The Excavotors- Personal Experiences

This page introduces each excavaotor that was part of the Archaeology of College Hill class and provides a quote from their field blogs. You can visit the class's field blogs [link] to read more about their experience and weekly reports on their units.

Valerie Bondura : "But before we picked up any shovels, we spent about 1 1/2 hours assisting with Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) being done on and around our unit. GPR involves measuring out a grid and then pulling a GPR machine, which is a relatively small box that is pulled by a handle like a wagon while the operator holds a hand held computer that shows readings from the GPR in real time."

Hannah Sisk : "Talking through our methodology and excavation plan, for me, was really satisfying, a sort of actual proof that I have been learning and mastering new skills so far this semester."

Sandra Mastrangelo : "After we opened up context 88, we continued to dig and felt something beneath our shovels! Again, it wasn’t a root! Instead, we found a skinny rusted metal pipe running diagonally from the north to the south of unit 14. "

Allison Barker : "But the pain was worth the excellent find we found today. We found a great detailed brick with a square hole in the middle, which is unusual for most bricks, which are solid (at least all the ones I’ve seen)."

Kaitlin East : "We had to take new pictures because of confusion about the numbering of the units last week. This unit had been previously identified as unit 14 and so for the sake of minimizing confusion we took pictures with the new unit number and recorded both the new unit number and photo numbers."

Brian Kelly : "Having been thwarted in our quest to uncover the fountain by a rather stubborn tree, this new trench—labeled Unit 14—held the promise of a wall and/or a room of the Hale Ives house. However, the anomalies revealed by the GPR became most prevalent at ~1-2m depths, so there will have to be extensive excavation before we are likely to find anything particularly noteworthy. "

Susana Ortega : "However, unlike Hannah and Allison where they were able to shovel their contexts, I found this to be difficult in my context so I had to trowel instead. This made the process slower than what I wanted, and since the context was large I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me."

Ian Brownstein : "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."

Nicholas Sinnott-Armstrong : "This week was a ton more shooting in with the station, ... -- lots of steps needed to make sure everything works smoothly, and in some ways this makes pen and paper preferable, but the accuracy is killer!"