Month: May 2024

Jax Crawford-Thomas

Throughout this dig, we have learned and worked on a lot of different skills in the world of archaeology. The majority of the skills we’ve learned can be generalized into two categories. Fieldwork, work done outside, and lab work, work done inside. Both types of work are incredibly important to archeological investigations and interpretations of a site. Both of Field and lab work go hand in hand, all be it in different ways, to help archeologists determine what may be happening at a site.

We started off the field school by learning about the area and the history of Nassau Mills. We then moved on to learning about what we have to do in the field and how to survey an area.

Over the next couple of days, we started the excavation of the Nassau Mills site, BcGn-23. We began our fieldwork with a 1×1 unit where we learned how to remove the top grass layer and learned how to keep the walls of our unit straight.  And as time went on, we learned how to triangulate, which is the process of making a new 1×1 unit using measuring tapes and the original 1×1 as a guide. As we continued to excavate the area, we learned of to find artifacts, using a shifter, and how archaeological interpretation can change rapidly.

Being in the field was an incredibly fun and educational experience. Over the first couple of weeks, we quickly learned what methods of excavation worked for us and as we got more comfortable with everything process sped up. Over the following days, it was easy to see how much more comfortable we all got with all the different aspects of excavation.

As the month went on, we spent progressively more time in a lab setting. Learning how to clean artifacts, identify the types of materials we were finding, what certain things were, their functions and what they would tell us about the site. I found that as we started lab work my thinking around the artifacts changed. In the lab, I started to focus more on what the artifact was, what years it came from and how it may help us in the future. While in the field I was more interested in finding the artifact and not much else.

I enjoyed the lab work a lot. Being able to see all the things we found is fascinating and I was able to physically see how much better we got about determining what was an artifact and what wasn’t. It was rewarding to see how much we where learning and improving on needed skills. One of the tasks in the lab that I really like is secondary processing, being able to organize all these different artifacts into detailed subcategories was surprisingly fun.

While all work done in a project like Nassau Mills is equally important, what type of work is preferred? I personally prefer the lab work, mostly due to the air conditioning, but the answer to that question is internally dependent on the individual which is why projects like this are incredibly useful as they provide grade hands on experience in a learning environment.

Taryn Reid

Back at BcGn-23, the importance of utilizing the entire available space was best demonstrated in OA1-B. The first two pictures here show what our team started with — what we in the field call “bathtubbing”. As you can see, the bottom edges of the wall curve inward. Not only does this make the operation area look messy, but it also muddles the stratigraphy and the boundaries of each stratum as well as possibly contains cultural material that would have been overlooked.

The team set to work with trowels to shave off the excess soil and straighten the walls, removing all the loose soil and collecting it in buckets to be sifted for possible artifacts. After roughly an hour, our walls looked like this:

As you can see, not only is the strata much more visible, the trench as a whole looks much more tidy and presentable — which is important for proper documentation. Furthermore, here is all the cultural material we collected from our wall cleaning:

Although this amount of material culture may not be applicable to every unit, it serves as an excellent example as to why this seemingly unnecessary practice is in fact integral to fieldwork. Only so much space is allotted for excavation, this specific unit being 1x3m, so it’s important to ensure as much of the available space as possible is utilized.

This is one of many habits I’ve picked up over the course of the last 4 weeks. I try to be as uniform as possible in every unit I work in, which is something I have not cared too much for in the past. The little details and good practices such as keeping a neat and tidy work area may seem unnecessary, but this goes to show there is value in them. Archaeology is so much more than simply digging holes, it’s a very methodical and tedious practice that requires lots of care and precision.

Xander Bykowy

Trent’s Archaeological Field School has been a truly eye-opening experience for me. As a post-grad who had an interest in field archaeology but no practical experience, it has been a shot in the arm as to what I want to do with my life. Though there have been many wonderful moments throughout the course, there is one that really stands apart from the rest, and demonstrated to me what archaeology could do and the sense of accomplishment one can achieve. This moment was Emily and I’s discovery of a cobbled limestone feature in a 1m² test unit, at site BcGn-15.

It happened over the course of several days, May 15 – 17 specifically. The two of us had surveyed and triangulated unit E665 N765. Then after digging less than 20cm down through an unscreenable layer of mud and clay, we began hitting rocks; rocks that we soon realized were limestone, spread across the entire test unit and were remarkably level. For us, this find was exhilarating. But it was from there that the questions began: What was this? Where did it come from? Was it natural or cultural? And how old? With these questions and some direction from James and Kate, we expanded the unit an additional metre² southward and realized it continued throughout the expanded unit. From there, it was decided that the following day we would try to lift the limestone and see what was below.

The next day, after lifting the limestone, we found a layer of gravel. This lent credence to our working theory that the limestone feature was not natural. Though, we had to determine where the stones could have come from. With a tip from James, Emily and I went to check out the riverbank for limestone deposits, which we ultimately found a surplus of. This meant that whoever built the stone platform had access to materials less than a hundred paces away. It was at that point that we were able to begin putting the pieces together, and the conclusion we came to was that the limestone feature was cultural and was likely constructed at some point in the later part of the property’s history (circa 1950s-60s). Our conclusion was supported by the discovery of the gravel foundation, the fact that the limestone pieces are mostly small in size, and how close to the surface the feature was.

Ultimately, that was all we could discern from the site alone. But after telling James our findings and our conclusion, he came back the next day with information on what the feature was. It was a staging platform, built around 2010, by some construction workers who were working in the area. And that they did indeed pull their materials from the riverbank to construct it.

This was an incredible experience because it really demonstrated how interesting archaeology can be when you have an undocumented find. You look for clues, and have to interpret your findings to develop a hypothesis and conclusion. But it was combining the fieldwork with the info that James found that really clicked for me. As a history grad, the value of historical accounts and the use of the written word to record events is engrained in my being, and this one find showed me exactly how the two disciplines can work in tandem with one another. How they can both compliment and contradict each other, yet further our understanding regardless. If James had not gotten that info (which is oral history), the closest we would have gotten to the truth was that the limestone feature is likely cultural and was built in the mid-twentieth century. Yet, with the addition of an oral account, we got the exact truth of what the feature was. I hope to be able to use my own knowledge and abilities in both archaeology and history to solve these kinds of problems in my future endeavours.

Alexandra Saumure

From the beginning to the end, roots and rocks were both our friends and foe. At our first site BcGn-23, my group was tasked with finding one of the corners of the house located there. It took us a few days to finally reach it as rocks and roots were stopping us at every corner and a mulchy layer made it difficult to dig with shovels. Our handy dandy trowels came to the rescue those days.

I later got tasked with helping August and Sophie excavate the summer kitchen. My favourite finds were located under an old tree stump. What we thought was gonna be the bane of our existence turned out to be a guardian of treasures. Directly underneath it, we found what is believed to be the round piece to a stove top. Its roots were also covering groups of ceramic sherds which were fun to excavate. 

At the BcGn-15 site, Amelie and I were excavating a pit that was directly next to a tree and we fought tooth and nail to get through those roots. This pit did not hold many treasures but those found are precious due to the hard work to get to them. There was also some Stage 2 survey work to be done nearby and by any means necessary where we were tasked with getting past the large rocks.

These mundane objects ended up teaching me a lot about excavating and a variety of tools. To get through rocks, a good sturdy mattock or pickaxe works wonders to lift or break; however in a Stage 2 pit, a pointed, sharpened shovel with brute force will be your best friend. If there is no way to get past the rock, digging around it with a trowel was the way to go. Roots on the other hand had a variety of tools that could be used. Typically a shovel is able to go through most roots although once a stubborn foe is met, the root cutters or even better yet the hatchet is used. The pickaxe could also be used on stumps if necessary.

My most proud achievement was during primary analysis which consisted of sorting and bagging the artifacts by material type. I sorted and counted over 500 ceramic sherds and over 400 nails in one context.

I will however have to say that the best part of this whole experience is the friends I made along the way.

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Honourable Mentions

Esther Schachter

Site Coordinates: E 626 N 751
Context: 0-10 cm depth
Excavators: ES AW

Artifact description: A fragment of colourless bottle glass with red and white applied colour label markings and printed text on the convex surface of the glass.

Visible text on the bottle glass: “Sparkling” (pictured in top-left); “Pepsi-” (pictured at the bottom edge of the glass).

The soft drink was established in 1898 under the name “Pepsi-Cola” for the first time (PepsiCo 2023:par. 1). As a result, the terminus post quem of the artifact is likely 1898 and the glass bottle fragment originates after this date.

The 1951 logo of Pepsi-Cola has similar iconography to the glass bottle fragment; this logo was changed to a largely different style and colour palette in 1963 (Pepsi 2023:fig. 9, fig. 11). The similarities between the 1951-1962 logo and the iconography on the glass bottle fragment may indicate a more specific date range for this artifact (Pepsi 2023:fig. 9, fig. 11).

As a result, the range for the date of manufacture/origin for the glass bottle fragment likely extends from 1951 to 1962 with the verifiable sources available online.

The soft drink was established in 1898 under the name “Pepsi-Cola” for the first time (PepsiCo 2023:par. 1). As a result, the terminus post quem of the artifact is likely 1898 and the glass bottle fragment originates after this date.

The 1951 logo of Pepsi-Cola has similar iconography to the glass bottle fragment; this logo was changed to a largely different style and colour palette in 1963 (Pepsi 2023:fig. 9, fig. 11). The similarities between the 1951-1962 logo and the iconography on the glass bottle fragment may indicate a more specific date range for this artifact (Pepsi 2023:fig. 9, fig. 11).

As a result, the range for the date of manufacture/origin for the glass bottle fragment likely extends from 1951 to 1962 with the verifiable sources available online.

References Cited

Pepsi
    2023  History of the Birthplace of Pepsi in New Bern, NC. History of The Birthplace of Pepsi. The Pepsi Store.

PepsiCo
    2023  Pepsi® celebrates its historic 125th anniversary with 125-day-long campaign, spotlighting iconic moments of the past, present and future. PepsicoUpgrade.