Category: Student Blog

Today’s student blog post comes from Selena Barre, and illustrates what happens to artifacts once we have dug them up! The most important part is taking these artifacts and situate them in the broader context of space, time, and human behaviour. — Kate

As we get into the later stages of investigation at our site, we’ve found a lot of artifacts. Many of us have been spending our days sifting through masses of clean ceramic and glass sherds. In lab, we can take our time to examine each small sherd carefully and – if we’re lucky – some may even fit together (like the spittoon)!

While sorting through massive piles of glass from context 6, Kate pointed out a particular pattern on some manganese-tinted pieces (a chemical present in the glass that gives it a purple tint). As you can see in pictures below, it’s a vine and leaf design, possibly with some berries. We decided to set them aside, and I got lucky in recognizing a piece of a base that refitted. It has embossed lettering! Individually, the lettering on the two pieces was not clear enough to track down this maker, but with the pieces together the name “T.A Lytle /  Toronto” is visible.

A quick Google search is often enough to find all kinds of information, and T.A Lytle is no exception. The company operated, as advertised on their bottle, out of Toronto. Mr. Lytle was an Irish immigrant who had first found work in Canada at a vinegar factory, and apparently he took to the trade because a few years later he created his own company in 1882. They had a factory (still standing!) on Sterling St in Toronto and sold vinegar, pickles, preserves, catsup, club sauce, and maple syrup.

All these products would have been essential in a turn-of-the-century era worker’s household like the one we are investigating. In times past, and in rural areas, many people would have made their own pickles, jams, and sauces. Preserved foods were essential for making it through the difficult Canadian winters. However, these were labour intensive processes and easy to get wrong. Processing fruits and vegetables would have been a long and difficult task to begin with. As well, mistakes could be costly. Bad jam, for instance, can harbour the bacteria that cause botulism – a seriously toxic illness. It is no surprise that people would have turned to factory made products to save themselves not only the labour but also the risks of home making preserved food.

Returning to our example, which we know was produced by the “pickle packers” at T.A Lytle’s factory, one might wonder what specifically it contained. Though we have many pieces with the same pattern, only the bases refit. That leaves us with the base as the best clue to the bottle’s size and shape. It is less than 10cm in diameter. Based on the curvature of the other sherds of glass we have, it seems likely to have been a tall, sort of narrow bottle. This means it was probably not for pickles, but perhaps for one of T.A Lytle’s sauces or other liquid products.

There are some pictures of examples of T.A Lytle’s bottles that had maple leaves in a similar sort of design. These bottles would have contained maple syrup, as indicated by their exterior. The design that looks the most like ours is one from a bottle that has been identified (on the internet, anyway…) as containing lime juice cordial. Although this bottle is from a different manufacturer, a similar product was reportedly produced by T.A Lytle & Co. Nowadays, lime juice cordial is used most commonly in cocktails, but it was originally invented to give to sailors to prevent scurvy on long sea trips! It was often mixed with a ration of rum, which probably gave it its original association with drinking. This drink seems to have caught on with the general population, because this particular Rose’s brand lime juice cordial has been produced commercially since 1867 in the U.K and the company is now owned by Coca-Cola.

While the pattern on our sherds seems to resemble the lime cordial bottle, we don’t have enough to be certain. Without an exact match, my guess is as good as yours as to the contents of this particular bottle!

— Selena Barre

One of the best parts of the field school is having the chance to experience many different facets of archaeology. Some people quickly learn they love the technicalities of excavation, while others become enamoured of surveying and mapping. Still others discover their true interests lie in the lab, or with certain kinds of artifacts or time periods. Here’s a peek into Emily’s experience in this year’s field school. — Kate

As the field school comes to a close, it’s nice to take a look back at what I’ve learned. Over the course of the program I’ve had the opportunity to learn about archaeological techniques in both the field and in the lab. When most people think about archaeology, they think about the excavation process – where artifacts are removed from the ground. Of course finding artifacts is important, but an equally important aspect of archaeology is organizing and cataloguing artifacts so we can make sense of what we’ve found. In order to do this, we must be familiar with the types of artifacts found at our site.

In the first week of the course Kate and Marit gave us a lesson focusing on the types of glass, ceramic, and other artifacts we would be finding. While I enjoyed learning about these material types (and being able to identify them in the field and in lab), the thing I most enjoyed working with were the animal bones found on site. Since I haven’t had the opportunity to take a course focusing on human or animal bones yet I was excited to learn everything I could during the field course. As it turns out I think I’ve learned quite a bit!

Kate is amazing and identified every bone I showed her, telling me which animal it probably belonged to and what bone it is. In my limited experience with bones in a biological anthropology course I took, I had a tough time siding bones. Kate showed me how to side ribs during the course, and I was really excited when I got it! I also learned how to identify bird bones, which are hollow unlike mammal bones, and was happy about that too! I’m excited to continue learning how to identify bones in the future!

Animal bones found at a site can be used to understand the people who lived there. While not all of these applications are relevant to the Nassau Mills site, I enjoy learning about what certain artifacts at a site mean – specifically bones!

A faunal assemblage can sometimes be used to determine what the environment was like when the site was occupied. This can be done because specific animals require specific habitats. This application would typically be useful for sites much older than the Nassau Mills site. Animal bones found at a site can also be used to determine subsistence strategies of the people who lived there. For example, a major indicator of an agricultural society is a large number of young male animals being butchered. Male animals would be killed to eat as soon as they were old enough, while females were kept to produce milk and offspring.

Although interesting, this application wouldn’t give us too much new information about the Nassau Mills site because we already have a large amount of historical documentation for this period. Even though the animal bones being found at the Nassau Mills site may not be the most important artifacts for dating and determining the significance of the site, I still enjoyed applying the concepts I’ve learned about in class to a real archaeological site!

— Emily Finbow

Here’s a little view into one of the activities our students learn during the course of the field school. They learn how to lay in and excavate a 1x1m test unit, and fill in the accompanying documentation. This is an important skill to have, as it is used widely in cultural resource management (CRM) archaeology in what is known as a Stage 3 assessment. Here’s Sam’s take on his experience. — Kate

In an ideal scenario, an archaeologist would know exactly where a site is located and would immediately begin setting up excavation units and get to work at it immediately. As Trevor and I have found out through experience, however, such is very unusually the case. In our case, we were tasked with digging to find out if something was there at all, and to achieve our goal, we needed to establish a Stage 3 test unit, one of several to be dug by the field school’s students.

Out of the four stages (numbered one through four) of the archaeological work process, Stage 3 is perhaps the most important. This is where archaeologists establish exactly what they have (or, do not have) in the area they’re looking at, how important that site and its artifacts are, and how it should be conserved and protected. While we know of our site located immediately behind the Trent University entrance sign at Nassau Mills Road and Water Street, the open field to the east gave much less an indication of the archaeological material that may lie underneath it. Thus, Trevor and I were among the first students to set out to reveal the field’s underlying secrets.

With a pre-existing grid having been mapped out previously, we marked our own one-square-metre Stage 3 test unit with pegs, peeled back the sod and began digging. At first, things seemed to come easy: the soil was loose, and easily scooped away with shovels. We even found some small artifacts, such as some glass shards, ceramic sherds and a couple cut iron nails. By the time we got about 40 cm down, however, things got tough. The soil was suddenly filled with a thick layer of small rocks, and the artifacts quickly dropped off to nothing. Soon, between the unit’s increasing depth and the large quantity of rocks, we only found progress at the sharp end of a pickaxe and the blades of trowels. We kept up hope, however, as we’d found stuff at greater depths in other units we had dug up beforehand, and kept going as best we could.

Though our progress was held up for a couple days by some unfavourable weather and a familial obligation, we were back at it today at last (May 30). Determined to find something to show for our efforts, we surged forward and got through a solid (literally) 35 cm of soil over the course of the day. As we kept digging, the rocks only seemed to get bigger, growing slowly from fist size, to requiring two hands to lift, and finally being impossible to lift or dig around. After getting to a full depth of about 87 cm, we contacted a deposit of numerous large rocks that were impossible to lift out or excavate around further, even with trowels. With no more artifacts on the way down and nothing to show a site was there, it seemed like we had, quite literally, hit rock bottom.

While it might seem like we have little to show for our efforts and just wasted a bunch of time and effort, both of these could not be further from the truth. Sometimes, in archaeology, it’s what you don’t have, rather than what you do have, that makes a difference. Knowing something is not there tells you that it’s time to rethink your methods and try digging someplace else to find what you’re looking for. Though it may not seem like much, I find solace and satisfaction in knowing that this is an archaeological achievement.

I don’t know what we’re trying to find out here away from our main site, but if Trevor and I could at least confirm where it isn’t, I hope my fellow students have some better luck confirming where it is. Regardless, wherever I go to dig next, I know the allure of the unknown will drive me to discover what lies (or doesn’t) beneath our feet. That’s the draw of archaeology: you never know what’s hiding underground.

— Sam Richardson

While the students need to contribute at least one blog post, we didn’t dictate the format. Here’s a poem! — Kate

Digging
Digging
Digging
Up the layers of the dirt,
hoping to uncover
all the secrets of the Earth.

Context one began it all,
just a pile of smaller stones,
But soon as context layers left
We revealed ceramic sherds and bones.

In context twelve, a clinker’d mess,
were nails, glass, and coal,
and even an harmonica,
which sent Kate down rabbit holes.

On rainy days as weather wills,
we shelter in our centre
and wash artifacts with toothbrushes
—not exactly what they’re meant for!

With picks and shovels,
Trowels and brushes,
We diggers leave our trail,
Creating walls without “bathtubbing”;
Keeping our marks above a fail.

“Destructive forces of preservation”
might best capture our work’s tension,
For we both toil in mitigation while destroying
earth as James’s henchmen.

We reconstruct the landscapes
that were formed throughout the past
and through the soil
we ascertain who meddled with it last.

Well now this poem must make its close
And the poet work without a sigh,
but I’ll leave you now with Munson’s tune:
“So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye”.

— Jacob Taggett

We had a day in the lab today, due to the steady rain. Here’s another blog post from one of our undergraduates taking the Advanced Field Methods course. We’ll be back out on site tomorrow! –Kate

Archaeology isn’t just about pulling ‘artifacts’ from the ground or uncovering ‘features’. Its also about cataloging and contextualizing. Digging is great fun, everyone gets a rush when they locate an artifact, even some of the smallest sherds of glass or ceramic can excite an archaeologist in the field. But what happens when those artifacts are removed from their excavation location? Well, that’s when the real work begins.

In lab we do the bagging, tagging, washing, sorting, cataloging, sub-categorizing, and the recording of each artifact’s details, attributes, and we record the counts of each category and their associated sub-categories.

In the field it’s easy to locate a hundred of something and not even be aware. It isn’t actually until you head into the lab that you realise you collected over 20 sherds of glass from one broken bottle.

Just take a look at Raine, overwhelmed by green glass sherds, all of which seemed part of the same bottle until we looked at the glass in the light, at which time it was determined that all but two of the sherds were from the same bottle.

All in all, archaeology is much more than simply playing in the dirt. It requires in-depth recording from start to finish, both in the field and in lab. It also requires research on dates, typologies, makers, and so much more.

All in all, archaeology is not just for those who like getting dirty, it’s for the organised, the imaginative, those who love puzzles, people who like drawing, and there’s even room for those who enjoy data entry. After all, as anthropology is holistic in nature, it only makes sense that archaeology also be all encompassing.

–Shannon