Tag Archives | Finds

Survey, Shell Middens, and Ceramics: Pensacola’s Prehistory

By Sarah Bennett on June 30, 2012 in Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Education, Excavation, Finds

Day of Archaeology 2012 falls in the middle of the University of West Florida’s (UWF) 10 week long field school season. The university offers four archaeological field schools—three terrestrial (Campus Survey, Colonial Frontiers, and Arcadia Mill) and one maritime—and I am fortunate to serve as a supervisor at Campus Survey. Under the direction of Dr. Ramie Gougeon and graduate student supervisors, university students transform classroom knowledge into real world experience. Campus Survey teaches students about archaeological methods and techniques related specifically to cultural resource management (CRM). Students learn how to use a compass, read maps, and develop other field techniques while also sharpening their digging skills. After completing the survey portion of the field school, students also excavate a prehistoric site—named Thompson’s Landing– on UWF’s campus.

Campus Survey begins with students learning about archaeological survey techniques by digging countless shovel tests.

To begin this summer, we surveyed a portion of campus near Thompson’s Landing. Campus growth and general improvements may place a road within the survey area. As the students learned how to dig shovel tests, take notes, complete paperwork, and successfully navigate the woods, they also encountered what most people consider the most interesting part of archaeology—the artifacts!

Within the first three weeks, the students discovered and defined the boundaries of four separate lithic scatters. Two shovel tests revealed interesting features—one of shell and the other a burnt pit—that led to the first units of the summer. Unfortunately, the shells appeared modern and the other feature is likely a burnt tree. Despite these faux features, the survey portion provided great information about larger research questions relating to Pensacola’s prehistory. The lithic scatters suggest information about prehistoric peoples’ behaviors and activities while also providing information about site formation processes.

A completed shovel test– proof that a round shovel can dig a square hole 1 meter deep!

Research questions and excavations at Thompson’s Landing, however, focus more specifically on shells and ceramics. Last year, field school students unearthed a substantial shell midden with complicated, ill-defined chronology. This year we hoped to identify discrete shell deposits to better outline periods of use, to understand subsistence patterns, and to improve our knowledge of ceramic differentiation through time within the region. With the aid of auger test results, the completion of five units, and the use of student manpower, the site began to provide answers.

We exposed the shell midden in its entirety before bisecting it and excavating in levels.

Of these five units (three of which included shell midden), one proved essential to answering some of our questions with ease. The shells present included rangia and polymesoda, two different types of clams. Between the two, rangia usually serves as the dominant species, yet the midden primarily yielded polymesoda shells. The dietary shift caused new questions to arise: Did food preferences change? Did environmental factors affect the shells availability? Perhaps changes in salinity or water temperature affected the shells and enabled polymesoda to dominate?

Volunteer, Lianne Bennett, sits next to the exposed shell midden.

As we contemplated the significance of the shells, ceramic sherds began to appear in the midden. The sherds recovered were shell-tempered, consistently dating the midden to the Mississippian period. Despite modern trash, such as glass and iron fragments, resting a few centimeters above the shell midden, no modern artifacts appeared within the feature. The first half of field school enabled students to learn, provided a feature comprised of an intact artifactual assemblage, and the beginning of a fantastic answer to one of our research questions!

The material culture associated with the shell midden– from one level of one half of the unit from one day.

A shell tempered sherd with the incised and punctated decorations suggesting a Moundville Incised variety Bottlecreek. The small handle likely enabled people to hang the vessels while preparing the food.

Shell-tempered ceramic sherds recovered from the shell midden consistently date the midden to the Mississippian period. The sherds pictured above are identified as Moundville Incised variety Bottlecreek.

The archaeological process often follows a pattern in which the discovery of new information leads to new questions. I hope the next year fuses the information we have (or have unearthed) with the data and knowledge that archaeology helps to uncover. If you’d like to know more about our field school, like the UWF Campus Field School Facebook page.

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Roman tiles, display cabinets and chocolate brownies

By Laura Griffin on June 29, 2012 in Community Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Museum Archaeology

Today is a slightly unusual day in the office, as everyone at Worcestershire Archaeology is preparing for the opening of our new premises ‘The Hive’ which is situated in the centre of Worcester. Our new building is quite controversial due to its ultra-modern appearance (it’s covered in gold tiles!) but the inside is amazing, bringing together both public and University libraries, the Archive and Archaeology Service and the local History Centre all under one roof! It is a fantastic resource to have in the county and I feel lucky to be part of it.

So as well as carrying out my every day tasks today, I am also assisting with putting together a display of archaeological finds in one of the public areas and the day shall end with a small staff party to celebrate the opening and making it this far!

9.15am: First things first – I need a cup of coffee to get things kick-started! I shall then go through my emails and respond to any which require my attention.

10.00am: Back to my current project. This week, I have been working on a fairly sizeable assemblage of Roman building material from a site which our field team excavated just outside of Kenchester, Herefordshire. It’s an interesting group of material comprising a variety of tile forms and fabrics. I am starting where I left off last night, entering data into the site database – primarily number of fragments, weight, fabric, form, dimensions, general observations and date.

11.00am: I have been asked if I can go upstairs and help with labelling up some of the replica Roman and medieval pottery that has been put on display. They’re mainly copies of vessel types commonly found locally but there are a couple of imports as well, so I shall be taking my reference books with me!

11.30am: A large box of chocolate brownies has appeared in the office – should keep me going whilst I wade through more boxes of tile!

1.30pm: Have had a discussion with my colleague, Nick Daffern about some finds which I have been recently working on. Nick is a Palynologist (pollen geek!) and these finds were retrieved during an environmental borehole survey that he was overseeing. They included some very well preserved Late Iron Age and early Roman sherds which have helped to date certain areas of the site.

2.00pm: I am starting to spot some patterns in the assemblage regarding certain fabrics being used for specific tile forms. I am also pulling out the more complete examples so that they can be illustrated for use in the final report. I am hoping that by the end of today, I shall have all of the ceramic building material from the site recorded, so that I can get on with writing the actual report next week.

3.00pm: Back upstairs to help with another display. I wrote the labels last week and these are now printed out and waiting for the accompanying tray of finds. Deb Fox, the Worcester City Museum archaeologist is putting the display together and the finished result looks really effective.

5.00pm: Last tile recorded, last brownie consumed and it’s time to head off for a glass of cava to celebrate the opening of our new ‘home’!

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Archaeology From Indoors – A Day in the Life of a Small Unit

By Matthew Jones on June 29, 2012 in Commercial Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Finds

We are a small archaeological unit (C.R Archaeology) based in Bangor, North Wales and because of our small size we often have very varied days! The Day of Archaeology 2012 is no exception with the two of us working on aselection of different tasks throughout the day.

Matt Jones started his day washing out a load of empty beer bottles – not our glass recycling but a lovely assemblage of Victorian bottles found at Benarth Walled Gardens, Conwy. The gardener working there seems to have had a fondness for the local ale and the bottles are all from Conwy and Llandudno breweries.

Once this washing was finished Matt stuck with finds and went to work on his assessment of Roman finds recovered during a 2001 excavation at Segontium, Caernarfon. The Roman Fort has undergone some difficult times recently but luckily Cadw have now stepped in to administer the site. This work is being carried out as part of our commitment to help charities & community groups and is being conducted free of charge.

Whilst Matt had a day of finds Cat Rees had to attend to the much more mundane side of running a small business. The day started with checking the company emails and facebook site, writing a tender and then off to the bank to check that the money from a client had been paid in. That done it was time to process a batch of RAW photograph files into TIFFs so that they could be burnt to disc to accompany a building recording report for submission to Gwynedd Historic Environment Record. Not entirely sure this was what I had in mind when I made the decision to become an archaeologist – bit more Marcus Brody than Indiana Jones!!!

After Cats breakneck start to the day it was time for putting together a projected income for an appointment with the banks small business adviser. Then onto starting a bit of a revamp of the company website and designing some new promotional material. If this wasn’t exciting enough the day ended with the printing out and binding of a set of reports for submission on Monday.

This all sounds a bit dull but it is an important part of what we do – by setting up an independent unit the reality is that we sink or swim based on our own work and the effort we put in. But we have the flexibility to do our own thing and take on jobs simply because they interest us and having control our own time is fantastic. Not everyday is like this – the Day of Archaeology 2012 came at a strange time when we have just finished one project and are starting another on Tuesday so luckily next week will we will be free range rather than battery archaeologists!

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Day of Archaeology – LAARC Lottery Part 6 (Environmental Finds)

By Andrew Fetherston on June 29, 2012 in Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Environmental Archaeology, Finds, Museum Archaeology

And so we’ve reached our last section of the Museum of London’s Archaeological Archive. Thanks for playing the LAARC lottery and here are our last two objects for the Day of Archaeology.

The Environmental section of our Archive is the smallest – representative of the small size of the flora and fauna that are processed by flotation through large-scale tanks with small-scale sieves. If you want to see what a raw sample looks like, check out Sarah Matthews (MOLA) ‘dirty’ blog.

First up, our lucky lottery player chose shelf number 43 and our ecofact is a selection of seeds from site archive PRY91, an excavation that took place on the outer reaches of London in the borough of Kingston Upon Thames. This site produced a total of 61 sediment samples and the ecofacts date to the late Iron Age/Roman period. What we have here are cereal grains of wheat/barley. Our Archaeology Collections Manager, Glynn Davis, blogged about a similar ecofact from the City of London. These environmental ‘objects’ are extremely important for understanding cultivated foodstuffs as well as the nature of settlement itself.

Wheat grains from the Iron Age/Roman period, and from our shelf 43

And so, our last ecofact from a long day’s blogging. So what did shelf 36 have amongst its boxes…of course, it’s a coprolite!

This sample, excavated from site BUF90 – Bull Wharf, Upper Thames Street, was accompanied by a note stating it was ‘hand collected’…archaeologists are known for their odd sense of humour. Need we say more!

Coprolite from BUF90 – and shelf 36

And so that brings us to the end of our Day of Archaeology LAARC Lottery. We hope you enjoyed it, we certainly did, and a big thank you to everyone who took part – we couldn’t have done it without you. Apologies also to anyone who suggested a shelf number but didn’t get their object shown – we simply couldn’t do all of them in the time we had – but we hope you found the blogs and posts interesting too.

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Day of Archaeology – LAARC Lottery Part 5 (Textile Finds)

By Andrew Fetherston on June 29, 2012 in Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Finds, Museum Archaeology

Day of Archaeology: Blog 5 – Textiles

Moving onto and into our Leather & Textile store, we have two classic objects chosen by you, completely at random.

Our first randomly selected object, from shelf number 876, is a Roman leather shoe, excavated from site BUC87 – once the heart of Londinium. The LAARC holds over 5000 Roman and medieval shoes (we are the largest Archeological Archive in the world after all) and this artefact is a fine example of its type. The leather sole of the shoe has been preserved through waterlogged conditions but once exposed would quickly dry and shrink. Luckily the Museum ofLondon’s conservation department owns a magic machine called a freeze-dryer which, through the process of sublimation, leaves these leather objects in a very stable condition.

Roman leather shoe from BUC87 – and shelf 876

A common comment on archaeological Roman shoes is that they always seem very small. The leather may have shrunk somewhat after two millennia in the ground and the freeze-drying process may add minimally to this, but on the whole our Roman Londoners seem to have small feet…Perhaps a comparative study should be conducted with the many Roman skeletal remains held at the Museum’s Centre for Human Bioarchaeology!

Our second object is a piece of post-medieval textile from site EAG87 (and shelf 809), excavated by the Department of Urban Archaeology (DUA) back in the late 1980s. Archaeological textiles suffer from damage to both their texture and colour; however, our Curator of Fashion & Decorative Arts gets particularly excited about brown bits of wool!

Post-medieval cloth from EAG87 – and shelf 809

Again our textile much like other organics and inorganic, such as metal, has survived through waterlogged but anaerobic conditions. This fragmentary piece was probably part of the C18^th backfill of a well excavated on this site.

Our last major store section holds our Environmental finds. These are typically extremely small objects that take up little space (hence the small shelf range) and include objects such as seeds, pollen and small animal bones etc. Tweet using #dayofarch or #LAARC, or message us a number below, between 1 and 44 to discover, completely at random, what that shelf holds…

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Simon Davis: A Snap-Shot of 18th-Century Daily Life

By Museum of London Archaeology on June 29, 2012 in Commercial Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Post Medieval

Today is the final day of excavation here on our site in the City where we’ve been digging inside a series of twelve tiny early 20^th century coal vaults. We’ve been working in these for the last fourteen weeks and with two archaeologists in each vault friendship is certainly a bonus!

Archaeological survival beneath each vault floor has been quite deep (up to 3m in places). Some of the most exciting finds this week were discovered within a deep brick-built cess-pit that had been filled up with a wide range of domestic finds that probably came from the kitchen, the domestic quarters or even straight off the dining table (see photo). The pit had been reused as a rubbish dump in the 18^th century and was full of general household detritus, these include a broken metal candlestick (pictured), several glass bottles, a small (possibly delftware) bowl (pictured) that looks like it could have been used as a table item to serve sugar or butter. Several other small fineware vessels including tea cups and egg cups (pictured) were also kept. Two very fine worked bone objects including a dress comb were also collected and two clay pipes were recovered with the bowl and almost the entire stem intact (pictured). The assemblage is exactly the type of thing that archaeologists want to find, as such common items paint an immediate picture of working households; a snap-shot of daily life for the relatively well-off middle classes of 18^thcentury London.

Andrew up to his elbows in an 18th century brick-lined cess pit

Special thanks also to Andrew Cochrane (pictured) who is leaving today to take on a new role at the British Museum; his hard work on site over the last 14 months has been greatly appreciated. Many thanks and best of luck!

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Fragments of medieval stained glass from MIN86

Day of Archaeology – LAARC Lottery Part 3 (Registered Finds)

By Andrew Fetherston on June 29, 2012 in Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Finds, Museum Archaeology

Here are the results from our registered finds shelf lottery

Shelf seven (suggested by Pat Hadley – thanks Pat) of our Registered finds section of the Archive is the start of a sequence of finds that were excavated before professional archaeology became existed inLondon, during the very early 1970s. At this time theMuseumofLondon’s forbearer – the Guildhall Museum– was undertaking excavations across the city. This object – a classic Roman oil lamp – was excavated on Gracechurch street in 1969.

Roman Lamp from GM69 site – and shelf number 7

This Roman lamp is known as a picture lamp, as the central ‘discus’ is decorated. It may be a Loeschecke (1919) Type IV, although difficult to tell as types are usually distinguished by the nozzle, which in this case is broken. It probably dates to the C1^st AD and in particular the Boudican revolt as it was discovered in association with a major burnt strata with other C1^st pottery.

A very similar lamp has also been discovered on a recent Archive volunteer project – VIP9 – although not in such a good state of preservation! Closer comparison may reveal if it was made from the same two-piece mould, as these objects were mass produced.

Shelf 342 (tweeted by our very own Adam Corsini while on holiday in Sardinia) of our Registered finds stores material from the 1980s, a point in time when archaeology withinLondonhad become highly professionalised – having a major impact on how we eventually archive material and records from excavation.

Our second lucky winner(s) are fragmentary pieces of medieval window glass. Excavated on the site of the Royal Mint in 1986, this glass may have formed part of the medieval Abbey or Chapter House. By the C16^th window glass such as this would have been found more commonly in secular buildings as opposed to religious buildings. Although extremely aesthetic, the array of colours this glass has produced are not intentional – this is actually the glass decomposing, or delaminating, as a result of being buried in the ground for hundreds of years.

Fragments of medieval stained glass from MIN86, and shelf 342

Next it’s our Metal artefacts – these objects are stored separately. A dehumidified store, sealed boxes and silica gel help us maintain these objects to a high degree of preservation as they’d slowly degrade in normal room conditions. Tweet using #dayofarch or #LAARC, or message us below, a number between 1 and 628 to discover, completely at random, what that shelf holds…

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4. Roman and Early Medieval Crickley Hill: post-excavation analysis

By LIPCAP on July 29, 2011 in Anglo-Saxon, Day of Archaeology, DayofArch2011, Early Medieval, Iron Age, Romano-British

Analysis of the Crickley archive:

This post outlines my approach to the Crickley archive in examining the Roman and early Medieval activity on the hilltop, discussing some of the problems encountered during this work, as well as some of the exciting findings!

Continue Reading →

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A day of commercial archaeology in York.

By duncans on July 29, 2011 in Commercial Archaeology, Day of Archaeology, DayofArch2011, Excavation, Finds, Romano-British

7:57am

I arrive on site at West Offices in York after a 10 minute walk. This is probably the closest site I have ever worked on to my home, and I am enjoying the commute.

We have just finished a 7 week excavation of a Roman bath-house and parts of the civilian settlement beneath one of the platforms on the site which is a former railway station. A photoblog of the excavation is available here.

A lot of the finds, samples and tools from the excavation are still on site and need moving before the builders appropriate or throw them away. Three of the four barrows we had have already gone missing. So the first job of the day is loading finds into the car. Then we have to transfer some soil samples from rubble sacks into sample tubs.

When the car is as full as it can get, Tim heads off to the office and I decend to the cellar.

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Excavation at Appleby Magna- Getting children involved in archaeology!!

By CEWT on July 29, 2011 in Community Archaeology, Day of Archaeology, DayofArch2011, Excavation, Finds

The Sir John Moore Foundation run a programme during the summer which allows children from the age of eight to get involved with an archaeological dig on site. I had the pleasure of attending and helping out on the dig for the day. It was truly fantastic to see young children getting involved in an area of study which I enjoy so much. There was in all three small trenches which were dug out in accordance to the finding of a wall in the summer past.

From local maps, we understood that there was some kind of building located in this area marked by a large dark area. In digging in the trench located next to that of the wall. I found that from about one metre below the surface there was a large amount of charcoal discovered along with a large number of nails. Bricks were also uncovered scattered from about one metre below the surface point. As I dug further down and extended out the trench I found a number of other items. From the remains of glass bottles to sherds of pottery thought to be that of the late Victorian period of the 1850’s. The children involved were completely engaged throughout the day, and it was great to see how excited and competitive they become upon excavating new items. Not only were they excavating but also learning how to mark out areas, measure the trench, clean finds, photograph finds and record finds in the correct way.

The initial finds from the excavation helped me build a picture of what I thought the dark area found on the initial maps may have been. The large amount of burnt wood discovered is certainly evidence for the possible destruction of the site itself. There were a number of sherds of pottery found with dark black smudges on which one could not remove when cleaning. Furthermore there was a large amount of glass bottles found. If, as I predict, a fire destroyed the settlement that stood in this area it is highly unlikely that the temperature of the fire would have been strong enough in order to melt the glass; as glass is only burnt at temperatures starting from as high as five hundred degrees depending on the glass type. The pressure would have caused glass and pottery to break, which would coincide with what was found in the trenches. I would argue that there was certainly some form of building in this area. Possibly with a brick/stone foundation with a wooden structure predicted from the evidence found in the excavation. It may have been that this site was then used as storage or some kind of out building or workshop. Further excavations will reveal more and hopefully reinforce the initial findings.

All in all, for me the most important element of the dig, without a shadow of a doubt, was getting young children involved in the world of archaeology. Archaeology is a career that I aspire to be in once I complete my degree and maintaining an interest in this area is essential. The programme runs every year with a number of dates. All the volunteers are dedicated to helping the children understand the history and the archaeology of the area, providing them with a range of skills which would be beneficial not just in this are but many areas of their future. I am not exaggerating when I say that the children loved the entire day. Some of the children enjoy it so much that they have attended not just the current year but years previous to this. The unfortunate point is the area in which the dig is situated is owned by the local school and therefore once the summer is over the trenches have to be covered over until the following year.

The whole day was fantastic, more community archaeology excavations have cropped up in the recent years, and maintaining a growing interest in this area of work is essential. All be it a great way to get out doors and bring families together for a fantastic fun filled day!