We’re closing down the third week of the field school today, the time has flown by. We had a lot of people away today, as well as shuffling people to the other site, so it was a chance to catch up on some specific projects here at BcGn-17.
A happy Victoria Day long weekend to everyone, we’ll see you on Tuesday for the start of our last four days of field school!
At the beginning of field school, our students were very eager to get right to trowelling because that is what we always associate with archaeology. I think some of them were surprised and maybe a wee bit disgruntled that we started shoving shovels at them, but really, the shovel is an archaeologist’s best friend (James would argue that the mattock should be promoted as well!). Our crew have been learning (sometimes grudgingly!) to love their shovels but for some tasks nothing but trowels will do.
When documenting a feature, we sometimes take a section of it. This allows us to see the volume and shape of space that the possible feature occupies in the surrounding matrix, and the soil recovered is bagged and taken back to the lab for flotation. There might be small finds in there that would ordinarily pass through our screens. The point and sharp edge of a trowel is perfect for following the sometimes complicated contours of feature soil as it is removed.
While the structure we have been chasing has been a bit elusive this season (where are you little log cabin in the woods?!), we have found some wood planking and mortar layers that might have been associated in some way with a structure. This has required some careful trowel work to isolate it from the surrounding soil so we can investigate what it is and how it relates to what we know about the stratigraphic layers of the site.
While shovel shining is an absolute top skill for the aspiring archaeologist to attain, good trowel skills are also important. Our students have probably heard us say “that needs a good trowel back” many many times by now, and what we mean by that is that the walls are neat and vertical, we don’t have bathtub corners, and the area under excavation has had a good clean scrape to expose a fresh surface that isn’t all mucked up by boot prints or crumbs of soil. This allows us to clearly see the edges of potential features in plan view, and also to see the stratigraphy in the wall profiles.
Bit by bit, with trowel and dustpan, shovel and bucket, we are unpacking what this site has to tell us! Only three full days of excavation left!
Here’s a post from Kelsey, where she shares some of her field school experiences so far. — Kate
As we are about halfway through our dig I thought I would reflect on some of my favourite elements of this site and its people. Firstly I wanted to touch on just how much I have learned from this course. I have some (limited) archaeological experience on a site in Ferns, Ireland. It was more of a -throwing you into the deep end and hope for the best- kind of dig, with loosened guidelines and less standardization. Although It did help me hone my archeologist’s eye, I was at a loss for the absolute organization and standardization of Ontario archaeology. The BcGn-17 site has helped me learn these standards like the back of my hand.
I was nervous about all the elements that come along with Ontario archaeology at first but through practice and our amazing supervisors, I feel ready for anything. Mapping was something specifically intimidating to me at first but with the help of my group members we crushed it, I would say.
Much of my time lately has been devoted to the new 2×2 unit Adam and I opened up. This unit was under several piles of spoil soil, towards the northern end of the site. After shovel after shovel, we reached the ground level and began to measure out our unit, with the help of Kate. This unit began in a bit of a negative light, with compacted, rocky and root-filled soil. But after we reached the subsoil the unit began to prove itself. The highlight finds we have collected so far include a mother-of-pearl button, a (possibly young Queen Victoria penny) coin, and an abundance of nails and ceramics.
Much of the success of this pic is due to my dig partner Adam. We sieve and dig in turns while playing 20 questions and listening to ABBA to pass the time. Sometimes the whole site even joins in on the guessing games. Befriending the members of this dig is one of the main elements that has made this course so special. We have such a wider variety of people from many different walks of life, all united by one passion.
— Kelsey Counter
More of our crew and equipment have been ferried over to the other site, so it was a quieter vibe on site today. That didn’t mean we were napping here though, we still have lots to do before field school ends! I felt like the day flew by and didn’t have much of a chance to take photographs but here are a few from the end of the day, just before we started packing up.
There was a bit of musical chairs type unit swapping today, as some units are paused waiting for features to be recorded, but everyone was a good sport about me ordering them about willy-nilly into units.
The mattocks were deployed today, as the dry warm weather has baked our clay loam into a tough surface!
We are starting to run out of excavation time, just when things are starting to get interesting. We are rotating crew over to BcGn-28 to excavate with the Archaeological Liaison trainees, so the burden has fallen on those who are remaining!
We have many units down below the plough zone into subsoil where we can see features. Features are evidence of activity, and in our case are popping up as linear arrangements of rocks, cedar planking, dark stains in the soil, and concentrations of mortar or other artifactual material. In a Stage 3 excavation, which was conducted at this site during the 2009 field school, once you locate a feature, you basically describe it and then stop excavating.
Now we are doing a Stage 4 excavation, which not only has excavation units four times as large as the 1x1s of a Stage 3, but also has more elaborate instructions for how to handle features. Ideally we would be opening up all the units in a 2m buffer around each feature, but we won’t have time for that this season. So, some of the features might have to wait until we return and can do a proper job of understanding them. In the meantime though, that means we have lots of documentation going on site including unit forms, planning, and photography.
We ended the day a bit early as rain was threatening. It’s looking like tomorrow will be back to the cool temps like our first week!
Today’s artifact of the day was a bit of an old friend, and the first coin found on BcGn-17 this season! Mel and Jada found an 1852 Half-Penny token in their unit. I won’t go over all the details again of this artifact, as there are two blog posts already here and here from when we found two at our 2017 and 2018 field schools.
At the time these tokens were used for currency, Ontario was known as “Canada West”.
The obverse of this coin has the coat of arms for Upper Canada, which was in use from 1792 to 1840, already obsolete by the time these tokens were issued!
Upon the creation of Upper Canada a seal for the province was authorized by royal warrant dated 28 March 1792. The obverse was described as ‘the Calumet [North American Indigenous pipe] of Peace with the Anchor and Sword of State encircled by a Crown of Olives’. Above this is a representation of the royal crown. In the upper right hand was the Union Jack, on the seal of 1817 replaced by the new Union Jack of 1801 with the St. Patrick’s Cross. Below are two cornucopia in saltire.
Motto: IMPERI . PORRECTA . MAJESTAS . CVSTODE . RERVM . CAESARE (The greatness of the empire is extended under the guardianship of the Sovereign)
Legend: SIGIL . PROV . NOS . CAN . SUP (Seal of Our province of Upper Canada).
Our coin came from the unit where the possible cedar planking is, perhaps we are getting ever closer to locating a structure. It is in medallic alignment, so we know from this it had to have been struck at the Royal Mint in London instead of at Heaton’s Mint in Birmingham. 1 500 000 were minted in 1852, and we know where three of them are now!