From the Field 2007
- Welcome from the Director
- Weeks 1 and 2
- Weeks 3 and 4
- Week 5
Week 3, June 4-8
Reported by Maureen Sentman & Buffy Conrad
On the beach at Elliott Island: Ciera, Karen, Courtney (hiding behind Karen), Darrin, and Maureen.
Layers of oyster shell in a prehistoric midden, Elliott's Island.
Pipe bowl fragment from Eastern Neck, marked "WE" for William Evans (Bristol, 1660-1682).
The third week of Archeology field school afforded the students a wide array of experiences, various sceneries, and some splendid new finds! After the instructors and students enjoyed a pleasant road trip to Elliot's Island on Monday to walk the shores of the beautiful Nanticoke River shoreline, looking at sites and natural settings, the crew split up Tuesday, with a few students heading to the Sassafras River, about 15 miles north of Chestertown, to begin the first excavation of the 2007 field school, and all other students joining Brynn Torelli in field surveys on farms along Gray's Inn Creek on Eastern Neck.
Eastern Neck Surveys - Maureen Sentman
Hoping to find historic artifacts and features, the crew traversed only a few acres of a very muddy soybean field before quickly stumbling upon a concentration of pipe stem and bowl fragments, pottery, ceramics, glass, bits of glazed brick, slag, and cobble. Using one very well preserved pipe bowl fragment, the crew was able to identify a maker's mark and decipher a date for the artifact, dating it back to the1680s. This and other historic cultural materials suggested to the instructors and crew that this particular field and shoreline may have been part of a 17th century shipyard site...quite an intriguing possibility!
Likewise, aside from such historic matter, students also found prehistoric projectile points, made mostly from jasper and quartz, and other lithic material of interest. And, although not nearly as archaeologically significant but nevertheless exciting, students also had the joy of finding two coins during their time on CBF lands, one dating to 1808 and the other to 1890.
For Thursday and Friday of the third week, the Eastern Neck crew split up into two groups, one crew continuing field surveys with Brynn, and another heading out with Darrin Lowery on an adventurous trek through other Eastern Neck lands and along the Chesapeake Bay coastline on Thursday, where students were less successful with finding artifacts, acquiring only one prehistoric point, while also finding a concentration of historic brick, which was suspected to have once been site for an outbuilding.
However, leaving Eastern Neck and heading to the northern edge of Kent County along the Sassafras River on Friday, Darrin's crew found a large field on near the Sassafras River which, Darrin promised, would abound in its supply of prehistoric artifacts. Although the group gave him a bit of a hard time after doing a few laps through the corn field and accumulating few artifacts, almost everyone in the field soon found triangular projectile points and some equally as interesting pre-forms, flakes, and bi-faces. Such material suggested a possible Late Woodland site...which the group determined was a nice discovery with which to close out the week.
Sassafras River Excavations - Buffy Conrad
Brynn identifies an artifact for the class.
Cleaning artifacts in the lab: Anna, Marian, Karen, Maureen and Ciera.
When our crew was split into two groups on Tuesday, several of us headed up to a farm outside of Galena to begin excavation of a previously located site on the Sassafras River. Last year this site revealed tobacco pipe fragments marked "LE" and "L Evans," the marks of Bristol pipe-maker Llewellin Evans. This suggests that the site dates to the 1670s. The waist-high wheat offered a change of scenery from the endless rows of corn, while making it more difficult to spot artifacts. However, it wasn't long before we began finding pipestems and redware to indicate our site.
Dr. Seidel set up the theodolite to establish a datum point and a baseline was marked out at five meter intervals, off which a grid and our first square meter unit could be established. Teresa Fewlass led us the rest of the week as we took turns troweling the plowzone, or Locus 1, and screening the soil to continue to find evidence of historic occupation such as terra cotta pipe stems, ceramics, nails, and glass fragments. Once through the plowzone, Locus 2 turned out to be hard, dry, sterile subsoil. Although nothing was fond in this level, we eventually dug a test area to a depth of one meter below the last artifact found—that ensured that we weren't missing anything.
We also staked out a grid by which more shovel test pits could be dug to look for concentrations of artifacts and to aid in locating the border of the site. All the while we were learning the finer points of field notes, filling out standardized forms, soil identification, field equipment, measurement techniques, and site photography. Our group worked hard in the hot sun, dirt, and wheat, and by the end of the week we had closed out our first excavation unit and learned many of the practical applications of archaeology.
Week 4, June 11-15
Reported by Robyn Levitan and Courtney Madden
Abby, Wade, and Maureen Trowling in Unit 2, Sassafras River.
Mark Shoveling Plowzone in Unit 1-4, Sassafras River.
Volunteer Tim Sears, Courtney, and Caroline Screening at Sassafras River.
With cooler temperatures, the fourth week of field school saw the continuation of excavations along the Sassafras River, as well as field surveys on Eastern Neck. Teresa Fewlass and the crew at the Sassafras opened a new excavation unit near the top of a slight hill to expose a different colored soil. This soil may help us identify an area of colonial activity. Field surveys with Brynn Torelli moved north of Rock Hall for the first time this summer and students made some interesting finds. We recorded two new sites, one historic and one prehistoric, along Swan Creek.
Sassafras River Excavations - Courtney Madden
After completing the mid-term exam, students received a lecture on stratigraphy from Dr. John Seidel. Stratigraphy is the accumulation of different layers of soil over time. During archaeological excavations, we dig each layer separately to help identify and date different periods of site use as well as features such as postholes or rubbish pits.
Later in the week, some students went to the 17th-century site on the Sassafras River to continue excavating units. Once on the site, we were split into two groups. Some of us worked on a unit while two of us dug shovel test pits (STP's). We brandished our posthole diggers, a bucket, a metric tape measure, and paperwork and headed out to the STP locations. We dug down through the plowed soil until we reached the top of the next layer of soil, an undisturbed subsoil which can be recognized by a change in the soil color. We screened the soil to find artifacts and many of the STP's yielded materials such as redware, bone (not human, I promise), pipe stem fragments, and prehistoric stone flakes.
Once all of the STP's were dug, we all continued to work on unit excavations. Some of us worked on extending the unit already in place while the rest laid in a new unit in an area with soil of a different color. While the concept of digging a hole seems quite elementary, excavation is actually rather complicated. There is an abundance of paperwork that needs to be completed, photographs to take, and a great deal of precision and care that needs to be taken when laying in the unit and digging it. We made some really neat discoveries this week while excavating. Along with more redware, bone, and flakes, we found corroded nails and some more substantial pipe stem fragments that can be dated to the 1600's.
We had a visitor out in the field this week. Volunteer Tim Sears came to check out what we are doing and help us excavate. It was great to have an extra pair of hands to help and to get the opportunity to share what we are finding with someone else. It was definitely a productive, interesting, and fun week in the field. I can't wait to see what next week has in store for us!
Eastern Neck Surveys - Robyn Levitan
Elizabeth recording GIS coordinates on Eastern Neck
On June 15 we learned more about flint knapping. Flint knapping is the process of removing flakes from stone to produce sharp stone tools, including projectile points. We learned about two major ways of using the rocks to produce points; one method involves holding the rock you want to flake in one hand and a hammerstone in the other. The other method uses a large rock, which is called an anvil, to brace the rock to be flaked. After the lecture we attempted to flint knap on our own and from personal experience I can say that the latter of these two methods is a bit safer for the hands. The amount of garbage, called debitage, left over from the flint knapping was impressive. There were circles of flakes near where members of the class had been sitting while attempting to create points. Flakes like these are often found in the fields we walk and represent evidence of earlier populations of Native Americans.
For the rest of the week, some of us went with Brynn to Eastern Neck to walk more fields. Those of us working on Eastern Neck have completed the task of searching for prehistoric and historic sites on another property, this time along Swan Creek. It has been our job this week to walk over 120 acres of farmland looking for artifacts such as pipe bowl and stem fragments, projectile points made of quartzite and chert, and fragments of historic ceramics. In one cornfield we found an area that contained a high concentration of pipe stem fragments and a few other historical artifacts. This area was unique in the field and represents the seventh site found on Eastern Neck!