Another hot and humid day today! We had some Stage 3 units to finish in the morning and also continuing the Stage 2 work in the adjoining field. We decamped to the lab for the afternoon and got caught up on all the washing and bagging. Tomorrow should be our last full day of finishing up any outstanding units and getting more analysis completed. Time has flown! Here are a couple snaps from the day.
Fieldwork has gotten a little more challenging now that the humid more summery weather has arrived! Hard to believe a couple weeks ago we were shivering in cold rain and wind. We have now been dealing with humidity and bands of potential thunderstorms which has made planning a little more challenging as we are wrapping things up as we sometimes have to change our plans once the day has started.
Today we have been continuing working on our woodland site, completing more Stage 3 units and starting Stage 2 work. The way things have happened this year we have kind of been working through the stages in reverse order of how they are presented in the Standards and Guidelines. We started with a Stage 4 style, moved to Stage 3 and now added Stage 2 and will sneak in some Stage 1 by the end of the week.
The Stage 2 survey is focused on the adjoining field to where we placed our Stage 3 units. The goal of a Stage 2 is to dig 30cm pits 5cm into subsoil in a grid pattern across the field. This will give us an idea of the presence and location of artifacts and dictate where to place the more intensive Stage 3 units if we were going to continue the exploration of the site at a later date.
We decided to pack up at lunch and reconvene at the Arch Centre to catch up on lab work for the afternoon. The day flew by for me!
David Seaman
Three rings for the elven kings under the sky.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Seven for the dwarf lords in their halls of stone.
Nine for mortal men doomed to die.
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne.
[But yet there was another.] – D.S.
In the fields of Trent University, by the Trent University sign there began an excavation like no other.
On the 7th of May, a ring was found. This ring had the inscription of “A. P” with a depiction of a saw and axe. This ring is the lost ring of (who we think is) Albert Parker.
But enough with the Lord of the Rings references…
Last week was a pretty good week excavating the site of BcGn-23 where I had the experience to unearth a signet ring. This ring (as seen below) has the initials “A. P.” engraved on it, where a saw and an axe are also engraved on either side of the initials. Through some extensive research, we have been able to possibly identify the owner of the ring. The man who may have owned this ring was named Albert Parker, who was a sawmill worker here at the Nassau Mills site during the late 1880s to 1890s.
The feeling I got when discovering the ring through our excavation, as well as learning of who may have previously owned the ring, was joy and intrigue. I felt joyful when I found the ring since it is something which was unique, as well as something that was very personal to whoever wore it. The ring also intrigued me since in the back of my mind I knew that this artifact had not seen the light of day in over 125 years.
This was a special moment for me and my digging partners, and I hope for many more special moments in the days to come that we have left at this field school.
Yesterday the main excavations continued at the Stage 3 site. This is where the students get to see a different kind of archaeology, where the goal is to determine the extent and character of a previously identified site.
In a Stage 3, we are excavating 1m x 1m units 5cm into subsoil, and collecting any artifacts we find. If we happen to encounter a feature (usually some evidence of human activity like a circular soil stain, rocks arranged in a linear fashion suggesting architecture, etc.) the excavation stops and it gets recorded for a future Stage 4 excavation. I enjoy Stage 3s because they are so standard and formulaic, but I can see at the start how the students were wondering what is the point and if their walls really needed to be vertical and straight.
The thing I don’t like about Stage 3s is that you really have no idea about what is going on at a site at finer levels of interpretation. We are essentially punching standard size holes in a grid over the site extent, and collecting any artifacts. Because we are digging in arbitrary layers, we don’t get the same vertical control of artifact positioning as we would in a context-based excavation, but again, the goal of this type of excavation is to sample the site in a standardized collection method.
It is definitely a different kind of archaeology than our Structure 1 excavations, and it is a good experience for our students, especially if they are thinking about joining a consulting archaeology firm for the summer after they finish the field school.
Today we are distributed across campus, some people are working on the Stage 3 site with James, August and Sophie are finishing up their excavations at Structure 1, and I am helming the lab crew doing primary processing of the artifact backlogs, and then we will strike a backfill crew of volunteers to get Structure 1 put back to bed for now.
It was so busy I didn’t have time to take any pictures, but we managed to catch up so that everything recovered has now been washed, the previously washed material has been bagged and counted is now ready for secondary analysis, and so we will be ready in the event of more rain.
Four days left after today!
Finally, here are the answers to the I-Spy from the other day:
Emily Moquin
When I first thought of historical archaeology, I thought that it consisted of long hours of careful work for the payout of some old, rusty nails and bits of ceramic. I was not wrong. I had thought that this meant that the Peterborough Field School course would not be terribly interesting. Here, I was wrong. Little did I know that my experience here in Peterborough would lead me to discover hidden treasures.
Day one of the field school brought the first hidden treasure – community. Although I did not know it yet, soon I would find that the twenty or so people jammed in the small, windowless classroom in which we began our field school, were people I would look forward to seeing and working with each day!
From working with different people in learning how to do field work, to just relaxing and talking during lunch, I found that the community at field school was one to be treasured. The days have been full of laughter-filled work and breaks as well as fascinating discussions. With the engaging teaching styles of James and Kate and the support and comradery of my classmates; learning new skills, such as digging units, sifting dirt, drawing and recording information on site, and setting up and using field instruments was both enjoyable and achievable.
Day four of the field school brought the second hidden treasure – learning that I enjoy field work. I began day four by learning to set up a total station. Although extremely skeptical that I would enjoy the task and nervous that I would not be able to learn how to use the field instruments well, I soon found myself adjusting comfortably to the work.
I laughed along with Teagan and Taryn as we attempted to correctly lay out a 5×5 unit with the theodolite. At first, our unit was off by nearly ten centimetres, but this only drove us to work more carefully. The next unit we did was nearly exactly correct! After this, we began digging a 1×1 unit at the BcGn-23 site.
As I sifted through buckets of dirt that Teagan and Taryn filled, I thought, this has got to be the most monotonous part of archaeological field work, and I love it! It was then that I discovered that I had completely underestimated the Peterborough field school course, as well as historical archaeology in general.
We are now in week three of the 2024 field school, and I have only come to enjoy field work and the group of people I am working with more. I have learned exciting new skills and have had so many interesting conversations. I am truly thankful that I gave the “boring” field school a chance!