Category: Student Blog

Julie Harlin

Participating in the field school was truly an experience like no other. Prior to this, my experience with archaeology was limited to reading textbooks and the occasional lab where we would handle artifacts, so naturally it was exciting to finally pick up a shovel and do some digging! 

BcGn-17 and BcGn-15 were two drastically different yet fascinating sites where we found all manner of artifacts. While I had the chance to do some digging on BcGn-17, BcGn-15 was where I had the opportunity to excavate the midden area in OA4 from start to finish with my friend Matie. Despite our unit being half the size of the other 2×2 units on site, there was no shortage of artifacts to be found, and we took to calling many of the small pieces of metal “doohickeys”.

As opposed to the context-based system used on BcGn-17, here we worked with arbitrary levels based on depth, typically in intervals of 10cm. We mainly found a lot of glass, most of which seems to have come from various bottles and jars. There were also quite a few animal bones, including some from a cow! As we neared 40cm, the number of artifacts we were finding dwindled, and we found a large pile of rocks Kate and James said was likely a field clearance pile meant to make the surrounding area easier to farm. The stratigraphy also revealed what may be a looter’s pit!

Excavating OA4 definitely had its challenges, but we both learned a lot and listened to our fair share of Les Misérables along the way! Due to the high density of artifacts in the midden, Matie and I had to use trowels rather than shovels to excavate, and learned quite a few tricks from Kate to remain efficient. One of the more unexpected and fun challenges we faced was finding a place to sit amongst the intact glass bottles, rusted nails, and ceramics scattered around the midden. The solution? Remove a massive rock from your unit and repurpose it as a bench!

What surprised me the most about the field school was how much I loved doing survey. On day one, James taught a handful of us (soon to be known as the Rats) the basics of setting up survey equipment to record a simulated artifact scatter. While Asha, Matie, and I certainly had our struggles with leveling the theodolite and setting up our rather temperamental tripod, we eventually prevailed and got to setting up our datum (affectionately named Rat Boy 3). 

Over the next few days, we worked towards setting up test units with stakes and gathering data to eventually make a map of the area. James gave us a quick tutorial on creating maps by hand during one of our rainy days, and it turns out that plotting out the data can be quite relaxing! 

Even after we finished our maps and started to excavate, it seems myself and Jordan couldn’t get enough of surveying, and we teamed up with Zenya to learn how to use a total station, who we named Willhelm. Willhelm could do a lot of cool tricks that simplified the process of gathering data here. With the theodolite, we had to convert our angles recorded in degrees, minutes, and seconds into UTM coordinates, whereas Willhelm would give us the northings and eastings immediately! 

After Matie and I finished up OA4 at BcGn-15, Asha and Zenya joined us to record the coordinates of some of the units on site for James to use later in QGIS. Here we learned how to use a backsight, as the trees made shooting the laser into the prism very challenging, and moving Willhelm around was necessary to collect our data. We took turns climbing over fallen trees and pulling branches out of the way, and after no shortage of breaking branches, we had finished and could move on to plotting out the location of the units on mylar paper.

It’s crazy how fast four weeks goes by, it feels like only yesterday we started work on BcGn-17. Even so I’ve learned so many new skills and found an unexpected passion for surveying along the way. I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in the project and work alongside so many wonderful people! 

Megan Gallik

When the Rats and the Earthworms made their way to the site in the bush, I requested that the Raccoons remain at the site in the ploughed field to finish up the site. As exciting as it is to start excavating at a new site, I wanted to be a part of our first site as long as possible. I had grown an emotional attachment; it seems and who would want to leave the mulch pile?

The Raccoons split into 3 subgroups: Nicolas, Jacob and Thomas; Suyang, Kyra, and Breanna; Sam, Emma, Syd and me. Nicolas, Jacob and Thomas finished cross-sectioning the well and created a profile map of the feature. Suyang, Kyra, and Breanna cleaned up the midden unit, finishing with a plan and profile map of the unit and stratigraphy. Lastly, Sam, Emma, Syd and I started with the cross section of the rock feature.

Finishing up a site entails doing more precise investigating of features of interest; in this situation, it was the rock feature that went diagonally through the unit. We had the goal to find the cut in the soil where the previous residents had dug a ditch and placed all these rocks in it. Our investigative approach was to do a cross-section of the rock feature, We do a cross-section and not a full excavation because there is no current threat of destruction of the site, and we always assume that technology will improve over time, so we leave some of the feature for archaeologists in the future with their fancy new equipment that can tell them more than we could induce today.

The first day with only Raccoons on site, we made a lot of progress. Nicolas, Jacob and Thomas finalized the well cross-section and drew the profile map, and then they jumped (not actually because that’s not safe) into the rock feature unit to help me bring the floor down while Syd, Emma and Sam drew the well profile. Suyang, Kyra, and Breanna finished cleaning up the midden unit and created both the plan and profile of their unit. Sam, Emma, Syd and I got to a pretty good depth in the unit. The rocks, bricks, mortar and nails were never-ending. We would pull up a big rock that we thought might be the bottom of the cut, and then there would be a full brick underneath.

With the two other units being complete on this site, those working on them headed to the new site in the bush, while Sam, Emma, Syd, and I remained with Hayley and Lorna occasionally.

We also discovered that it was a lie that James hates music; he said that Kate hates music, but turns out neither of them hates music, they just want to make sure we’re all happy and able to hear James’ quiet voice. With this new discovery, I put on some country bangers to get some momentum in the unit with the boys. When the two other subgroups of the Raccoons went to the site in the bush, our little group enjoyed a chill indie mix and Epic the Musical in order. There is nothing better than being in a hole in the dirt while listening to Hozier screams or singing along to an entire musical and debating which character was in the wrong. There was an abundance of nails, brick and mortar in this cross section, but there were some cooler artifacts that were found alongside them. Hayley uncovered a metal dinner spoon. Emma is always excited to find more bones and identify where in the body they came from and who they came from (pig, cow, other?). Syd was our godsend and was deadlifting huge rocks and huge buckets of dirt, I’m forever grateful.

While we were trying to dig to the other side of the world, or what seemed like it, we hit the water table. We were starting to find air pockets in our unit, there were voids under rocks that were more than a meter underground. It seems that this was caused by the water table being lower and leaving a gap between the rock and water.

Since the water table makes the dirt so muddy and difficult to see artifacts, we couldn’t dig deeper, but we brought the whole cross section down to the water table. We slowly started losing standing room, so we were doing some gymnastics moves to stay above the water and excavate.

Once there was no more dry standing space, Hayley was in the mud in her waterproof work boots, and I wore James’ giant rubber work boots so we could clean up the wall for easy profiling.

On our last day on this site, we just did profile mapping of the wall of the cross section. Lorna climbed into the unit and gave us all the points we needed on our map. This process took much longer than I thought it would. For the profile, you need to be precise and mark exactly where each rock or large artifact is. The maps turned out pretty accurate, and the time it took to get them to look that way was necessary for this outcome. I find the profile mapping system more accurate because with the drawing grids we use for plan maps, it’s easy to mess up the perspective and have it look wonky. The profile took more time, but I would do it again.

Falon Laur

The forest beyond where we were digging in BcGn-15 is full of features. Not hidden in the dirt but just sitting on the surface (sometimes even up in a tree). On May 12 four of us students spent the day wandering around the forest marking the location of everything we found. With the GPS recordings these will be mapped. This is in order to get a better picture of where things are located in relation to each other, and where is a possible place to dig in a future season.

Here are some of the things found in the forest:

Half a car seat

Some kind of wooden post still hung in a tree. This could possibly be a post for hunting

Concrete

Rocks

A car

No, seriously ROCKS

Usually rocks in a forest is not that interesting. I mean it’s a rock being a rock in the place where rocks tend to be, that’s sounds oh so very dull. But when rocks are clustered together tightly – especially if its in any kind of formation- that is not dull and worth noting down.

An example of this was found in OA5 where our unit had a bunch of rocks clustered together on one side and seemed to form a straight edge. The straight edge means this cluster of rocks looks to be intentionally built for a purpose.

Two rusty barrels with more visible not too far from where these barrels are.

Bones! These bones appear to be cow bones.

What appears to be a bed frame. Its covered in vegetation so it was hard to see. There was a small spring connecting two slats (slats being the metal that supports a mattress) . I only saw two springs so I can’t tell how many springs this frame originally did have. The springs lead me to think I’m correct in assuming it is a bed frame.

However, this is an unusual bed frame. The slats are very long and go parallel to the side/length of the bed. Metal bed frames seem to usually go with bed slats parallel to the short end of the bed. This is opposite to the bed frame found in the forest. From doing some quick google searching “metal frames 1900” I only found one example of slats going in this direction. It was an eBay listing that claimed their metal bed was dated 1900-1950. This is -of course- not the best source. Other than that I could not find anything else on a bed frame like this.

A wall? Not too far from where I found one of the bed frame was a pile of very large rocks. This pile seemed to continue for several feet in a line. I didn’t have a measuring tape, so I guessed at 10 feet based on how many steps it took to go the length of it.

This is not a complete list of what we found and there is still parts of the forest we didn’t manage to get to. So there’s probably still more. Overall, wandering the woods and coming across something someone else left, however many years earlier, is fun.  Hopefully, what we found can be of use to people digging at this site in future seasons.

Oh! There was also this doll head. I don’t have much to say about it other than the holes in its neck means it probably had a fabric body.

I just want to show it off cause it creeps people out. Sure hope its not cursed!

Enya Schroeder

After almost an entire month of learning the principles and applied skills of field archaeology, there are a million things that I could write about. Some examples include but are not limited to the importance of dressing appropriately for the weather, knowing when to use a trowel instead of a shovel, and how no pocket is big enough to fit all of the cool-looking rocks that you’ll find in the sifting process (and get to keep assuming they are non-anthropogenic).

With that said, I would like to expand on an instance that highlights one of my favourite themes throughout this course.

Drum roll please……

The art of inventiveness during excavation without explicitly breaking any rules.

The book of standards and guidelines that is set for Ontario consultant archaeologists and followed by us is exactly 168 pages long with detailed information on how to know when and what to excavate from the instance of surveying to final stage 4 excavation. These guidelines and rules are in place for a reason. Due to their particularness, there are known techniques and methods that we should abide by and ultimately adopt to become more efficient and thorough archaeologists. On the flip side of this coin, there are some instances where these very guidelines have inexplicitly called for some unconventional and hilarious techniques when paired with the experience (or lack thereof) of some first-time-fieldworkers such as ourselves.

Many questionable physical arrangements have been worked throughout the last few weeks, including the one that I’ll be telling you about today: the one and only wheelbarrow!

While working at site BcGn-17 in the 2m x 2m OA2 – OA3 midden unit, the rat team (the best team – go rats go) was forced into a sticky situation when we were tasked with troweling the unit back in order to get a better view of the context’s matrix and stratigraphy.

Now, the first rule of troweling back is do not talk about troweling back. The second rule is that when the soil that has been troweled, do not step on it before the visual analysis of the soil / context is complete.

In order to do this, we are meant to work backwards, with one person finishing the job in one of the corners of the unit where they can easily step out. However, the rats got a little excited and decided that three of us were going to trowel back with two people working on either side, and one person working in the middle. While this would have otherwise been no problem, the rats at either end finished their job before the one in the middle, stepping out of their respective corners. With that, we neglected to consider that our middle man was now going to have to eventually exit the unit from the center of the south end. Unfortunately for us, the south wall of the unit was directly adjacent to an extremely large heap of soil that was virtually impossible to cross without a hostile meeting between one’s face and the ground below (and likely pushing some of that soil into the unit).

So, the executive decision was made for the middle man to simply step on the freshly troweled south-east corner and safely exit from the east side. You can likely guess how we decided to tackle this based on my previous description, but here is a visual for you in case your imagination is not vivid enough:

Alas, my fellow rats and I were under no impression that our professors wouldn’t notice the remarkably evident boot track outlined in the soil, so we did what we had to do. Haley was brave as she lowered herself onto the ground while I held onto her ankles for dear life. We then performed what is commonly known as the “wheelbarrow” maneuver, typically practiced in elementary schoolyards and minute-to-win it themed parties. Within no time, Haley managed to trowel back the entire print! Mission impossible had proven to be possible and Haley was immediately offered a residency in cardiac surgery due to her impressive precision and balance while troweling back the final clumps of soil. She ended up turning this opportunity down because she wanted to stay and finish what we had started here at BcGn-17- in true rat spirit!

Of course the latter section of Haley being offered residency is not true, but the humour in this moment absolutely warranted some dramatic effect, and the rest of it is indeed real!

All to say, while there is no direct recommendation of the use of this technique in the standards and guidelines, we had to be creative in order to adhere to them. Luckily, Kate gave us the thumbs up after performing this maneuver which was a relief to us as first time field archaeologists. That said, I’m sure it isn’t the first time that this has happened, and I’m sure it won’t be the last!

Emma Hechler

On Monday May 12th, 2025, the Trash Pandas (Syd, Sam, and I) have officially adopted Megan into the team. While everyone else has made their way to the forest site BcGn-15, we stayed behind on BcGn-17 to continue excavating OA2 [4], coined “The Eminence”, aka the root cellar drain feature. Our goal was to take a “slice” out of the side in order to profile it, with a subgoal of finding the bottom of the drain.

Before this day, the main artifacts being found were what one might expect for a domestic site: lots of nails (wire and cut), glass shards, ceramic pieces, metal sheets (probably from a bucket?), and even a shirt button.

But once we were able to cut into the drain, much larger and more intact artifacts began to be located. All of the above was still present, but now there were bones! Pig bones- to specify- no need to get scared.

It started with small pieces of ribs and vertebrae (some smaller ones being identified as caudal bones), then the pieces got larger and more whole the further down we excavated.

Then we began to find larger pieces of long bones! A tibia fragment, some unidentified (but definitely pig!) long bone shafts, and even a few metapodials (most likely a metatarsal due to the hole through the centre).

The day took an extremely exciting turn when Sam uncovered a very large distal end of a long bone while gently removing some of the larger rocks and bricks of the drain.

Sam and I then spent the next nearly 30 minutes carefully excavating the bone, revealing that it actually kept going into the drain. Eventually when we were able to extract it, we discovered it was a nearly fully intact pig humerus!

James and Kate researched a way to determine the possible size of the pig based on this humerus, which resulted in a near 600 lbs piggy (that’s ~272kg!). (James has named the pig George if a boy or Sally if a girl).

Due to its size, the pig was most likely a few years old. Which means it wasn’t used as a typical for-food pig, as those tend to be butchered around 5 months. George or Sally may have been kept for breeding or as a family pet!