The first day in the field went pretty well. We accomplished all the goals I had for Day 1: getting the screens put together, clearing brush and leaf litter from the excavation areas, laying out the units, and getting everyone acquainted with the site and each other. As a native Midwesterner, it was a truly bizarre feeling to be starting an excavation on a 75 degree day in mid-January. The winter weather here is amazing.
After a few preliminaries at SCIAA ("be here on time, don't be a jerk, everything you do matters") we headed out to the site, arriving before 10:30. As I've briefly discussed previously (e.g., here and here), the portion of the site we're working on contains at least 2 m of prehistoric archaeological deposits stratified within in a natural levee along the Broad River. What we know about the site so far is limited to the information I've gathered by documenting deposits exposed in the existing vertical cut (produced by mechanical excavation at some point in the past presumably to borrow sediment) and excavation of two partial units that I placed to start to produce a straight profile and document the buried (Middle Archaic?) deposit of chipping debris that constitutes Feature 1.
After a few preliminaries at SCIAA ("be here on time, don't be a jerk, everything you do matters") we headed out to the site, arriving before 10:30. As I've briefly discussed previously (e.g., here and here), the portion of the site we're working on contains at least 2 m of prehistoric archaeological deposits stratified within in a natural levee along the Broad River. What we know about the site so far is limited to the information I've gathered by documenting deposits exposed in the existing vertical cut (produced by mechanical excavation at some point in the past presumably to borrow sediment) and excavation of two partial units that I placed to start to produce a straight profile and document the buried (Middle Archaic?) deposit of chipping debris that constitutes Feature 1.
Drawing of the deposits exposed in the irregular, machine-cut profile. The numbers in the image are too small to read, but the (presumably) Middle Archaic zone is the second from the bottom if you look at the left edge of the drawing. Woodland/Mississippian pit features are also exposed in the profile nearer the current ground surface.
After a brief tour of the site, I broke the students into groups and had most of them assemble screens. Jim Legg and one student worked on cleaning up the lower area of the site within the machine cut (which I have started calling the "downstairs") in preparation for work on the profile and the excavation of a 1 m x 2 m unit to give us a look below the profile. We cleared small trees, brush, and leaf litter from the "upstairs" area on the top of the levee in preparation for laying out a block of units to expose some of the deposits in plan.
Clearing vegetation from the "upstairs" in preparation for laying out a 4 m x 4m block of units.
And the award for first serpent of the field school goes to . . .
View of "downstairs" from "upstairs." Jim Legg and several students are laying out a 1 m x 2 m unit (Unit 7 in the map below) that will give us a window into what, if anything, is located below the presumed Middle/Late Archaic zone. The vertical cut is visible curving around on the left.
For the 4 m x 4 m block on the "upstairs" (Units 3, 4, 5, and 6 in the diagram below) I gave the students the task of trying to figure out how to find the unit corners using two permanent datum points (N 1000 / E 995 and N 995 / E 995) that DuVal Lawrence and I installed earlier in the week. Locating and marking the corners accurately requires several steps, so I wanted them to go through the thought process of figuring out how to do it (and check it) using multiple triangulations. That was fun.
Students working on locating the corners of the 4 m x 4 m block.
The following image is just a photograph of my basic map showing the locations of the units we've laid out. The profile drawing shown above curves along the line labeled "cut." I excavated Units 1 and 2 last spring to start the process of producing a straight north-south profile. Jim Legg will continue those excavations with a series of units to the north of Unit 2, establishing a plumb profile wall along the 1000 E line. Units 3, 4, 5, and 6 will be used to expose the deposits in plan, coming down from the apex of the levee. Unit 7 will be used to investigate what, if anything, is below the deposits visible in the exposed vertical cut.
Weather permitting, next Friday we'll be putting shovels in the ground. Stay tuned!
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