Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Market Master's house backlot, Day 8: "Julie's Assesment"

Only two more days left to dig in the Market Master’s backyard. As expected, we may have the ephemeral remains of an outbuilding. In several of our units, we discovered dozens of badly decomposed nails and fasteners associated with the colonial stratum. Although it is a bit too early to make conclusions about our findings, it appears that when Christopher Lowndes built his stone house in 1760 he eventually added an outbuilding behind the house. The building does not appear to be residential since there are so few personal items.
Other updates include the conclusion of one of the most disturbed units on the site. To the far south, we discovered numerous 20th century intrusions and metal pipes. (see picture, left) It is amazing that only 15 feet to the north there is a beautifully stratified prehistoric site with colonial artifacts sprinkled on top. The last decision of the day is whether or not to open another unit….it only gives us two days to excavate, but we can spill over to next week to finish this last unit. The new unit will connect the prehistoric tool production area and the area with beautiful colonial artifacts such as featheredge creamware, debased scratch blue stoneware, (picture, left) and a French gun flint.

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