Field School 2013

We started field work at French’s Tavern in mid-May, and on May 31^st the field school students and volunteers arrived at the site. This year we have participants from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville;  Middle Tennessee State University; and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Testing Jeter's Field: Hope Smith-Christina Ramazani-Kirstie Durham

The first day of the field school was spent in the classroom and digging shovel test pits in a wooded area on the original Indian Camp property. We didn’t find any 18^th-century artifacts, but students learned the basics of handling a shovel, screening, distinguishing soil changes, and recording information. Over the past two weeks, we’ve continued expanding the block excavation next to the historic tavern and store buildings, where we worked in 2011 and 2012, and testing an area we’ve called “Site C” further north along the field edge. Kathryn Gard, a rising junior in the Anthropology Department, received an undergraduate summer research award from the UTK Office of Research to conduct work at this site, which she’s doing in collaboration with project staff and students. We found a light scatter of 18^th and early 19^th-century artifacts there in 2010 and 2012, and decided to take a closer look this year to try to understand why historic artifacts are showing up in this area. 

French’s Tavern - a pit and a round structure?

In 2011, our shovel test pits helped define a concentration of 18^th- and 19^th- century artifacts in a field west of the main house at French’s Tavern.  We dug a few larger units in plow zone in this area after one shovel test pit intruded into a feature which turned out to be a rectangular pit. Our shovel test pit revealed that the pit was quite shallow. Most of it had been cut away by later plowing, and many of the artifacts that were originally deposited in the pit were later mixed into the layer of plow zone above it. 

 We found British brown stoneware, colonoware, creamware, green bottle glass, window glass, nails (though most were too corroded to determine whether they were wrought or cut), as well as other, later, artifacts in plow zone above and adjacent to the pit.

 Their presence persuaded us to revisit this part of the site in 2012.  Our main objective was to explore the pit feature with these questions in mind: what artifacts did it contain? when was it filled it? what was it used for? We also hoped to find associated features that would help us understand why the pit and the concentration of artifacts above it in plow zone were there.  We laid in several 5’ x 5’ ft. units to expand on what we dug last summer and then unbackfilled the 2011 excavation units.

By the end of the summer, we had found eight post holes (with molds) and four smaller post molds beneath plow zone. Seven of the holes appear to be related in time and function as they are the same shape, the same depth, and contain similar fill. One is very different in size, shape, and fill and appears to be related to the pit. One of the group of seven postholes cut into the pit, which means that it was originally dug after the pit was filled in, ie. it is evidence of more recent activity. Once we excavated the intrusive posthole, the pit was ready for excavation. 

After mapping, recording soil colors with a Munsell soil color book, and photographing our pit, we were ready to excavate it.  We bisected it using an east-to-west line in order to preserve and map the profile.  Each deposit was given its own provenience in order to keep the soil and artifacts separated by context.  We collected soil samples and flotation samples from every layer. The lenses (very thin layers of sediment) filling in the feature consisted of mottled soil and ash. Back at the lab, we discovered that the pit also contained  small pieces of daub (clay used for chinking).  While there may be tiny artifacts in the flotation samples, the only artifact we saw while excavating the pit was a nearly perfectly preserved annealed, or burned, wrought nail. 

The pit was probably located underneath a building, so we laid in and dug a few additional 5’ x 5’ ft. units to try and find that building. One nearby posthole and mold seemed to be filled with the same ashy grey fill as our pit, but we haven’t yet found any other associated features.

Although the pit was shallow and did not contain any tightly datable artifacts, we can still make a few observations.  First, the pit is oriented along an east-west axis, the same orientation as the buildings on the French’s Tavern property and as Buckingham Road, the historic main road located 300 feet south of the pit.  This accommodates our modern sense of aesthetics but also says something about historic building orientation and order on the landscape when it was made.  Second, our one wrought nail suggests that the pit is old, although how old, we cannot say for certain.  Third, based on the pit’s fill and our annealed nail, we can say that some type of burning episode took place.  The ashy fill of one posthole and mold also suggests that this feature is related to the pit, though without finding additional features, it is hard to say this for certain. Fourth, the presence of the later postholes, and the mix of later-dating artifacts, indicate that the site continued to be used after the pit was filled and abandoned.

So what’s next? We’re now working on sorting the flotation samples in the lab to look for small artifacts. So far we’ve found tiny pieces of burned bone and some eggshell. The botanical remains recovered from the samples will be sent to Dr. Heather Trigg’s lab at UMass Boston to be analyzed. We’ll also catalogue the artifacts in plow zone and from the adjacent post holes to look at the time span represented at this portion of the site and to try to date the post holes (knowing that the pit is earlier than all but one of them). Finally, we’ll map the location of the earliest artifacts within our block of excavations to see if they concentrate around the pit, supporting the idea that they were originally deposited within it but were later moved by plowing. All of this work needs to be accomplished before we can write a site report.

2012 field school at French’s Tavern

Site A overall with Crystal facing west

We just finished up the 2012 field school at French’s Tavern at the larger Indian Camp site. The purpose of the field work was to locate a quartering site dating from 1730-1777, the period of ownership of Francis Eppes, then John Wayles, and then Thomas Jefferson.

44PO158 covers an area of about 85 ft. x 125 ft. that is located at a field edge and extends into the adjacent forest. This field season, we laid out 10 5 ft. x 5 ft. units along the field edge in two rows in a checkerboard pattern in hopes of locating features associated with a possible slave quarter.

In the far southwest unit we found a large feature extending out of the northwest corner of the unit. We opened up another unit along the northern wall and the feature continued into that unit. It appeared to form to corner of a larger square or rectangle. We mapped the portion of the feature that was exposed and cored it with a small diameter coring tool. The soil contained within the core was uniformly silty from top to bottom, indicating that the feature contains a single layer of fill that probably represents sediment deposited from heavy rain. The core results suggest that the feature may be a tree-fall or other natural depression.

Katherine and Lauren mapping at Site A

In the other excavation units, we have found many artifacts that could relate to the target time period, but are not precisely dateable. For example, we’ve found many brick fragments, pieces of charcoal, fragments of dark green wine bottle glass, and hand wrought nails or fragments. We have also found sizeable pieces of iron that we have not yet identified.

The ceramics from the site are more dateable. Two types were made and used within our period of interest: English brown stoneware and creamware. The greatest concentration of these ceramics is on the eastern side of the northern line of units, closest to the forest edge. Fragments of Chinese porcelain may also date to this period, or may be later. Pearlware sherds, which date after 1780, have also been found at the site.

Large feature at 44PO158

A quick look at the spatial distribution of these artifacts may indicate that we are excavating at the edge of a site located slightly farther to the north, in the woods. Due to plowing, drainage and erosion, some of the artifacts may have moved down slope from the east, west, or south due to the sloping landscape of the site.

 
 Further work relating to the site will include analyzing artifacts and samples in the lab. 

Written by: Kathryn Gard 

Becoming “Official”

In 2011 we completed a shovel test pit survey of about 20 acres of woods, fields and lawn at French’s Tavern. We found hundreds of artifacts made and used from prehistory through to the 20^th century. Two areas contained 18^th-century artifacts that might date prior to the 1770s. We decided to do additional work at both sites in 2012. Although both were disturbed in the 20^th century by logging or plowing, we thought that they still contained enough information to make them excavation worthwhile.

Over the winter we catalogued artifacts and mapped their distribution to determine rough boundaries for each site. In the spring we submitted site forms to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Their staff assigned a state site number to each site, which will serve as an official name for record-keeping and reporting. Following a system developed by the Smithsonian Institution in the 1940s and adopted nationally, each site is given a number that is coded with three sets of information. The site number begins with a numeric code for the state in which it is located. The states are numbered in alphabetic order, with 44 standing for Virginia. That two-digit code is followed by an abbreviation for the county in which the site is located (PO stands for Powhatan) and the final number of the code is  assigned based on a cumulatively numbered list of previous sites.  In this case, our sites are the 157^th and 158^th archaeological sites recorded in Powhatan, so they are now officially 44PO157 and 44PO158.

44PO157 is located in the field immediately west of French’s Tavern, the historic tavern and dwelling located near the eastern edge of the Indian Camp property.  Crystal Ptacek and Hope Smith supervised excavations there in 2012.

44PO158 is on a gentle slope above a spring that feeds Indian Camp creek. Brad Hatch and Lauren McMillan oversaw excavations there. Kathryn Gard, Rachel Guy, and Aaron Miller excavated both sites as field school students.

Artifacts

Cataloging a sherd of Westerwald from Wingos in Re:Discovery

Recently, we have been analyzing the artifacts from this past summer’s excavations at Indian Camp and Wingos. Archaeologists do this to gain a better understanding of a site’s history and learn about the behavior of individuals who occupied or used the site.  Once the artifacts have been washed and labeled, then they’re ready to be catalogued.  UTK uses a software program called Re:Discovery to catalog artifacts, field records, and other information recovered during the course of the field season.  Re:Discovery is a useful database for recording attributes of the artifacts including material, form, count, size, weight, manufacture technique, color, where the artifact was recovered on the site, manufacturing date ranges, and other information.

We can then use these artifacts to ask questions that help us address the site’s length of occupation, and explore how site residents expressed their identities based on their access to markets, their preferences  in styles of objects like ceramics or buttons, the restrictions placed on them by owners or overseers in acquiring and using goods, and the ways that they organized space at the site (food preparation areas versus storage areas versus midden areas).  Used in tandem with historical documents, if available, artifact analyses produce a comprehensive, fine-grained picture of how people used the material world in their everyday lives.

Westerwald sherd catalogued above

Right now, the artifact analyses from the sites are in two different stages. The artifacts from Indian Camp are still being catalogued and are only beginning to be analyzed in a systematic fashion.  We are still trying to pinpoint the location of the slave quartering site or sites from the 1700s.  Artifacts that we’ve found so far can help us determine if we want to continue working in a particular area or help us decide to move on to a different area to test.  One of the questions that we hope to answer using the artifacts is from when do some of the features that we found last summer date?  By dating the artifacts and using the laws of stratigraphy to understand sequences of time at the site, we will be able to assign dates to features we identified last summer.  This will help us to determine if a feature dates to a building we may or may not be interested in pursuing this upcoming summer.  If most of the artifacts that we found during a shovel test survey date from the 20th century, and we are trying to find an 18th-century site, we’ll want to find a different area to test.

While we can form a good impression of time period for particular areas while we’re in the field, cataloguing and analysis will confirm, refine, or refute those impressions. 

The artifacts from Wingos are further along in being analyzed.  Everything excavated from 2000-2011 has been catalogued. Several interesting artifacts have been recovered, including buttons, a fob seal (used with wax for sealing documents), an iron fork, pharmaceutical glass bottles, and a variety of other household goods. Beyond looking at artifacts individually, we are now able to map the distribution of historic artifacts across the site, and link their presence to specific features or areas of activity. 

Work in the lab will continue over the coming weeks before we return to the field this summer.