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Broad River Archaeological Field School: Day 5 (2/10/2017)

2/13/2017

7 Comments

 
We had another sunny Friday with highs in the mid-50's. I saw a bee over the weekend, so it looks like the worst of another brutal South Carolina winter is behind us.

As I wrote last week, my hope for this Friday was that we would end the day being able to say with some confidence whether Zone 2 (the dark zone beneath the plowzone) is a buried plowzone or an intact cultural deposit. Unfortunately, I still don't have definitive evidence either way.  Based on the day's work, however, I'm now leaning more toward the idea that we are, in fact, dealing with an unplowed prehistoric deposit.

If Zone 2 is a buried plowzone, we'll expect to see some evidence of plowing (e.g., plow scars or plow-truncated features) at the interface between the base of the zone and the underlying sediments. We're not to that interface in any of the block units yet, however.

Because I don't know what Zone 2 is, I had the students excavate it using a shovel-skim/piece-plot methodology. Shovel-skimming involves using shovels to carefully remove thin (e.g., 1/4" to 1/2") slices of sediment. This technique allows you to leave larger artifacts in place as you find them and keep an eye out for changes in sediment color and texture that could be associated with cultural features such as hearths, pits, or postholes. I had the students leave artifacts in place as they encountered them, marking them with a piece of orange flagging tape stuck in the ground with a nail. When the floor became too cluttered with artifacts, artifacts were piece-plotted (mapped individually) and removed. All the sediment that was removed with shovels was passed through 1/4" screen to catch smaller artifacts that weren't detected during the shoveling.​
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Shovel-skimming and piece-plotting of Zone 2 in the block units. Pieces of orange flagging tape mark artifact locations.
If Zone 2 turns out to be a buried plowzone, our careful excavation of it will have been largely an educational exercise (shovel skimming and piece-plotting are techniques that the students need to learn regardless, so that's fine). If it turns out to be an intact Mississippian midden deposit, however, I'll be happy that we excavated through it in a way that may help us learn something about its formation. The deposit has produced several rim sherds and at least one fragment of a pipe bowl. So far, there has been no sign of features originating within the deposit.
Picture
Rim sherd in situ. The rim edge is facing toward the top of the photo.
One of the pieces of information that has me thinking that Zone 2 may be a prehistoric midden is the view now available in the wall of Unit 9.  Last week, I pointed at a small section of the base of Zone 2 and noted that it was more abrupt than one would expect in a naturally-formed sediment zone. On Friday, however, I took another look at the Unit 9 wall that Jim Legg is working on and it appears that that abrupt "straight" segment is more the exception than the rule. There also appear to be thin horizontal lenses of sediment within Zone 2, the presence of which seems inconsistent with a plowed deposit.
Picture
West wall of Unit 9, excavation in progress.
As shown in the photo, the excavation of Unit 9 is now down into the portion of the profile where lamellae become visible. These lamellae -- thin layers of clay-enriched sediment -- become thicker and more pronounced with depth in the profile.  They are formed by the movement and accumulation of clay particles (here is an online article to get you started if you want to learn more about lamellae). Jim's excavation has yet to produce any diagnostic lithic artifacts (he's below the depth at which we're still expecting to find pottery) or evidence of intact features. He'll be down to the depth of what I think is a Middle/Late Archaic zone in a few more levels.
Picture
The weekly photo showing the excavation of Unit 9 in progress.
7 Comments
Shane Miller
2/13/2017 10:04:30 am

Great stuff, Andy. And I'd buy your Zone 2 argument...

Reply
Jim
2/13/2017 11:00:37 am

Hi Andy, zone 2 seems much thicker to the left side of the photo. Is that actual or lens distortion ?

Reply
Andy White
2/13/2017 12:11:27 pm

I think there's variability in thickness and/or irregularities at the base that could be natural or cultural in origin. We'll get a good look at along the 5m length of the profile wall once it's all cleaned up, and we'll get a look in plan view at the base of the block units (and then in the profiles that are left in the walls as we move past it).

Reply
E.P. Grondine
2/14/2017 10:04:18 am

Hi Andy -

A rim sherd of what ceramic type?



Reply
Andy White
2/15/2017 05:04:39 am

It is a (plain, apparently) Mississippian ware of some kind - we won't know how it fits in with existing typological constructs until everything is cleaned up and analyzed. Here's a link to some basic descriptions of Mississippian period pottery from South Carolina:

http://www.scpottery.com/late-period/introduction

Reply
Bob Jase
2/14/2017 12:17:23 pm

Brutal SC winter - bite me here in the frozen north!

Reply
Gunn At Risk
2/16/2017 07:35:56 am

Without benefit of seeing the landscape topography, I'd venture to guess that zone 2 was caused by water flooding in sometime in the far past, causing this zone which appears to be very gradually and evenly tapered. To me, it does not appear to be a midden. Just a hunch from the photo.

Several months ago, I went to the site where the so-called Erdahl Axe was discovered back in 1894 under a stump two feet across, buried about a foot and a half deep. This was near a pool of springwater on the slightly elevated west bank of Davidson Lake, a location that happens to fit the description of an encampment told about on the infamous Kensington Runestone. I went to the site along with a friend with the kind permission of the landowner.

The idea was to use my ferrous-only metal detector, which is capable of detecting steel and iron many feet deep. If we might begin to uncover something oddly medieval-appearing, we would stop and attempt to turn the find over to the proper authorities. So a bit later, several yards from the pond, I got a strong hit. My friend and I took turns carefully digging down a layer at a time, taking many photos along the way. This was very time-consuming, but we wanted to preserve whatever provenance we could along the way. Eventually, we came to something ferrous a foot and a half deep...and what do you suppose it was?

It was the top of a now-obvious metal stake, like the kind used for a barbwire fence. Over the last century or so, occasional heavy rains had shifted the landscape enough to completely cover over and bury the old fence stake. I think zone 2 in your study may be the result of "soil-shift" many thousands of years ago, caused by water. Again, just a hunch from the photo.

Peace.

Reply



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