is a man made anomaly. We positioned our 1mx3m grid so that it would intersect what we believe to be one of the walls of the possible structure. We spent the day sifting through the grassy topsoil layer. We found a handful of small white glazed sherds which seem to be part of a single larger ceramic, 2 full nails, one partial nail, and a number of pieces of glass. One of the sherds also appears to have been part of the rim of the ceramic it came from. We also located the corners of our grid using the total station so it could be added to the project GIS.

Week 5 (10/17/11)

My unit began the day by finishing its work uncovering the new context we had begun to notice during the end of the last class characterized by extremely black soil. We brought the entire unit down to 5cm and decided that the western 2.2mx1m portion of the unit and the eastern .8mx1m should fall into different contexts because the western portion, labeled JBHcontext 80, we characterized by homogenous, damp, black soil while the eastern portion, labeled JBH context 81, was characterized by a non-homogenous, blackand brown, dry soil. We dividing line was mapped using the total station. I worked on context 81 and spent the majority of the day lowering the context, sifting the removed soil, and cutting roots. There was one especially large root, which went across the entire unit, which was removed at the end of the day. In context 81 I found few objects that could be classified as cultural material except a few pieces of glass and 2 white glazed ceramic shards.

Week 6 (10/24/11):

Today we continued digging down on contexts 80 and 81. We quickly realized that the two contexts seemed to be merging into a new context, context 83, even though they we’re being dug at different depths (there was a 2-3cm different in elevation between them). I then spent the afternoon cleaning up contexts 80 and 81, fighting a number of large roots which had been plaguing the corners on context 81.

Both contexts 80 and 81 found coal, shards, broken glass, and brick. Context 80 also found an iron nail and a large iron piece and context 80 found a white glazed pottery shard which has a red and green image glazed onto it (possibly an apple).

By the end of the day we had leveled out both contexts and wrote up a new context83 which encompasses the entire site. We will bring the entire trench down nextweek.

Week 7 (10/31/11):

Today, we spent the entire period digging down on context 83. It was very cold and the soil was damp for the melted snow which had come down over the weekend. There were no changes in soil type or color so we did not classify any new contexts. We found few artifacts of significance to material culture, mainly broken glass and white glazed pottery shards. A majority of our work focused on working through sifting through the large quantitatesof gravel which characterize this context and observing the greenish material which was embedded in a root. We orignially thought the green material to be percipated copper but now, based on its soft consistentcy, belive it to be a fungus. We also had to fight a large numberof large roots which plagued this context. Most of these had to be removed with the saw. There was one root that we came up on suddenly on the western edge ofthe site which I broke my shovel on. By the end of the day we had gone down around 10-15cm with no change in context.

Week 8 (11/7/11):

Since this was supposed to be our last dig day and we hadgone the entire semester without encountering any major material culture wedecided to only dig the portion of our unit where the GPR anomaly was detected.We dug the western half of the unit (a 1.5mx1m area). Until sunset we foundlittle other than large roots, one of which was at leas 6” in diameter!, and morelarge roots. But after sunset we uncovered the top of a brick and some largerhomogenous rock, which seemed to be a form of concrete. We did not get very fardue to the lack of light but we will have another dig day next week to find outmore.

Week 9 (11/14/11):

First thing we did this week was to open a new context dueto our discoveries last week and the increase in small rocks at this depth. Wedug around the brick and the larger (possibly concrete) feature. The brick didnot appear to be part of a larger feature and after it was completely excavatedit was removed from the trench. We kept digging around the larger feature anduncovered a ½” diameter metal pipe which went directly into the possibly concretefeature from the northern side of the trench. Under the light of cell phones wecontinued to dig around the pipe and concrete feature, which we began tohypothesis was some sort of foundation. By the nights end we had exposed thepipe and the extent of the concrete feature. We also found a lot of class, ironnails, and a nice thick piece of stoneware, which may have been part of a cheappipe.