After a week off for spring break, the field school returned to the Broad River to continue excavations at 38FA608. We're in the thick of things now. Unfortunately, the student who brings a coffee maker was absent.
It's slow going in the excavation block. During our previous day in the field, we began getting into what appeared to be a Late Archaic / Early Woodland deposit in Units 4 and 6. That day ended with numerous artifacts marked in place on the floors of those units. The crews in those units spent most of the latest field day dealing with those artifacts, plotting and collecting each one.
It's slow going in the excavation block. During our previous day in the field, we began getting into what appeared to be a Late Archaic / Early Woodland deposit in Units 4 and 6. That day ended with numerous artifacts marked in place on the floors of those units. The crews in those units spent most of the latest field day dealing with those artifacts, plotting and collecting each one.
Work in progress in the "upstairs" excavation block.
Unit 6 (upper left in the photo above) produced the bases of two heavily reworked Mack points in context, along with numerous pieces of chipped stone debris and fire-cracked rock. We've seen nothing yet in those units that suggests a discrete feature. Unit 4 has produced some ceramic debris in the "Mack" deposit, but I have yet to see any large pieces or pieces with decoration (that doesn't mean we won't found them or even that we haven't already -- the students are plotting hundreds of artifacts and I'm not looking at each one as it comes out of the ground).
The two heavily reworked Mack points from Unit 6 (left) compared to two less reworked Mack points from Aiken County (right). The presence of points that have been worked down to almost nothing but the haft region immediately suggests that one of the things people were doing at this site was retooling -- discarding worn tools as they refurbished their equipment.
A sample of "in progress" paperwork: this map of Level 8 of Unit 6 shows the XY locations of the artifacts that the students are plotting (the depths are recorded elsewhere). You can see the locations of plots 774 (upper left) and 817 (lower right), the two projectile points shown in the photo above.
Progress in Unit 5 was slowed by the presence of two small features (Features 7 and 8). Feature 7 was a small deposit of dark, charcoal flecked sediment that appears similar to Feature 6 that we encountered in Unit 6. Only a portion of Feature 7 was visible in the floor of Unit 5, with the remainder extending into the unexcavated portion of Unit 3. We documented and removed the portion in Unit 5, and we will catch the profile of the feature in the wall of the unit.
Feature 8 was a circular area of light sediment. We documented it in plan and then bisected it. It appears to be a circular pit with relatively straight sides that extend at least 15 cm from the depth at which the feature was defined. Based on the light fill of the feature, its shape in plan and profile, and the fact that it appeared within Zone 2 (the buried plowzone), the feature is almost certainly a historic period post or auger hole of some kind. We'll need to scoop out the remaining fill to keep any intrusive artifacts from plowzone from contaminating the prehistoric deposits.
Feature 8 was a circular area of light sediment. We documented it in plan and then bisected it. It appears to be a circular pit with relatively straight sides that extend at least 15 cm from the depth at which the feature was defined. Based on the light fill of the feature, its shape in plan and profile, and the fact that it appeared within Zone 2 (the buried plowzone), the feature is almost certainly a historic period post or auger hole of some kind. We'll need to scoop out the remaining fill to keep any intrusive artifacts from plowzone from contaminating the prehistoric deposits.
Work resumed on the "downstairs" portion of the site with the return of Jim Legg. Jim and a student continued excavating Unit 9 to produce a straight profile wall. There were no diagnostic artifacts and no sign of any features associated with the presumed Middle/Late Archaic deposit, which was a bummer. There's still a chance we'll find something in what's left of Unit 9 that can give us a firm handle on time/culture deep in the profile, but it's not looking good at this point. Jim wore black instead of paisley, and I can't completely let go of the idea that his wardrobe choice might have hurt our efforts. (Update [3/21/2017]: Legg has promised to return to paisley when we go in the field this Friday.)
Unit 9, almost to the base of the profile wall.
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