When we first arrived back at the site we started off by removing the tarps and starting a pot of coffee. We were greeted by the fortunate sight of no water in the block so we did not have to waste any time bailing water. I was back in Unit 12 with Robert. We just had a little bit of Level 4 to finish off so we got that all smoothed out for photographing. Level 4 was very rich in potsherds, as well as having a feature in the northwest quadrant and a historic posthole in the northeast quadrant. After having a look, Dr. White decided he wanted to board off about two thirds of the unit with landscaping fabric and particle board so we could have somewhere to sit and for us to piece plot the southern third of the unit. Piece-plotting is where you go very slowly with a trowel and dustpan and stop every time you hit something to flag it. Once the unit is full of flags we are going to map their locations out. We did not have to start a bag for this level yet because we have yet to catch anything in the screens: this is a good thing because it means we have been very careful with our piece-plotting. Ella and DuVal finished off Level 1 in Unit 13, which is along the cut. They found fire-cracked rock, flakes, and pottery. After that they continued on to Level , excavating the second plowzone as a natural level. Over in Unit 5, JJ and Sam continued to trowel scrape and piece-plot. There where two decent-sized rocks in their unit. The smaller of them turned out to be a greenstone axe head. The larger one Sam had started to uncover last season and was very happy to finally remove. It turned out to just be a big rock. Caroline was over in Unit 3, starting about 40 cm below datum and continuing down to the base of the upper plowzone (shoveling and shifting only). She found some potsherds, including plain, and some with stamping and punctate decoration.
Finishing up Dr. White had purchased an enormous 50 foot tarp that could cover the entire opened area of the site. This both made closing up easier and should make reopening and closing every week much easier.
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Student Blog (2018)Blog posts written by the students of the 2018 Broad River Archaeological Field School Archives
April 2018
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