A Geologist Amongst Archaeologists

Today's blog was written by Victor Perez, a recent Ohio State University grad who came to us seeking field and lab work experience. Victor was not an Anthropology major in school (most of our interns are social science majors), but rather he focused on geology and paleontology. He chose to undertake a 120 hour Archaeology internship with us and we developed a schedule where he would spent half his time in the field and half in the lab. As you can read below, he got a lot of the experience and we got a lithics type collection that will be of great use when we catalog artifacts from prehistoric sites like Pig Point. I'm so pleased he took the time to blog about his unique experience!  -Stephanie    

Victor assembled a lithics type collection in the lab

I recently completed an internship with the Lost Towns Project, however my background made my experience a little different than most others that participate in this internship program. Last spring I graduated from Ohio State University with an honors degree in Geological Sciences with a Mathematics minor. Having incurred difficulty in finding a job I set out to broaden my range of experience. This effort drove me to pursue the Lost Towns Project internship. Although my degree is in Earth Sciences, my particular interests are focused around paleontology; however I have always found myself interested in archaeology as well. In fact, I knew of the Lost Towns Project through volunteering while I was in high school.

At the very start of the internship every potential intern is told one very important thing: you will get out of this internship what you put in. This concept resonated in my mind and still does. This concept is true of anything you do; yet it seems to be often forgotten. With this motto ingrained in my mind I set out to make this internship as relevant as possible to my particular interests and with the help of the LTP staff, I did just that.

Despite the obvious differences between the anthropogenic-based field, archaeology, and the geologic oriented field, paleontology, there are numerous overlapping similarities. Such as, the excavation process or the incomplete record that we are faced to interpret. Focusing on these similarities made it easy to tailor my experience towards my own benefit. In the same manner that you begin a research project I began to ask: What do I want to gain from this? How can I implement my experience and apply it to this internship? And it didn’t take long to release that I was not the only one asking these questions. After a few weeks of working as an intern, Stephanie asked me if I would be interested in putting together a lithics type collection as a reference for other volunteers. This was an excellent way to develop my rock and mineral identification, while explaining some of the basic geologic principles that are involved in identification.

Now you may ask yourself, if you are interested in paleontology why is it important to have a strong background in lithic identification? The answer is two-fold. First of all, fossils are lithified remnants of past life and understanding how they are preserved can tell you a great deal about the organism and the environment in which it resided. Second, interpreting a geologic setting is largely based on what type of sediment and formations are present. For example, a conglomerate dominated unit is often indicative of running water, i.e. a river system. Similarly, sandy mounds may imply eolian (wind-driven) dunes. Many other factors may be used to support these ideas, but the most fundamental means of recognizing these geologic settings is oriented around rock and mineral identification.

Another extremely relevant experience gained from this internship was acquired through artifact preservation, specifically with human bones. These bones have yet to undergo the fossilization process and for that reason are far more susceptible to being damaged. Gaining experience in both mending and Rhoplexing these human remains was like an extra challenging version of maintaining fossilized material. 

Victor and volunteer, Cathy, hard at work at Pig Point

My true passion is in the field. Like most others I find it most rewarding to be able to uncover items thought to be lost through time, whether it’s cultural artifacts or fossilized remains. The detail-oriented approach to excavation put into affect by the Lost Towns Project gave me a great respect for their dedication to preserving history. To the untrained eye it may appear to be overkill, but there is a vast importance in provenance and artifact distribution. I have already begun to implement this in my work as a paleontologist. Having just returned from a paleontology dig in Texas I can say without a doubt that this internship has influenced my approach to excavation, specifically through mapping. I utilized the methods I acquired through profile mapping to do a cross-section mapping of the dig site in Texas. This map will likely be involved in a paper I will be working on shortly.

The immediate influence that this internship has had me is astounding and I’m certain that it will continue to influence me as I continue on in my career. I had a great time working with this amazing group of archaeologists, interns, and volunteers. And I will most definitely find my way back to the site to aid in future excavations as a volunteer.

With great appreciation,

Victor Perez

My Experience as a Historic Preservation Intern with the Lost Towns Project

Meredith Gorres, a historic preservation graduate student at the University of Maryland-College Park, did a great job this past summer as a preservation intern with the Lost Town's Project. She had a multifaceted experience with us, including architectural and historical research, mapping, architectural field survey - she even made it out to Pig Point to dig with us! Thank you, Meredith!

-Stacy 

 

Meredith Gorres, Historic Preservation Intern, Summer 2013

This summer, I worked as a historic preservation intern at the Lost Towns Project. Although an email was sent out to all the historic preservation graduate students at the University of Maryland about the internship later on in the spring semester, I found out about the internship from Stacy Poulos at the end of the fall 2012 semester and promptly sent in my application materials over winter break.

I am quite pleased with my decision to intern at Lost Towns. Even though I had the opportunity to take a paid internship, I chose this one because I put doing what I love above getting paid. I am very satisfied with the projects I got to work on and the fact that I got to perform more professional work, rather than simply making copies for the employees. Reflecting back on my interests and what I got to do over the course of the internship, I realized that everything I did this summer for Lost Towns is everything I enjoy about the preservation field: GIS, deed research, archaeology, general historical research, and map research. I learned how preservation works in the real world, and got a refresher course in GIS and archaeology. I had the opportunity to brush up on and apply what I learned in my first year of graduate school.

Since I live closer to the northern half of Anne Arundel County and my fellow historic preservation intern Sam Young lived closer to the southern half, I chose to survey the twelve properties in the mostly rural North County, and he chose the twelve properties in South County. I was initially a little wary of going out into the field on my own to survey, but everything went perfectly fine, and I had a great time doing it. I got to meet some great people, see some beautiful rural architecture, and really get to know the lay of the land. I found it truly amazing what a range of reactions people can have to finding out that their house is considered historic. The friends of the owners of the first house I stopped at were thrilled that their friends’ house was considered important, and they started telling me about a tobacco shed that used to stand on the property that had to be removed due to storm damage. The owner of another property was worried that his house being listed on the inventory would negatively affect making changes to or selling his house. At the other end of the spectrum was an owner I ended up talking to for over an hour. He had lived in the area for a while and knew quite a bit about everything, or so it seemed. He was thrilled that his house was considered important and told me all the changes that had been made to it since he bought it.

The main reason for researching these properties was to fill in the gaps in their digital and physical files. Some were missing tax parcel information, most needed their chains of title done, most of them needed context maps, and all of them needed up-to-date images, which was the reason for the surveying. Writing up the MIHP forms for these twelve houses was a little intimidating at first, but it ended up being a great refresher and definitely not as difficult as I thought it would be. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t find out more about the boarded-up service station-looking building in Laurel that I was assigned, especially since it is more likely to be demolished than renovated.

 

The second half of the internship involved doing historical research on the suburb of Brooklyn Park, which is located between Baltimore City and Glen Burnie. The main purpose for researching this area was to identify where historic district lines should be drawn. I had to help identify more vs. less compromised areas in an attempt to determine what should be included and what should be left out. I used ProQuest to look up historical newspaper articles about the developer, John K. Culver, and Brooklyn Park in general. I discovered many colorful and amusing ads from the Baltimore Sun from 1916 and on into the 1920’s. Culver appeared to be famous for advertising lots like a used car salesman. He held all kinds of events (picnics with music, etc.) to try to get people to come out. He mainly targeted men in his ads, especially those who were interested in real estate speculation. He promised a profit if they bought his land today and sold it tomorrow.

     

In addition to looking up newspaper articles, I also studied some early maps of the area. I looked up the two earliest Sanborn maps for Brooklyn Park, 1932 and the 1942 update, and color-coded them based on whether they were single or two-story homes in order to try to differentiate the foursquares from the bungalows and to make patterns more obvious. It was not a fool-proof way, as not all two-story houses are foursquares and not all single-story houses are bungalows, so there was a margin of error. I colored the lots yellow if there was a detached garage on the property in order to show how prevalent the old-fashioned carriage house mentality was. I also printed out the plat maps of Culver’s five subdivisions and pieced them together to see what sections of Brooklyn Park were developed earlier or later. We scanned the plat maps and colorized Sanborn maps onto the computer and inserted them as layers into GIS, overlaying the modern landscape in order to get a better picture of how things have changed (or stayed the same) through time.

 

Jane thought originally that the houses in Brooklyn Park, mostly consisting of foursquares and bungalows, might be Wardway houses, as there was a Montgomery Ward warehouse and store across the river in Baltimore. However, I discovered that it did not open until 1925, so that was not too likely. I posted some pictures of some of the houses on the wall of the Sears Homes group I belong to on Facebook, and one of the members started picking out houses here and there that looked like plan houses. She identified a cluster of Standard Home Plans houses on 14^th Street, which was farther south than we intended to place the southern historic district boundary. Whoever continues to work on this project will have to investigate the Standard Home Plans angle a little more, as I do not know much about that particular line of plan books. So I left my internship having suggested a southern boundary for the historic district, an eastern boundary (Governor Ritchie Highway), and a vague idea of where the north and west lines should be drawn. It was just the beginning of a very large project, so the final location of the boundaries will ultimately depend on whoever finishes it.

I hope that the contributions I made this summer will be a great help to those who continue what I started. It would make me very happy to know that even one building was saved because of the research I did this summer. Having worked with professional preservationists and getting to meet and talk to property owners, I feel much more prepared for my studio project this fall. I was impressed with how advanced Lost Towns is in the way of GIS. Uploading historical GIS layers is the wave of the future, and Lost Towns is blazing the trail. In conclusion, I had a great experience, and everyone I met and worked with was very friendly and accommodating. They welcomed me to come out and do some volunteer archaeology at Pig Point and to do some research for them if I ever need a paper topic. I would definitely recommend this organization to those looking for a fun yet productive and educational internship.

My Story with the Lost Towns Project: An Intern's Perspective

Today's blog comes to us from Julia Hause, a summer intern out of Eckerd College in Florida.  Julia is a local girl who we first met last year working behind the counter at our lunch spot near Pig Point.  She decided to intern with us this summer, and we're so happy she took the time to blog about her 120 hour experience.  Thanks, Julia!   
-Stephanie  

Julia with a great find - a copper bead from Pig Point

My story with the Lost Towns Project starts with the small country deli up the street from Pig Point. If you have been to the site you may have had lunch there, which could possibly have been crafted by me! When I started at the deli last summer I told my boss how I just recently declared my undergrad Anthropology major, which was then followed up by the “What’s that?” question I get so frequently. As I was delving into the four subfields of Anthropology, archaeology came up as a topic and they briefly informed me of the dirty gang of people who show up every Tuesday and Friday for lunch ready to be fed. And just like they told me they would, the Anne Arundel County archaeologists showed up for lunch my first Friday shift. I didn’t know much about the Pig Point site at the time, but I was soon informed that the site was on family friend, Lisa and William Brown’s property. I had already gotten an internship and a job for that summer so I wasn’t able to get out to the site, but I anxiously waited for this summer to come around. So, the first week I was back from school this summer, I got in touch with the Browns and the Lost Towns Project volunteer coordinator, Jasmine, who directed me to the site that next Friday. Fortunately, my time with the project didn’t end with volunteering that day. Lost Towns has a rolling internship application and thanks to internship coordinator, Stephanie, I was able to concentrate my time into a wonderfully educational internship for the summer.

This was my first excavation field work experience and if I was to write all the things that I have learned over the past couple months, I don’t know if you’d ever leave this page. Having such a hands on experience in the field has allowed me not only to ask questions, learns skills and techniques, but to PRACTICE! All the troweling, feature excavating, plan view and profile mapping could not be taught only in a classroom. It takes getting out in the field and being exposed to all areas of archaeology more than once to get the practice to better skills and further knowledge and understanding of the site and archaeology as a whole.

Some things I didn’t expect to learn from my time in the field:

- Bags. Never have I seen so many plastic Ziploc bags in one concentrated area (but only because I’ve never been to a landfill). There are artifact BAGS, and BAGS for the artifact tags, and more BAGS depending on how the soil is screened and what is being found. There is a lot of plastic involved, but they are necessary to the process and I have noticed and participated in a significant amount of bag reusing and recycling which makes it more tolerable.

Many, many buckets of dirt from Pig Point units

- I saved money on a gym membership! Just imagine the workout you can get from working outside in the sun all day long, hauling buckets of dirt back and forth, lifting and dumping buckets, shoveling piles of dirt out AND back into the units...it’s exhausting! But it sure does make it feel worthwhile being so active and involved in a fascinating project.

- Lab work. I wasn’t too sure about lab work when I first started, simply because I love being outside and it was hard to fathom sitting indoors when we could be elbows-deep in a unit somewhere. But, I must say that I have enjoyed my time in the lab a lot! It’s really exciting to see the artifacts found in the field and then washing, rebagging and labeling them and knowing exactly where they were found on site and remembering what I learned that day about them.

- Short cleanup time. I love love love that everything stays relatively dusty and dirty. It makes cleanup so much faster! Which means more time spent in the field. I have learned something about myself by working at a restaurant and at the dig site simultaneously. I dislike excessive cleaning. Unlike a the deli, I don’t have to wash and sterilize every piece of equipment I use because it is most likely going to get even dirtier the next day. 

The beautiful Patuxent River marsh in summer

- My favorite and what I least expected was learning so much about the place where I grew up. There is an incredible amount of history, knowledge, and mystery that goes along with the Pig Point site and the area that surrounds it. One of the coolest things for me is the realization that the Native people who lived here thousands of years ago utilized the Patuxent River with its perfect location and fruitful biodiversity. Discovering and trying to understand their life here has made me appreciate where I live so much more. 

And now, it being the end of my internship, I just want to thank all the staff members of the project, all the interns and volunteers I met, and the Browns for all they have taken the time to teach me throughout this summer. Hope to be back soon!!

Notable Moments from the 2013 Field Season: As of July 15

Thank goodness our dedicated intern, Pepper Mankey, decided to blog again! We love her. Here she describes a few notable experiences that have happened during her internship.  Thanks, Pepper!!!  Keep 'em coming. -Stephanie

For me, as an intern new to fieldwork, there have been many notable moments so far in the 2013 field season for the Lost Towns project. Here, straight from my journal, are a few of my favorites.

Bloggess, Pepper Mankey, excavating a pot break at the Wilson site in Galesville

Obviously, my favorites will include my very first day, on May 3. I was told to waterscreen, and shown how to do it by a fantastic long-term volunteer named Tom. Having only studied theory and analysis in my classes, I had absolutely no earthly idea what I was doing, but I was game to try! Tom and Stephanie showed me how to haul the buckets up, pour tons of water through the several pounds of mud, and get rid of all the dirt. Once all the dirt was gone, we pour the resulting pile of gravel, bits of bone, and other stuff into a mesh; called “kitty litter”; the name is apropos. This mesh gets sent to the lab, where, I later learned, some beleaguered (and eventually) cross-eyed intern has to sort through the tiny bits of stuff and try to make some sense of it all for sorting. I was soon teamed up with volunteer Carlee, a fellow California transplant and delightfully fun to chat with lady. Being entirely too fascinated with poking through things, we were admittedly slow at the process. But it was so unbearably fascinating! The Lower Block, for which we were waterscreening, is a midden pile for what can be guessed was a rather large gathering of Indians over many years. So there is a lot to find, both in artifacts as well as faunal remains. Carlee and I wanted to carefully poke through every single bucket’s contents like mad kids at a treasure hunt. I found my first human-made artifact; an incised piece of pipe, which just about made me explode with archaeological joy. I also found several teeth and a few mandibles from smaller mammals, as well as some long bones. After a while, the Lower Block washed their hands of our slowness and sent us to go annoy someone else…I mean, learn to fill out paperwork. What can I say? Waterscreening for the newbie is too fascinating to zip through it. Okay, I have since learned to get the job done without nitpicking over it. But that first day was eye opening, exhilarating, and amazing.

Naturally, there cannot be mention of notable moments without mentioning the first time I was allowed to trowel. Nervously clutching my virgin trowel, I was convinced I was going to screw it all up. And, okay, I made a lot of mistakes. But with the patient and even-mannered *cough* instruction by our field director, I eventually began to feel like I was making some progress. When I found my first real artifact… an honest-to-god flake! Whoopeeee! I got a round of ironic applause from several much-more-experienced volunteers. Yes, I was likely way too excited over a flake; but I will admit, I still feel a certain sentimental fondness for that unit. *grins*

Pig Point Point

Then there was the day I was digging in Pit 3 [one of the mortuary pits at Pig Point] and I found an intact stone point, retooled into a knife. That was an amazing find. I really would like to hear more about the analysis on that point, since it was really beautiful. At this point, I know little about it, but I do know that the excavation of it was thrilling.

Pot Break Excavated by Pepper (note the awesome, personalized trowel)

Of course, we mustn’t forget the possible chamber pot that was excavated at Wilson, a historical site that dates to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That has not yet been mended, so its form is yet to be seen. However, the maker’s mark on the bottom DOES say “Toiletware”. I’ll keep you posted.

But really, what makes this internship so notable is not just the small moments, but the overall picture. For one thing, this is a really fun, fantastic, and scarily intelligent group of people. Every single member of the long-term team, both in staff and in the returning volunteers, has gifts to bring to the cohesive whole. I can’t imagine this group with any one person missing, since each and every person has their own passions and knowledge to bring in. It’s like the cast of the original Star Trek: I mean, can you imagine the bridge without Sulu? Engineering without Scotty? This team has that same “wholeness”. And I love being a part of it. (Yes, that was a geek reference. Go ahead, laugh. I won’t mind.)

I am learning about both historic and prehistoric archaeology as well as the local history of the area. I am gaining a better understanding and learning in greater depth about the archaeology done in my area, as well as the comparison and contrast between the sites in Anne Arundel county as compared to other areas in the Chesapeake region. The site reports uploaded online are a fascinating read, and give a thorough background as to where the Lost Towns Project has been before, and I have even enjoyed reading those. In my view, this is the best internship I could have chosen, because I do get the best of all these worlds, as well as just having a messy, filthy, sunburned good time.

A Summer 2013 Intern Experience (So Far!)

Hi All! It's been almost a year since we last blogged, but I asked the 2013 summer interns if anyone would like to write a post about their experiences. Pepper Mankey submitted this entry about her internship (so far). Pepper is about to graduate with her B.A. in Anthropology from University of Maryland and is getting 6 field school credits with this internship.  This requires her to put in over two months of time with us, but as you can read below, she's getting a lot out of our program!  -Stephanie


What I have learned (so far) from interning at Lost Towns:

• Don’t step on the edge of the unit.
• If there is a cool artifact lurking an inch under the surface, [field director] Shawn’s spidey sense will alert him, and he’ll magically take over in a “teaching moment” and be the one to find it.
• Mapping is a laborious process, but a year later when you’re trying to sort out the paperwork, it is a lifesaver.
• Did I mention not to step on the edge of the unit?
• The thrill the first time you discover something in the water screen, the dry screen, or the dirt you’re troweling through cannot be described.  It’s amazing.
• The kinds of people who sort their M&M’s by color before eating them would love doing lab time, sorting and rebagging the artifacts.
• Fieldwork creates some of the most interesting tan lines.
• Seriously.  Don’t step on the edge of the unit.

In my internship (so far!) at the Lost Towns project, I have acquired sunburns, blisters, aching muscles, stained-beyond-redemption clothes, new calluses, aching joints, and nicely toned arms. I have also gotten to spend time with one of the most amazing groups of people I’ve ever had the privilege to learn from and spend many happy hours in idle conversation with. I’ve learned how to draw a planview, (but not yet a profile), how to map a unit, and (theoretically) how they dig shovel test pits. I’ve also learned to use dryer sheets, of all things, to repel mosquitoes and that my trowel needs to be sharpened regularly. Of course, I’ve learned how to trowel in clay and in sand, two very different mediums that require some pretty knack-y techniques, and how to excavate a feature as opposed to a strata, and the difference between an “arbitrary” level (excavated in tenths of feet) and a “natural” stratum (following the soil colors). I have gotten my eyeballs up on how to actually look at soil colors, something I never really thought about before in practice, having only learned the theoretical applications in school (and it’s a whooooole different ballgame in the field.)

This has been one of the greatest experiences of my archaeology-student career. Having spent many, many hours in labs doing sorting, labeling, cataloging, data entry, and analyzing, I was starting to get pretty bored with the whole lab-only aspect. However, interning at Lost Towns has been my first field-work experience and I was astonished at how much I have fallen completely in love with it from the very first day! Every artifact discovered has been a visceral thrill, and every mistake made (and I have made plenty) has been a learning experience.

I can’t say that I have a favorite moment. What I do have, however, is a favorite artifact: the first one that I ever touched. It was my first day on the dig at Pig Point, and I was waterscreening. Whilst pounding gallons of water through thick black dirt, I came upon an incised potsherd. It was absolutely beautiful. Incised with lines and dots, I was astonished at the pure beauty of this piece, despite being only a small portion of the pot. At that moment, pulling this bit of pottery out of the dirt in the screen, I knew I had found where I wanted to be….. reclaiming this knowledge, history, and humanity from the depths of the earth. I knew I had discovered the reason I had spent all those hours in classes. It was to bring the past back into the present and make it relevant.

I was told later that it was a portion of carved pipe. That fascinates me, to think of some prehistoric person smoking on this pipe, just as many people do today, and to ponder what they thought about, prayed for, yearned for while this pipe was smoked. What did they dream about? What did they smoke for; pleasure, or ceremony? The mind boggles at the million possibilities.

And that’s why I love it.

Pepper's Carved Pipe Fragment from Pig Point

Pepper Hard at Work

"Oh my gosh, your Gorget!"

Wow, it's been a while since we've posted a blog!  We've been working like crazy this summer with our summer interns and volunteers at Pig Point and London Town discovering all sorts of new information about our local history.  At London Town, we're working on finding out as much as we can about the footprint of Rumney's Tavern while also looking for the associated out buildings (like the kitchen or stables).  London Town plans to re-construct Rumney's once the Carpenter's Shop is finished, which will be really exciting! 

Pig Point continues to amaze us with it's artifacts and features.  Just yesterday, our staffer Stacy found a beautiful (and complete!) banded slate gorget or pendent!  The material most likely comes from Ohio, which demonstrates the connections between Pig Point and the Ohio River valley that must have been in place about 2,000 years ago. 

In case you're itching to get your hands dirty with history, we'll be having our last Public Dig Day of the summer at London Town on Saturday, August 4th from 9am until 2pm.  It's a free, all ages event!  Hope you can make it!

Stay Cool!

Jessie

Lost Towns family volunteer programs featured in local magazine!



The Lost Towns Project's family archaeology opportunities are currently featured in April's issue of the Chesapeake Family Magazine.  The article, Digging into Maryland's past, highlights the ways that parents can help get their kids into history--by getting their hands dirty! 

Lost Towns archaeologist, Jessie Grow, is also featured in the article because her interest in her chosen career was fueled by experiences featured in the article.  Specifically, such experiences include the upcoming Dig Day that Lost Towns will be hosting at London Town and Gardens.

The article in this month comes in time for Maryland's Archaeology Month.  The opportunities that are featured extend beyond the month of April and include contact information.

If you are interested in bringing in your family to volunteer, we have more information at our website: http://losttownsproject.org/signupvolunteer.htm.  You can contact Jessie, also the volunteer coordinator, by e-mail (volunteers@losttownsprojects.org) or phone (410-222-1318).

Internships are also available for high school students and university students.

Intern Research Reveals Artifact Date

Today's blog comes to us from high school intern Xanthia Strohl.  She researched a knife found at a post-Civil War African American site in Galesville.  Wonderful work!

J. Russell Pearl Handled Knife

Example of J. Russell & Co. Knife in Pristine Condition 

Our knife, found in the Wilson House

Close-up of Stamp

This 1834 pearl handled knife was found in the Wilson House, a historic site structure built in 1871 by Henry Wilson, an emancipated slave (Galesville, Anne Arundel County, MD). This knife is important in the history of J. Russell’s business because this was made the year before J. Russell started making butcher’s knives and had ‘J.Russell & Co American Cutlery’ stamped on them.

           

In 1834 J. Russell decided that he had enough experience to start manufacturing knives (the same year that is stamped on our knife). Then J. Russell & Co. had a devastating fire on March 15, 1836 in his forging workshop. He was given insurance money to repair the damage. He had a major flood during the repairs that caused his buildings to wash away with his supplies for which his insurance did not completely cover. 

A wealthy man name Henry Clapp, owner of Green River Works, provided $10,000 to rebuild the forge, everything within his forge, rebuild the damn, and the bridge that had been there before. In return, ‘J. Russell & Co.’ became ‘J. Russell & Co. Green River Works’.

By process of elimination, we know that he started making cutlery knives in 1834; our knife has a date of 1834 stamped in with J. Russell & Co. This gives us a date ranging from J. Russell making cutlery knives in 1834, to his business’s name change in 1836 when it became J. Russell & Co. Green River Work’. So, our make date for this knife is between 1834-1836.

I have made an educated guess that because it has the date 1834 stamped on it and his business name changed two years after in 1836 that is probably accurate.

Sewing Through Time Exhibit Now Open!!

In the Fall of 2011 Lost Towns Project applied and received a mini-grant from the Four Rivers Heritage Area to design and install an exhibit entitled Sewing Through Time: the Archaeology of Clothing and Textiles.  This was my brainchild, and it has taken over my life until March 24th when it finally opened!  It is located at the Historic Annapolis Museum in downtown Annapolis, and will be on display for 9 months.

The exhibit explores the history of sewing in early America as evident through the artifact collection of the Lost Towns Project.  The artifacts on display include thimbles, bone needle cases, hook-and-eyes, curtain rings, lead seals, buckles, scissors, buttons, and other sewing related items.  It also displays the evidence of prehistoric sewing at Pig Point: bone awls and pottery sherds with cord, net, and fabric impressions.  We also included historical documents and paintings to help illustrate the importance of clothing in early America.  Our resident artist (and dedicated volunteer), Barry Gay contributed six of his own paintings, which are beautiful!

Stephanie and Sam helped me install.

Considering it was my very first museum exhibit ever, I am amazed at how much I learned.   Not only about the artifacts in the exhibit, but also about how to design and install an exhibit and how quickly what seems like a huge space (20 x 13 feet) fills up with tiny artifacts and a few lines of text.  I had a HUGE team of helpers with this exhibit, and there is no way I could have done it without them!

I hope sometime in the next nine months you can find some time to check it out!  Send us a comment about what you think!  Here are the details:







Sewing Through Time: The Archaeology of Clothing and Textiles
The Historic Annapolis Museum
99 Main Street, Annapolis, MD
Monday - Saturday: 10am - 5pm
Sunday: 11am - 5pm
410-267-6656

New Study of Prehistoric Sites along the Patuxent River

Today's blog comes to us from recent intern, Stacy Poulos.  Stacy has been helping us assemble data for our new grant studying the prehistory of the Patuxent River drainage.  Since she did such a great job during her internship, we decided we couldn't let her go and hired her to assist our architectural historian, Darian Schwab.  Welcome aboard, Stacy!

As many archaeologically-inclined friends of Lost Towns know, the Project has been delving deep into the prehistoric past of Maryland. The stratigraphy of Pig Point is redefining our understanding of prehistoric chronology, while the Middle Woodland study of the past few years has illuminated the richness of Anne Arundel County’s prehistoric heritage. Past studies show that one of Maryland’s main arteries of prehistoric civilization and trade is along the Patuxent River. With a grant from the Maryland Historical Trust, the Lost Towns Project is creating a spatial database of prehistoric settlements in the Patuxent watershed that will enable us to approach questions about environmental choices, artifact distributions, trade networks, and the spatial relationship of different kinds of sites. Furthermore, such a Geographic Information System will allow us to determine which sites warrant further study or need preservation efforts.

We are not restricting our study to the Anne Arundel County side of the Patuxent drainage. In order to get a more complete representation of the area, we are jumping over county boundaries and incorporating a number of Prince Georges County sites as well. In Anne Arundel County alone, there are 198 prehistoric sites along the Patuxent drainage! Out of a large pool of recorded sites from both counties, we have selected about 10 sites to be included in the database.

Our research into our first test case brought home the fact that further study often leads to further questions about the past – not just the past from thousands of years ago, but the past from just 50 years ago! To gather information about each site, we have to revisit the previous studies that were conducted. Our first test case revealed that an excavation from 1968 had left behind no records and the artifacts were missing! As we hunted through old letters, avocational archaeologists’ notebooks, donated collections, county storage, and the Maryland Archaeological Conservancy, it became clear that we also need to do archaeology of past archaeological research. This study is revealing not only the rich prehistoric past of Maryland, but the oral traditions and networks among past archaeologists. As we continue forward with the project, we are excited to find more about our prehistoric and our recent past.

Stacy created this map to show the Patuxent drainage and the sites we are studying for the new grant 

Conservation of Artifacts

Today's blog was written by our recent intern, Alex, who just completed his hours.  Alex was very interested in learning conservation in the lab, and Shawn taught him how to conserve metal, glass, and bone.  The scissors he refers to in this post will likely be part of a new exhibit highlighting the archaeology of sewing in Anne Arundel County.  Our own Jessie Grow is designing this exhibit.  Maybe we can get her to blog about it soon!

I worked on conservation in the Lost Towns Project lab, in which I conserved artifacts from sites excavated. I performed conservation treatments on these artifacts and also worked on the conservation database. I performed conservation on these artifacts to prevent them from breaking down further and kept a log of such treatments in the database. Conservation treatments vary depending on the type of artifact being conserved and the level of break-down that has occurred. Some of the artifacts that are most frequently conserved include metal, glass, and bone specimens.

The main artifact that I have been conserving and restoring is a pair of scissors from the Swan Cove site in Anne Arundel County, MD. I treated the scissors with air-abrasion to remove the corrosion from them and to prevent them from further breaking down. I used a number of different rotary tools in order to remove the corrosion from the entire area of the scissors. I also conserved and restored the decorative markings on the scissors. I then applied tannic-acid to the entire surface of the scissors to prevent them from breaking down further in the future. The use of air-abrasion and tannic-acid conserved the scissors and helped restore them back to their original form.

The Swan Cove scissors before conservation

The Swan Cove scissors after conservation

 

Third Season Closing of Pig Point

Written by Stephanie Sperling, LTP Archaeologist



Al digs through the deep, sandy soils looking for a stratigraphic change.
  Notice the dark Woodland period horizons above the sandy
Archaic levels below.



After a productive and exciting 2011 dig season, we wrapped up fieldwork at Pig Point for the year.  Even though temperatures are still rather mild, it is difficult to dig into the deep, sandy blocks under the best of circumstances.  And the freeze/thaw cycle is a killer on the unit walls, sometimes resulting in total collapse.  So after nearly six feet of excavation in the newest block, it was time to close up and backfill.

The block was located next to an ancient spring that was used by the Native peoples at Pig Point.  This area of the site was later heavily utilized by the 18th century town residents, and we found deep post holes and a possible privy in the vicinity.  Despite the historic period disturbance, we found relatively intact prehistoric strata from the Late Woodland through the Late Archaic periods (ranging from about A.D. 1300 – 3500 B.C.).  Interestingly, we did not find any good diagnostic artifacts or features underneath the Late Archaic horizons, which is different from other parts of the site.  The sandy soils kept getting deeper and we saw no stratigraphic changes.  It seems likely that the spring must have been faster flowing during the Early and Middle Archaic, eroding this portion of the hill.    

We have plenty of lab work to keep us busy for the winter months.  Keep checking the blog for artifact updates or stop by the lab and see for yourself what we found last season!

Learning the Lab Process

This week's blog comes to us from intern Dan Martinez.  Dan just completed his internship and discusses our lab procedures and the life of an artifact as he learned it.  

Archaeology Lab at London Town



The lab process is extremely regimented and there are specific steps that guide the artifacts from the field to the display case if that be their fate. The artifacts arrive from the site in bags labeled with their provenience. The provenience of an artifact is the horizontal and vertical location where it was found based on the grid system established. Each bag of artifacts is labeled with a lot number that is specifically assigned to that strat. Lot numbers can be searched in the lot list and are probably the most important thing assigned. That lot number can be used to locate the provenience card which has important information about the strat including numerical values, soil types, notes, summaries of artifacts found, and drawings of features on the back.



Cleaned artifacts waiting
to be sorted 



Once these artifacts come into the lab they are quickly checked in by the site that they came from. The information from the bag is logged including site name, lot number, coordinates, bag contents, and number of bags. The second step of this process is to wash the artifacts. This can be a time consuming tender process depending on the artifacts in the lot. Care must be taken when washing pottery, fragile bone, and anything else that might be damaged. Artifacts that have been separated from the main bag such as in a film canister must receive extra caution. After the artifacts are washed they are separated by type on a screen to dry for at least 24 hours keeping in mind that some artifacts take longer to dry especially if they are large. This separation process places similar artifacts in the same pile (bricks with bricks, glass with glass, pottery with pottery, etc). After washing and sorting, the artifacts must be re-bagged which involves placing them in acid-free bags according to their arrangement. A label must be placed in the bag printed on acid-free paper from the laser printed and labeled with acid-free ink. The acid will deteriorate the artifacts given enough time. Small holes must be punched in the baggies to allow air circulation as the artifacts may harbor mildew if not allowed to ‘breathe.’

Labeling is the next procedure in this process which involves printing labels on acid free paper bearing the site number and lot number. If the artifacts are too small to label with the full tag only the lot number may be used as this is more valuable overall.  Labeling in my opinion can be somewhat tedious and frustrating depending on the size of the artifacts. Small pieces of pottery, bone, and flakes can be challenging.

The last step in this process is cataloging in which the exact quantity and weight of artifacts are entered into a table to make an analysis of the site through each unit easier. Cataloging was not extremely difficult after referring to the binder that contained the abbreviations for each type.



Dan in the deep
Pig Point units



One final procedure I learned in the lab was water screening. This involves using a fine 1/16 inch window mesh to screen the soil for tiny artifacts that would be otherwise missed. Water is necessary to push the soil through this fine mesh and this process can be quite messy. After screening the soil through, the artifacts were dumped into clean mesh with a tag showing the site and lot number and tied up to dry. These may have some extra steps including picking through the pile of miniscule pebbles with tweezers looking for beads and small finds.

ACT Awards

Written by guest blogger and previous recipient of the Archaeology Volunteer Award, Barry Gay

The awards were presented on October 12, 2011 at the Galesville, Maryland Community Center.  The awards ceremony was chaired by Willard R. Munford, Chairman of the Anne Arundel Trust for Preservation, Inc.

This year, the Archaeology Volunteer Award was presented to Patricia Melville, a volunteer with the Lost Towns Project since 2010.  Before retiring, Pat was an archivist at the Maryland State Archives.




This year, a special achievement Award was presented to Jane McWilliams of Bay Ridge.  Jane is a professional historian, writer and lecturer who specializes in the history of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County.

This year, a Preservation Stewardship Award was presented to Myles Conway.  Myles purchased the historic “Friendship Parsonage’ building, in Friendship last year and was steadfast in working to rehabilitate the building into an antique store.

The 31^st Marjorie Murray Bridgeman Award was presented to Ann Jensen.  Ann has been writing about history for more than 35 years.  Her books include Chesapeake Bay Schooners, a comprehensive history.  Ann does not write about history, she lives in it as caretaker of the Sands House, one of the city’s oldest homes, owned by her family since 1771.

The 36^th Orlando Rideout prize honors the name of the Anne Arundel County native who served as first director of the Maryland Historical trust and continues to lead in preservation efforts  in the preservation of the architectural heritage of Anne Arundel County.  This year, the award is presented to the Galesville Community Center.

Some of the students that attended the school between 1929 and 1956

                                          

                                   





Unique Find at London Town

Earlier this month, a unique 3 cent coin was discovered at London Town.  Volunteer Erika Franz and her daughter were there for this find and later did some very thorough research on the coin.  Erika posted her research on her blog, "Brush Off the Dust!  History Now!"  Check it out here: http://erikafranz.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/the-discovery-of-mom-and-daughter-volunteer-archaeologists/

We love our volunteers!

Autumn at Pig Point

Written by Stephanie Sperling, LTP Archaeologist

We are in the process of wrapping up the 2011 Pig Point field season after a rough September.  Back to back hurricanes and over 23 inches (!) of rain caused serious damage to the site, resulting in slumped walls and major clean up time.  Before the floods, we excavated the new Upper Block units through 15 levels and finished nearly five feet below the ground surface.  We were FINALLY hitting non-cultural horizons about one foot beneath a hearth that radiocarbon dated to over 9,000 years old.  No diagnostic artifacts were found in these levels, but several pieces of debitage suggest that we may actually have intact Paleoindian horizons at the site.  We'll keep looking for those levels in 2012.

In the meantime, Shawn has been excavating four new Lower Block units.  He made it through the Woodland period midden and has recently been investigating thick Late Archaic horizons that are filled with projectile points.  This assemblage will make an interesting comparison with the Archaic triangles and Piscataways found during the 2009 season (check out Al, Jessie, and Shawn's paper about this topic here: http://www.losttownsproject.org/publications/articles/Triangle%20points%20-%20Luckenbach,%20Grow,%20and%20Sharpe.pdf).  Two weeks ago, he discovered several large quartz rocks set in a pit that may date to the Middle Archaic time period.  One of the stones weighed at least 25 lbs and was surrounded by hammerstones and quartz debitage.  Quartz cobbles like this can be found within a day's journey of Pig Point but not on the sandy bluff itself.  We think this might be local material hauled to Pig Point by the Middle Archaic residents to use as an on-site quartz quarry!  This could also partially explain the pounds and pounds of quartz debitage found in Middle Archaic horizons across the site. 

Quartz cobbles during excavation



Quartz cobbles partially exposed (we paused excavation between
arbitrary levels)







New excavation block showing prehistoric
and historic features



At the end of the season, we opened up a block of six new units near an ancient spring that was most likely used by the prehistoric residents of the site.  We found more of the Woodland period midden and several hearths and post hole features, along with large Townsend pot breaks, in the Late Woodland horizons.  This area of the site was also used by the colonial residents of Pig Point as their main thoroughfare to the Patuxent River.  Called Blue Shirt Road, this swale was used for nearly 200 years by people making their way to the bustling wharf and town in the lowlying area of the site.  Subsequently, we have found several historic period levels and a number of colonial artifacts near the edge of the road.  This is interesting because we have excavated relatively little left during the town period, which lasted from the early 18th century through the early 20th century.

Erin excavating Townsend pottery found in the new excavation block

Stop by the lab this winter and check out some of the amazing things we found in 2011.  We are up to over 250,000 artifacts after three field seasons! 

-Steph (and our newest Lost Towns Project staff member, Sam!  He even has his own trowel!  Thanks, Erin)