We arrived at the site around 8:45 am, this was our first week without Jim Legg on site and so we discussed and redistributed several people to begin work on a new unit in what we have begun to call the “downstairs” area at the bottom of the hill. Due to the rain of the previous week we spent the first 30 minutes or so testing our new pump to remove the water that had accumulated on the plastic covering over our units. It may not have been faster than our previous practice of passing buckets along a line but at least now we know how to use the pump. My unit (Unit 6) had ended the previous week on our fifth level with shovel skimming and piece-plotting as well as mapping. We had a new member added to our unit who had been working with Jim on the downstairs wall the previous weeks so after bringing him up to speed and closing out the paper work on level five we received instruction to scrape our unit and bring it flush with a neighboring unit so that we could have a clearer view of the plow scars we have been following. We erected tents to control the lighting, sprayed the level down with water, and took our photographs with the board. The plow scars seem to run primarily north-south and after careful consideration we decided to excavate level six as an arbitrary level, this time aiming to move down only 5 cm, piece plotting any large/interesting artifacts, and ending with a depth of 75 centimeters below datum. After breaking for lunch, we discovered an inconsistency in our depths in the southwest corner of our unit. My records show that on the morning of day 5 either we miscalculated or the rain raised us 2-3 centimeters from where we had previously measured. At any rate, we leveled off at an even 75 centimeters all around and plotted several large rocks as well as what is possibly our first cultural feature. Dr. White encircled the area and we scraped the rest of the unit to finish our mapping and paperwork. The neighboring unit also unearthed our team’s first projectile point. We ended the day with level six and after filling out the requisite paperwork, we cleaned up the site and headed home. Dr. White continues to be concerned with the drains under the small bridge we use to cross a creek. He seems to be at odds with a family of beavers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Student Blog (2017)Blog posts written by the students of the 2017 Broad River Archaeological Field School Archives
April 2017
Categories
All
|