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.

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

 

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.

The Lab Life of an Artifact

 Written by Sarah Woodling, Lost Towns Project intern

In most cases of archaeological work, the field gets the spotlight. After all, that is where the cool stuff is found. But what happens after that? Where does the cool stuff go? Off to the lab, of course! Lab work is a part of the process as much as fieldwork, though it hardly gets the attention it deserves. Without it, there would be cases upon cases upon cases of dirty pieces of rock that someone, somewhere found in a hole that one time, and none of it would be of use to anyone.

The laboratory work at London Town is a step-by-step process of washing, identifying, labeling and cataloging, and each step is equally important. When artifacts come in from the field, they are in labeled plastic bags. The labels contain information such as: the site number (for London Town: 18AN48, and Pig Point: 18AN50), the lot number, the unit or feature number, the stratum, the coordinates, and, in most cases, the date it came out of the ground. Each bag is checked in and set on the ‘to be washed’ shelf. And here we have the first step in lab work: washing. Using strainers and tubs in deep sinks, artifacts are carefully wet-brushed, which means they are scrubbed with a toothbrush or something similar to get the excess dirt off. Ensuring this first step is done well makes life far easier down the line. So now, we are left with clean artifacts but before anything else can be done with them, they have to sit out overnight and dry completely.

Step two is where the now clean and dry artifacts are sorted and re-bagged. Archaeologists take a look at each item that was collected from the field and decide if, first of all, it is actually an artifact. Sometimes ordinary pebbles and other non-cultural rocks end up in the trays to be sorted and they are thrown out. If the item is an actual artifact, we then sort it by type. Bones, shell, and other organic materials must be sorted from the quartz, quartzite, quartz conglomerate and other rocks, and in turn, each of those must be separated, until you have many different piles of similar artifacts. That includes, but is not limited to: fire cracked rock (FCR), chert, earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, flakes, shatters, rhyolite, brick, nails, and many other different things that we find at our dig sites. When each pile is placed into a new bag, every individual bag is given its own bag tag, and the provenience is written on the outside of the bag in permanent marker.

Labeling the artifacts themselves comes next. This third step is probably the most time-consuming, but it is very useful. Using a non-harmful adhesive, a tiny strip of paper with the site and lot number on it is glued to each artifact. This allows the artifacts to be removed from their bags and looked at, and helps immensely when it comes to putting them all away. It also serves as a safety measure, just in case the bag and bag tag are both lost or mixed up. This is important because an artifact, no matter how fascinating it may be, is only as important as the context in which it was found. Without that, artifacts are just nice to look at and don’t provide clues to what was happening in that time period. After the glue is applied, the artifacts must again sit out for several hours or overnight to allow time to dry.

The fourth and final step is cataloging. In order to make sure that all of the work that went into to washing, rebagging, and labeling the artifacts does not go to waste, the bags are cataloged. The boxes eventually go into storage and if they are not cataloged correctly, trying to retrieve them can be virtually impossible. This also provides a way to easily look at the broader spectrum of what was found in larger areas, as opposed to confined to what was found in one lot number. This gives more context and allows for hypotheses to be made about the area and the people who lived there.

Perhaps we should not give lab work the short end of the attention stick - that’s where half the important stuff happens!

Comparative Anatomy

Written by Rachelle Epstein, Lost Towns intern.

As a subfield of anthropology, archaeology uses several of the techniques of physical anthropology, the study of the physical development of the human species, to answer its many confounding questions. It is the same here at the Lost Towns Project! This summer, we have worked on the historic site of Rumney’s Tavern at London Town in addition to the prehistoric site at Pig Point, and in both of these sites we have come across fragmentary remains of animals past. If we are able to identify the remains of these animals, we may be able to determine what our ancestors here were hunting and eating. However, this is not quite as simple as it sounds. In an effort to figure out what animals these bones belong to, we must have similar remains to compare them with. So, here at the Lost Towns Project, we are using the methods of Comparative Anatomy to answer our questions.

Raccoon skeleton used for comparing with new bones that we find.

Comparative anatomy was first established by Georges Cuvier in France in 1800. Today, archaeologists and physical anthropologists alike use this method to study physical features among animal species. These shared or different characteristics among animals are used to reconstruct a fossil species from usually incomplete remains. We have found many of these remains at both of our active sites this summer, and in an effort to figure out who these little mammals are, we are working hard in the lab to assemble the remains of many small mammals for comparison. The picture shown is of a recently deceased raccoon, who we have reassembled and labeled so that we can compare the sizes and shapes of his bones to those we found this summer, and those we find in the future!

Middle Woodland III Report Finished!

Written by staff member Stephanie Sperling:

As many of you know, I've spent the better part of 2011 working on the final report for the Pig Point site.  I'm happy to say that the report is finished and has been sent to the Maryland Historical Trust (our grantor) for comments.  Thank you to everyone who helped!  I couldn't have completed it without you.  Thanks especially to volunteer Pat Melville who put together the most comprehensive historical summary of Pig Point ever written.  Pat worked for the Maryland Archives for many years, and I am so grateful that she used her extensive research skills to summarize countless land records, wills, and court proceedings into an accessible narrative.  Thank you!  

While the Town period of Pig Point lasted for nearly 300 years, our excavations have centered on the thousands of years of prehistoric occupation (or the Native American occupation that happened before contact with Europeans).  That was also the main focus of my report.  Based on the artifact assemblage and the seven feet (!) of intact stratigraphy, we can certainly state that people have been living at Pig Point for about 10,000 years.  Incredible!  Anyone is welcome to read the report, but for those of you without the time for a 200+ page document, I'll sum up a few of the more interesting points here.



A reconstruction of a Woodland period house at Pig Point



First, I should say that nearly every prehistoric period in the mid-Atlantic region is well represented at Pig Point.  Archaeologists break down the millennia of prehistoric time into different periods based on changing artifacts and lifeways.  For example, the Archaic period extends from about 7500 B.C. – 1000 B.C. and was a time of hunting and gathering after the last Ice Age.  People adapted to a changing climate by utilizing every part of the landscape during different seasons, and gradually they became more sedentary.  Thousands of projectile points and stone tools were left behind that tell us about the different activities taking place during this long time period.  The appearance of clay pottery marks the beginning of the Woodland period (from 1000 B.C. – A.D. 1650), when people settled down for much of the year in base camps or villages.  Eventually, agriculture developed and the villages became larger as the population grew.



Excavation of the 8,000 year old pits found
beneath the Woodland midden



Pig Point saw heavy occupation during both the Archaic and the Woodland periods.  It has always been an appealing place to live!  The rich resources of Jug Bay can still be harvested all year long (fish and shellfish, mammals and birds, marsh plants and nearby forest species), and countless freshwater springs provide a constant source of drinking water.  Last year, we excavated several features that informed us about what people were eating over the millennia.  For instance, we found two hearths dating to over 8,000 years ago that still contained hickory nut shells and white perch scales.  The charcoal found in these ancient firepits was successfully radiocarbon dated, producing the oldest dates ever in Anne Arundel County!  We also excavated more of the remarkable Woodland period midden (or an area of cooking and working stratified over 3,000 years), where we found tens of thousands of bones and shells from dozens of species.  We now know that by about A.D. 1200, the people of Pig Point were growing corn to supplement their diets.

 

A selection of artifacts from Pig Point: From top to bottom - Woodland period pot sherd; Projectile points made of non-local stone; a selection of bone tools; three incised gorgets




We have found over 200,000 artifacts from the site, ranging from animal bones to projectile points to beautifully decorated pottery, pipes, and adornments.  Some of the bones were worked into tools used for needles or soft hammers or were used for adornments (like canine teeth with holes drilled for necklaces).  The projectile points span 10,000 years and are made of both local and exotic stone (like Ohio chalcedony and Pennsylvania jasper).  Some of the clay pot sherds have exquisite decoration, as do several of the pipe fragments.  And a number of gorget fragments (a type of rectangular stone pendant) were marked with geometric lines by someone thousands of years ago.

If you would like to know more about the Pig Point site, please contact us and we’ll be happy to share more of our remarkable findings.  But the best way to learn about the site is to volunteer in the field or the lab.  We’re back in the field every Tuesday and Friday, come out to this beautiful site and join us sometime!

-Steph   

I love getting dirty in a feature!

           

Digitizing Maps into AutoCAD

Hi All,

I thought I'd post a quick blog to tell you about the AutoCAD maps I've been working on for the Pig Point site report. AutoCAD is a computerized drafting program that many archaeologists use to digitize field drawings in order to see a more holistic view of a site. I first scan the field maps into AutoCAD and then digitally sketch over the field drawings.  Then, I'll add a few finishing touches and I've come up with a site or feature map that is ready for presentations or reports.

Here's an example from the Java site.  The first image is a field map showing a small portion of the exposed 17th and 18th century Sparrow's Rest site.  Below that you can see the digitized AutoCAD map that combines ALL of the smaller field maps into one larger image.  It's much more clear and ready for presenting!  I'll let you know when I have some cool Pig Point maps ready, it should be soon.

-Steph

This is an original field drawing from Sparrow's Rest, showing only the central portion of the excavated site.

Here's the AutoCAD map of the 2008 excavations. You can see the red brick hearth on the left, the five large yellow post holes that form the footprint of the 17th/18th century building, and all the other features. The above field map is digitized in the east-central area of this map.