Beautiful! Clear, cool, breezy, and sunny.
Hannah and I got a lot done this morning…helps when it’s not blazing hot! We finished out STP#25, not finding much of anything. We then moved on to STP#42, which we placed near the edge of a depression in the yard not too far from STP#25. We had hoped that it was the location of the ice house, privy, or a trash pit, but it turned out to be where a tree had been removed. While we did find a good deal of artifacts in the very first few levels of this STP, we found very large decayed roots soon after, and then came down on sterile soil.

That done, we moved on to STP#27, located five meters to the east. We hope to find some evidence of the woodshed that was attached to the rear of the house in this STP, as it is in line with the edge of what was the original back of the house. We had just begun excavation of this STP when Susan, a reporter with the local Eagle Bulletin newspaper arrived to take some photos of us working. She interviewed me yesterday, and today’s photos will be used in the story which should be out in next week’s edition.

After lunch, I was joined by Beth and Rachel, and her friend John. We continued excavation of STP#27 and also opened up #28, in line with where the other side of the woodshed should be located. Tom also joined us, as well as some visitors. Plus, a photographer from the Syracuse Post Standard newspaper spent some time with us, taking photos for a potential story (no word on when, though).

Between the two STPs we found a large number of artifacts – including cut nails, window glass, a lot of animal bone, and some undecorated ceramic fragments. No evidence of foundation for the woodshed yet, but the amount of artifacts found so far is exciting.

Photos here.

Cloudy, hot, and humid
Alone for the very first part of the morning, I tackled STP#20 in the hopes of finishing it. I did (with Hannah’s help), but only after finding a dead mouse (fairly fresh) in the test pit. Luckily, Hannah was not there yet and missed my little startled dance when I scooped it out of the pit with the loose soil from level 6. Not too much to report on this STP; I did have what may be our first encounter with sterile subsoil about 60cm below the ground surface – a reddish brown clay with absolutely no artifacts.

Hannah then finished excavating STP#24, which was where Blythe and I found so many artifacts on Saturday. We didn’t find much of anything today, though – the artifacts were very dense in levels 1 through 4, but virtually nonexistent below that. I think that this means that this deposit hasn’t been disturbed by digging or other more recent activities (which is good!), unlike a lot of the other deposits we’ve seen so far.

Those two STP’s finished, we moved on to open up a new one farther back from the house, near the western edge of the yard. So far, we’ve found very few artifacts. We stopped and cleaned up at 2:30 since it looked about to downpour any second (we decided it would be nice to avoid having to take refuge in the garage again!) – but of course, the rain held off until about 6pm.

Photo of the day here.

I’ve added links to a few archaeology-minded sites, including one for the New York Archaeological Association. The local chapter of the NYSAA is the Beauchamp Chapter, and it’s a good organization, especially if you’re interested in being involved in other excavations locally. I was a member for my last year as an undergraduate, and the monthly guest lectures were a good way of learning about what kinds of archaeological research are being done both locally and non-locally.

Another link is to the Alexandria Archaeology Museum, located in Alexandria, Virginia. Their website has some great information on archaeology in general, and I’d highly recommend stopping by their museum in person if you’re ever visiting the Washington DC area.

I included a link to Archaeology Magazine, published by the Archaeological Institute of America – you’ve probably seen it on newsstands. And, if you’re not tired of me talking about my time at Mount Vernon yet, you can go to the archives section of their Interactive Digs and see the Interactive Dig we did during the summer of 2003 (called ‘Distilling the Past’). Of course, there’s also a link to Mount Vernon’s Archaeology Department (that’s me in the upper left corner picture pretending to Munsell!)

Finally, the other two links are to the Society for American Archaeology and the Society for Historical Archaeology, two of the major international professional organizations for archaeologists working in the Americas.

Enjoy!

Beautiful day! Clear, sunny, and cool.
I finished excavating STP#41, without much to report. Besides two upper layers of soil that show evidence of disturbance, not much was learned regarding whether or not this is the location of the garden house shown in the 1887 photo.

Blythe, Hannah, and Hannah’s friend Emily arrived, and while Hannah and Emily picked up where Sheila had left off on STP#20, Blythe and I moved on to a new STP - #24 – located about a meter from the current southwest corner of the house. This section of the house is also a twentieth century addition, and based on architectural evidence, we believe that the doorway leading onto this addition from the main part of the house was, in the 1800s, the back kitchen door of the house. This would mean that the yard space now covered by the addition was the immediate kitchen yard, which we would expect to have been a locus of activity and probably kitchen-related trash. After digging STP#24, we have reason to believe that the trash scatter or possible midden (trash pit) extends beyond the area covered by the addition, as Blythe and I excavated the highest density of artifacts from the first forty centimeters of this STP than we’ve excavated from any other test pit dug so far. (Needless to say, I’m very happy!) We found our second fragment of kaolin tobacco pipe stem, a piece of the same molded and blue painted ceramic found in another STP, the metal hand tool Blythe mentioned in her posting, and reconstructable fragments of an octagonal saucer, among many other things.

Take a look at today’s photos here.

Cloudy, warm and humid, but with a nice breeze.

A pretty quiet day, overall – it was just Sheila and I in the morning. Sheila continued excavation of STP#20 – against the foundation of the sun porch, while I finished out excavation of STP#19, near the western edge of the yard. Modern artifacts were mainly found in #20, which is understandable as the sun porch was added to the house in the early twentieth century. I was hoping to catch the edge of the builder’s trench and see to what extent the addition of the sun porch disturbed the yard area. A builder’s trench is the trench dug to lay in a foundation, and is necessarily wider than the foundation wall itself. Once the wall has been constructed, the gap between the new wall and the edge of the trench is filled in with soil, and the interface between these two soil deposits is what I was hoping to find. As we haven’t found it, the builder’s trench must be more than 30cm wide, the size of our STPs.

In STP#19, I found several fragments of ceramic decorated with brown transfer print – the first in a color other than blue that we’ve found so far. Brown wasn’t nearly as popular as the blue decoration, and I’ll need to look into the date range for the color.

After finishing STP#19, I laid in a new STP - #41 – on the edge of the depression on the western side of the house (mentioned in the Dig Day #9 posting). Rachel and I had begun excavation of this new STP in the afternoon when a huge thunderstorm hit and we took refuge in the garage. So much for the new grass seed I’ve been putting down to minimize the impact of our digging on the property’s appearance…

Today’s photos are here.

What a fun way to spend a birthday! I had great fun playing in the dirt, learning about how to use some of the tools and methods. We found several big pieces of what is probably a saucer, lots of coal, some nails, but the big prize was a whole tool. At first I thought it was a root that I needed to cut to continue digging the STP (Kim will need to note which number it is), but as I pulled on the piece that looked like a root, it came out easily and at first looked like pliers but when finally out, looks more like what might have been a leather punch. Kim will figure out what it was. It makes you wonder who used it last. Did someone lay it down and forget to pick it up? Did a kid play with it and not put it back where it belonged? Was the mechanism broken so that it wouldn’t work anymore?
It was a great day. http://quartz.syr.edu/gallery/July23
Blythe

A bit warmer and more humid than yesterday…
Barb, Hannah, and Sheila finished excavating STP#15 while I recorded #16. #15 didn’t produce too much in the way of artifacts. Check out the shot of Hannah being swallowed by the test pit in her dedication to digging here.

With #’s 15 and 16 completed, we moved on to #’s 19 and 20. Like the previous two, these test pits are located on the west side of the house, in the area used as the formal flower garden during the Gage family’s time here. Hopefully, with one of the test pits on this side of the house, we’ll intersect the spot where the Gage’s garden house was located. The garden house was a small octagonal trellis structure with a marble floor and a wooden bench seat around the inside. There is a suspicious-looking depression in the yard just a few meters south of where we’re excavating now that seems to correspond pretty well to the placing of the garden house in an 1887 photo taken by L. Frank Baum. I’ll be placing a test pit on the edge of this depression within the next few days, and we’ll see what we find…

Hi all – Check out a variety of photos taken during Dig Days 1-7 here.

Beautiful! Cool, sunny, and breezy…
Finished recording STP#11 and backfilled it. In the meantime, Sheila, Barb, and Hannah started excavation of a new STP - #15 – located on the western edge of the property near the fence, right in line with the small trees in the side yard. So far, they’ve mostly found coal and a lot of tree roots and rocks. Rachel – a new volunteer – stopped by with her mom, Beth, and we worked a bit more on #15 this afternoon – the biggest find being a few fragments of terra cotta, likely from a flower pot.

Hannah and I opened up STP#16, just west of #15. We discovered a thick (~20cm) ashy layer with lots of coal and a single cut nail, as well as a few large cobbles embedded in the south wall of the test pit. It seems that the ashy deposit represents the results of cleaning out a coal-fired stove or furnace inside the house.
I continued excavation until I could no longer reach the bottom, finding a small piece of ceramic and an unidentifiable nail at the very bottom. I’ll draw and photograph the soil layers in the eastern wall of this STP in the morning.

Check out photos from today here.

As we learn more about this software, we are learning how to post the photos. This link takes you to some Day 5 photos that Hannah’s father took.
http://quartz.syr.edu/gallery/DigDay5