Week Two

 

Edmund Bacon’s house

Lots of artifacts to find

Archaeology!

— Kathleen Ninan ‘11

Tyler Thompson '11, Aleisha Butler '10 and Alex Massey '10 show other students an artifact they found

From 90-degree-plus Monday to cool-rainy Friday, this week was full of variety, and least of all was the weather.

W&L students continued excavating quadrats at Site 17 – hypothesized home of Edmund Bacon, Jefferson’s overseer – and also enjoyed time with artifact study collections in the Monticello Archaeology Lab. The diversity of artifacts they encountered in the field and lab was impressive and educationally enriching, as were the soils on the site. Students are seeing firsthand how much the colors, textures, inclusions, and depths of deposits can vary from one part of a site to another.

Here are insights from this week at Monticello in the students’ own words: some in prose from their journals and some rendered as haikus (the latter written for fun and for three bonus points on a quiz!).

Danielle Maurer with iron hardware

Finds in the Field

 Zero zero five

Right on the hot spot and thus

Full of artifacts

— Alex Massey ’10 on quadrat 005

Pocket knife unearthed at Site 17

Students this week continued to find wrought nails, window glass, olive green bottle glass, and ceramics such as creamware, pearlware, and Chinese export porcelain at Site 17. Other interesting finds included a pocket knife, partial horseshoe, and buttons. Thus far the artifacts generally seem to fit well with the time range (c. 1806-1822) when Edmund Bacon lived and worked at Monticello.

Some quadrats and contexts contain more artifacts than others, and first-year student Danielle Maurer ’12 commented that she “found it refreshing that quadrat 011 doesn’t have as many artifacts as 005. When every bucket has several artifacts you become somewhat inured to the thrill of discovery. Archaeology wouldn’t be nearly as exciting if every quadrat turned up amazing artifacts. The hit-and-miss, well-you-got-lucky quality is what gives archaeology some of its charm and excitement.”

W&L staff archaeologist/intructor Sean Devlin shows a copper alloy tack to Kathleen Ninan, Danielle Maurer and Susan Payton

W&L faculty and Monticello staff have been talking with students about the interesting variety of ceramics on site – including blue hand-painted porcelain, under-glaze painted pearlware with “warm hue” colors like deep brown, and mustard yellow annular creamwares. Sophomore student Susan Payton noted that she has been “contemplating what the variety of ceramics that have been found means for reconstructing the life that the overseer lived here. Is the variety of styles and designs a signs of the occupants’ keeping up with current fashions or that they simply enjoyed the variety? How many different vessel forms are we finding and what might that mean for the kinds of foods they ate, stored or served to guests?”

Monticello archaeologist Don Gaylord (left) and Richard Hahn '11 take elevations on site

Soils and Strata

I like dirt a lot

I daydream while I sift dirt

Look! I found a worm

— Colin Hayes ‘12

“I’m going to have good, strong peasant-farmer hands by the end of this dig.” — Aleisha Butler ‘10

In addition to learning to identify artifacts and generating hypotheses about them, students have continued developing their field techniques – including methods of establishing new quadrats, excavating them by troweling or “schnitting” (removing thin soil layers with a shovel), recording the information, and reading the soils for evidence of past human activity. Sophomore Kathleen Ninan in her journal: “Today we measured and strung out our new unit and started on the first context there. I improved my schnitting skills even though that’s a man’s job. Just kidding. But I really do think my digging techniques are improving and I can also tell the difference between soil layers much more easily.”

Erin Schwartz '12 holding the rod with prism to take elevations with a total station

Other students, too, commented on their progress in distinguishing sterile, undisturbed subsoil from contexts impacted by past people – an especially challenging task at this part of Monticello where plowing and erosion have moved red clayey soils horizontally and vertically. As Makenzie Hatfield ‘12 put it, “Our quadrat was deceiving. We thought we were almost finished with it this morning. Every time we thought it was time to stop because we’d found subsoil, we found something else. It was awesome!”

Their efforts resulted in the discovery of several browner, loamy stains in the red clay subsoil of several quadrats. Colin Hayes ’12 noted that Thursday “was pretty exciting and I experienced another first: at the bottom of quadrat 006, we found several brown stains cutting into red subsoil. Two of them are probably plow scars, and others might be holes dug for posts.”

Students consider brown soil stains in red clay subsoil

Lab Artifact Immersion

“Today was a day for artifacts, both in the ground and in the study collection.”–  Ian Dexter ‘12

Monticello archaeologist Karen Smith talks with Ian Dexter '12 about ceramics

To augment and reinforce field-based experiences with artifacts, students spent parts of several days this week in the lab examining labeled, mended and preserved artifacts. They agreed with Alex Massey’s (’10) sentiment: “The Monticello study collection is amazing! They have every conceivable  ware and decoration type in easy access for reference.” Though Monticello staff demurred that their collection is smaller than some others on the east coast, the porcelains, stonewares, earthenwares, metals, glass and “small finds” like buttons, buckles and toys are fabulously diverse and educational.

Karen Smith, Kathleen Ninan '11, Franics Cullo '12, and Makenzie Hatfield '12 in the Monticello Archaeology Lab

A student favorite is the lovely dendritic, foliage-like design appearing on some mugs and bowls in a chocolate-brown color – which was actually, they learned, a solution of tobacco juice and urine.

 Mocha slipware (nice

tree designs) sounds tasty ‘til

you ask what’s in it

— Susan Payton ‘11

Additional archaeological skills mastered: the art of wheelbarrow napping at lunch