This week was the start of The Speaker's House Archaeological Field School, so from this week until around the last week of June, you should expect a lot of archaeology-related tasks to be recounted here.
BONUS: Monday, May 27th, 2019
Because the field school was to start this week, I, along with two other staff members (one of which is a fellow intern like me, and will also do other work for Historic Trappe), helped the head archaeologist and archaeology volunteer prepare the site. This year, there would be one unit on the eastern side of the house, where the side porch would have been, as a continuation of last year's dig. We hope to excavate this unit in order for the porch to finally be reconstructed. I will be working in this unit, both because I had worked there last year and therefore am knowledgeable of what is expected, but also because it is located a bit away from the main group. The main site of excavation is in the front porch area, right outside of the main (southern) entrance; this is the main priority because The Speaker's House was funded to reconstruct the original entrance, meaning both the main door and from stoop/porch.
The five of us prepared the units. In the case of the eastern unit, we used the existing points from last year's EU 109 to triangulate a 5 foot by 7 foot unit using the Pythagorean Theorem. The reason for the 'irregular' size of this unit, which is furthered by the partial 1 foot by 6ish foot extension, is because we wanted to make the entirety of the porch area was excavated so nothing would be missed. When it came to the front porch units, it was a little trickier. We had to first find the existing jar lids marking the points from previous digs in that area, near the front western side of the property (I actually dug in this area the summer of 2016). It took us a while, but we did finally find 5 out of the 6 jar lids. Using these as points of reference, we triangulated 5 foot by 4 foot units until we reached the far side of the house. This was difficult because there was an extreme change of elevation throughout that area which therefore affected precise measurements. We did as best as we could, and once all of the units were completed (of which I think there are 13 total), we finished for the day.
Hours: 8:30am to 2:00pm
Overall Working Hours: 5 hours 30 minutes
Tuesday, May 28th, 2019
Today was the official start of the field school. We first all introduced ourselves (there were 8 students, and 6 staff including myself, the head archaeologist, and the volunteer). While the head archaeologist showed the students around the site and gave them an introduction to the field school, me and the other staff members got further supplies that we would need including flat/square shovels, plastic tarp, duct tape, a compass, a plumb bob, and painter's tape. When we returned, we tarp-ed the porch units as it was raining out. Then, we de-sodded the unit on the eastern side of the house, which was labeled EU 111; we found quite a number of artifacts (mostly nails, glass, and ceramics) in this surface level. I then clean-troweled Level 1 so a picture could be taken. In this, we found three different 'types' of dirt, so we used string to divide them visually. Then, with the help of one of the students, we mapped and took measurements for the this level. The other intern and I stayed late to talk with our employer about what we should expect for our internship, and we ended the day by taking out the bulk trash from Henry's.
Hours: 8:30am to 5:30pm
Overall Working Hours: 9 hours
Wednesday, May 29th, 2019
Before heading to The Speaker's House, I stopped in at Dewee's to take pictures of the bar cage room, which was getting work done, for my employer. When I got to the field school, I helped bail the units, as it had rained a bit the night before. Once the units were opened up, I returned to EU 111 with the same student as yesterday. We started excavating Level 1, which we indicated as being at the northern and eastern part of the unit and contained mottled light brown/yellow-orangeish dirt. We quickly came down to what we called Level 2, which matched the south-eastern section of the unit (which had darker dirt). At this point, we found three different features, one at the western extension of the unit (which was noticed initially at Level 1; labeled Feature 182), one in the northern section (which we identified as a rodent burrow; labeled Feature 183), and one in the southern section (contained really dark brown dirt; labeled Feature 184). Again, I, and another staff member, clean troweled for a picture. After the field school was done for the day, the other intern and I checked on the trash at Henry's.
Hours: 8:15am to 4:30pm
Overall Working Hours: 8 hours 15 minutes
Thursday, May 30th, 2019
Today was the field school's day off, so the intern and I worked at Dewee's. We first helped one of the board members with packing some textiles. Then, the intern and I started inventorying the library's books thought to be relevant to the collection. At this point, we only noted the author/creator, title, date of publication, and previous I.D. for the books. After eating, we checked on both Henry's and The Speaker's House because there was a bad storm the night before. Henry's was fine, but the units at The Speaker's House needed to be bailed out a bit, because part of the tarp was falling into the unit, which would let water into the units. Once that was fixed, we returned to Dewee's to work on the books labeled for de-accession; we noted the same fields as before, but also cross-checked this information with a spreadsheet containing information on books that had paperwork on them. We finished this up, then left early as it was going to storm again that afternoon.
Hours: 9:00am to 3:30pm
Overall Working Hours: 6 hours 30 minutes
Friday, May 31st, 2019
Today an archaeologist came to The Speaker's House to demonstrate the use of a transit to more precisely mark units. He helped us to make sure the units in the front porch her correctly marked out. It was definitely interesting to see how this tool was used. Also, we found out that we weren't terribly far off (for the most part) with the points we had manually calculated.
After trying that out, I, and the student, mapped EU 111's Level 2 including its 3 features. This took a while because of all the features as well as rocks visible in the level's surface. Once done, I started to dig Feature 183, while the student was digging Feature 184. This is what we did for the remainder of the day.
Hours: 8:30am to 4:30pm
Overall Working Hours: 8 hours
Saturday, June 1st, 2019
In the morning, I continued working in EU 111. I finished as much as I could of Feature 183, so I moved to a new feature we found in the western extension labeled Feature 185 (dark soil that we think indicated a rodent burrow). As I was doing that, I also brought a volunteer up to speed on Feature 184, which she was to be working in. I then had to leave early to prepare for the garden party, where I and the other intern were to give a tour of the Henry Muhlenberg House. We spent the majority of the rest of the day there, returning to The Speaker's House because no one arrived for tours.
Hours: 8:30am to 4:30pm
Overall Working Hours: 8 hours
Week 1 Total Work Time: 45 hours 15 minutes (minus 4 hours for lunch each day except Thursday) = 41 hours 15 minutes