Here’s Danny’s post tying together some of the things he learned during the field school and potential avenues to pursue in the future. — Kate
When asked why I pursued archaeology drawing maps is not the first thing I would normally think to answer, but after about a month of experience in the 2018 Nassau Mills field school I have truly begun to appreciate the practice of map making.
It is important to understand that the excavation of a site, in turn, destroys a site. More significantly excavation can destroy context. Every artifact possesses context. Context refers to where an artifact was found in relation to the layout of the site and in relation to other artifacts. Let’s say archaeologists find 1960’s material in a layer made up of rubble and 1850’s material in a layer of sandy soil. Without context this information, despite being accurate and true, is not very useful. The relationship between the two separate layers tells you much more than the layers themselves. But at the end of the day all the artifacts are sitting in the lab because of course the first layer had to be removed to gain access to the second so how can we preserve these relationships? Mapping of course!
A sketch map of the local area at BcGn-23. Photo: Daniel Kavanagh.
Every time a context is determined it is recorded and mapped before being excavated. There are many methods of doing this including using a total station, triangulation, baseline measuring, etc. At first this felt tedious but after Brooke and I completed an aerial map of context 19 and I went to submit it, Prof. Connolly showed me dozens and dozens of maps and contexts forms that had been previously completed for operation area 1. It was then that I understood the importance of mapping. In one folder he possessed a plethora of information such as construction methods, occupation, chronological order of construction, material densities, cultural depth, etc. the list truly goes on and on. It was clear to me that while artifacts tell you much about who were there, understanding their contexts tells about what they did.
Mapping becomes even more necessary when conducting landscape archaeology. When trying to understand a bigger picture about a site such as land use, trade routes, movement, etc. maps allow us to see patterns that would otherwise be impossible to see.
The team using the total station to map out the cairns. Photo: Daniel Kavanagh.
I gained an appreciation for landscape archaeology on Big Island when the team mapped out 40 Cairns and we were able to see their positions on a Google map of the island. I realized how much one could learn from spatial patterns such as why and how they were they made. We can learn so much without ever getting our trowels dirty.
I’m excited for the future of archaeology because of the advancements in mapping technology. Technologies like photogrammetry or VR site recreations will help us gain more information about sites as well as preserve that knowledge and make it easily accessible.
The 2018 field school has allowed me to get my hands dirty but I think the most important thing I have learned is what makes an archaeologist an archaeologist. That is the ability to make sense of it all and to preserve that information. The best part is these skills are highly transferable to many occupations. It is something I appreciate now and something I can see myself doing. Now when I’m asked why I pursue archaeology I tell them because I’m piecing together the story of humanity and then I ask them if they want to see my maps!
For every day in the field excavating, you can estimate about 3 days in the lab to deal with the material recovered…Stephanie shines a light on some of the more hidden aspects of archaeology. — Kate
Throughout the 2018 field school we have been steadily accumulating artifacts from the days we have been on the Nassau Mill site, BcGn-23. By Thursday May 17, we had finished collecting most of this year’s artifacts [ Although a big whack just came in on the 28th! — Kate ] and have over 6000 artifacts from 12 new contexts plus the previous 34 contexts of which we continued excavating about 15 of these.
Artifacts freshly washed and waiting cataloguing as soon as they are dry. Photo Stephanie Hudson.
When you think archaeology, I would assume you picture Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, people whose main job is in the field gathering artifacts and avoiding explosions. And while these media perfectly show the destruction of sites that comes from archaeology, though in a slightly different manner, these media do not show what takes the most time and is one of the larger parts of archaeological work…Lab work!
I know I’ve enthralled you in what I’m about to describe to you, but it is not dull like you may have been led to believe. Lab work consists of cleaning artifacts, letting them dry, cataloguing, recording the information in a database, and finally storing or displaying the artifacts. This is the time when artifacts are categorized, identified, and historically placed to date the site. This part is not shown in media; and the real-world issues come from those last two processes. This issue is called backlogging; and occurs when artifacts are either not recorded or left without a proper storage facility. This has become an increasing problem in the discipline and in particular North American archaeology.
Recording and storage or displaying artifacts is a problem not just faced in general North American archaeology but also on our site. Last year’s field school had numerous artifacts, over 12000, that were not all recorded by the end of the course and had to be continuously recorded by volunteers during the fall semester. Even during this year’s first lab day we were recording catalogued artifacts from last year’s final excavation days, and we may not have everything recorded digitally by the end of this year’s field school.
It is not yet clear on how to tackle backlogging issues besides working through the artifacts, but then the issue of new sites and their artifacts becoming backlogged and so on becomes the main problem. It seems like a never-ending process that will keep people in the labs forever, but it also gives archaeologists jobs that are not directly out in the field. That may sound strange to you…“an archaeologist that doesn’t work in the field?!” But if we look at it percentage wise with field work and excavation being around let’s say 30%, that still leaves 70% of archaeological work left to do. That is lab work and writing papers and articles about the site to give to in some cases both the public and other archaeologists interested in the site and what it tells us.
Therefore, hearing that I am partial to lab work and don’t fancy myself an outdoorsman doesn’t mean I would be less of an archaeologist, what it means is I have a different part to play in an archaeological excavation that is no more or less important than those out on site digging up the past.
When I think of Lab days, I think of inside jokes, insane laughter, and soundtrack music played in the background. It sounds silly but honestly our lab days are some of my best memories, as it holds a day when everyone is together, and laughter is never short; and that may be the one thing I miss the most when June rolls around.
Today’s artifact of the day is quite interesting, I think, and provides opportunity for all sorts of musings. It’s part of a black glass button that was found beside the north wall of the structure in a layer that had other domestic refuse. We’re still trying to sort out how that layer of material got there, and how it relates to the structure, the basement addition, and the midden, but hold that thought and let’s dive into what this particular artifact can tell us.
Black glass button half.
Glass is an amazing substance that is worthy of many posts itself, but in a nutshell:
Glass is made from a mixture of silica sand, soda, and limestone.
By heating and mixing these materials together, you end up with a smooth paste that can be molded and shaped into a variety of forms.
The natural colour of glass is a pale aqua colour. By adding metal oxides, the glassmaker can change the colour of glass.
While one goal was to develop a recipe that was truly colourless, another goal was the development of colour recipes that resulted in glass that could be cut to resemble gemstones.
One gemstone in particular that was much copied was Jet. Jet is the fossilised remains of a certain kind of pine tree that lived 150 to 180 million years ago in areas that are now Spain and the coast of England. These two coastlines used to be much closer together, separated only by a narrow band of water. Over time, trees were washed out to sea and were buried in iron-rich muck at the bottom of the ocean. The iron went into the wood, and eventually pressure and time compressed these layers of iron-soaked wood into a mineral known as Jet.
Seam of Whitby Jet in cliff face.
English Jet is prized as the best kind of Jet, and it is also known as Whitby Jet, as it is mined near Whitby, UK. Monks at the Whitby Abbey adorned their crosses and rosaries with carved Jet. Commercial mining of jet from the cliffs began in the early 19th century, and it became very popular with fashionable women for jewelry and fashion.
American silk and wool dress circa 1870. Photo from the Met Museum.
Another little tangent here, for backstory. Men’s clothing changed fits in the 19th century. Instead of the earlier looser, heavily embroidered or woven jackets or coats with large buttons, tailors performed their magic in shaping woolen cloth to closely conform to the body. Buttons became much smaller and were usually made of gilded metal.
Women’s clothing follows another pattern. Pre-1820, most fashionable women’s dresses didn’t have buttons. Think of Regency fashions and Jane Austen films. The waist was just under the bosom (Empire waist) and the dress fell straight to the ground. This form changed to a lower waist closer to the natural waist, and a much more constricted body. A fashionable woman would employ a lady’s maid to do up the dozens of tiny hook-and-eye fastenings of these dresses.
Post 1840, Queen Victoria set a new fashion in the adoption of more sombre colours like dark blue, black, brown, and green. She also popularised high-necked dresses, and two-piece dress sets where there was a bodice and separate jacket, and a long, wide, skirt. These bodices and jackets were fastened with tiny buttons.
Jet-beaded mourning cloak.
How does Jet enter into this fashion? Well, I mentioned above that Jet had been prized since medieval times as decoration and ornaments.
Intricate mourning customs and symbology meant black was a very popular colour.
The new fashion for buttoned dresses was another factor, and finally, Queen Victoria’s adoption of lavish jet mourning jewelry and jet beaded embroidered clothing, and carved jet buttons after the death of her beloved Prince Albert in 1861 catapulted jet into the stratosphere of fashion.
It was obligatory in court circles to wear black gem/Jet buttons, and as court set the fashions of the day, the masses would follow suit. Jet was very expensive, but some enterprising glassmakers tinkered with various black glass recipes floating around and developed something that looked quite a lot like Jet, but cost a fraction of the price. Even better, items could be industrially produced by moulding or casting, instead of laboriously hand-carving each individual piece of Jet, or making each individual glass button using lampwork techniques.
This is what our button would have looked like when it was new.
So now we know why Jet buttons and black glass buttons were fashionable, let’s turn to what is on the button. Picture buttons date to approximately the 1860s onwards. Our button has what appears to be a cockatrice, and indeed, some judicious internet browsing meant I was able to find a match.
What is a cockatrice? Well, it’s a kind of dragon-like monster that hatched out of a seven-year-old rooster’s egg that had been hatched by a toad. This beast had the head, chest and legs of a rooster, a serpent tail with a poisoned barb and wings. It is usually represented as being covered in feathers or scales.
I did a little browsing and there are three main interpretations of this beast. One is that it represents the infidelity of Pride, and another possibility is to avert the evil eye. The heraldic interpretation means “terror to beholders”, which kind of parallels the evil-eye aversion meaning.
So by wearing buttons with the image of the cockatrice, was this chosen to remind a woman about the evils of Pride? Or was it a bit of a talisman, where the dress will avert the evil eye?
Heraldic cockatrice.
Who knows, but it is fun to think about! I also looked to see in slang if cockatrice meant anything, and in a 1905 book A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English which is abridged from a seven-volume(!) work by John S. Farmer and W.E. Henley, I found that cockatrice had this meaning: 1. A common prostitute ; also a mistress or ‘keep ‘ (1600). 2. A baby.
Unless there was some sort of secret uniform to denote prostitutes or a mistress, I find it unlikely that this meaning was secretly encoded into these buttons!
As I mentioned above, the peak production of black glass buttons came after the death of Prince Albert in 1861 and lasted until the end of the Edwardian era (c. 1910). By the 1880s, the market was completely saturated with black glass buttons, and people began to get tired of the sombre dark colours and crave the new brightly coloured textiles available. As a result, brightly coloured glass buttons became increasingly popular, and black glass buttons steeply declined in production post-1910. So likely our button comes somewhere between 1860 and the early 1900s.
As a final note of interest, I am sure that our cockatrice image is referencing some famous painting or sculpture as I have found several other versions made of different materials. It’s as if it is a meme of the time. Anyone know what it is referencing?
Two other copies of our button. Metal cockatrice button.
Today as we were washing more artifacts from that area, we did find at least three other black glass buttons, but none of them were picture buttons like this one, they just had faceted designs on them to catch the light and sparkle like real Jet.
Emma shares her experiences at the Hope Mill and Lang Pioneer Village, and demonstrates the importance of comparative materials in reconstructing the past. — Kate
On one rainy day we decided to go to Hope Mill and Lang Pioneer Village in order to see what a water powered lumber mill, and a pioneer village looked like. This was important to our learning experience, as we are excavating a building that belonged to the mill workers, and shared a date with some of the buildings located at the village.
Thanks to the excellent preservation/restoration of both the mill and the village, we were able to see how things were in the past. We saw a house that would have been constructed in a similar size to the one we were excavating, and how it might have looked had the walls still been there.
It was extremely beneficial to see how the different rooms of the houses were constructed and positioned, as well as where certain objects would be located. It was clear that there were not a ton of windows on these types of buildings, and the amount of window glass that we are finding on site line up with this fact.
Drawknife similar to the part of the blade we found.
It was also helpful to see some still intact artifacts, such as a draw knife, which we found a piece of. Seeing some artifacts in their stage of functionality made it easier to identify pieces that we had found on site. Kate has the ability to look at odd pieces of metal and identify them as their respected artifact. Finally being able to see the whole of these artifacts was nice, and seeing the small piece that Kate was able to identify it with, is also interesting.
Being able to see how the old mill would have functioned in the old days was also neat, although the magnitude of the mill that was on Trent property was lost, since I believe, Hope Mill only has one saw, whereas Red Mill (at Trent) had 136. So just trying to imagine that amount of activity and noise multiplied by 136 was a little bit daunting.
It is really important to accurately represent history and not fabricate any information. An accurate and true representation of history is hard to come by, but so much can be learned from it.
Here’s Brooke’s account of our whirlwind interlude on Big Island. — Kate
Brooke and cairn. Photo: Brooke Driscoll
This last week our field school took a trip down to Pigeon Lake to work at Big Island for a couple of days. Big Island, also known as Boyd or Chiminis island is the largest undeveloped island in southern Ontario. The island has been used by Indigenous people for thousands of years, and is still of cultural value to the Curve Lake First Nations. The ecologically diverse island contains a variety of unique wildlife and ecosystems, such as coniferous forests, alvars, open fields, wetlands, and open maple forests. Big Island was originally in Curve Lake’s possession, before being sold by an Indian agent to the Boyd family in the late 19th century. Boyd used the island first for its lumber and later farmed. Since then, its ownership has been transferred to various private owners, before being donated to the Kawartha Land Trust in 2015.
Loon skull Katie found. Photo: Brooke Driscoll
We worked at Big Island for two days, heading there by boat, covered in bug spray and sunscreen. Our first day was spent attempting to find areas of archaeological potential by transecting the island to start a cultural landscape survey. It was a lot harder than we thought it would be to walk in a straight line across the island! The hiking was amazing, though, and the different ecological areas kept us distracted from how tired we were from hiking through the bush. Some of us even managed to reach the other end of the island and dip our feet into the water before heading back.
The open maple forest with Sarah, Steph, James, Jodie and Brianne. Photo: Brooke Driscoll
Our second day was a bit more successful. We split into three groups with one continuing the transects from the day before and the other two getting coordinates for the cairns (rock piles) and white pine stumps in the alvar at the centre of the island. We used total stations and theodolites to measure the distances from the datum points to the cairns, then measured their diameters and heights. We later used this data to map these cairns as points on a map of the island.
Mapping the cairns with the total station with Charlotte in the background. Photo: Brooke Driscoll
Going to Big Island was a nice break from our usual site at the Trent campus, and it was a great experience, highlighting some of the lesser known aspects of archaeology that precede excavations. Although it was crazy hot, and there was a lot of poison ivy, it was fun working at and exploring the island, and there were lots of great instagrammable moments!
