2000 Season
Using students from an archaeological field school at the College of William & Mary, under the joint direction of Kevin Bartoy and Steve Archer of the University of California at Berkeley, the 2000 season involved the excavation of the remaining plowzone, which for the first time allowed the creation of a plan map of the posthole remnants of the main structure, which appears to be a typical “Virginia House.” During the 2000 season, the crew continued to modify sampling and excavation strategies to recover as much information as possible from the site. Also uncovered and excavated during the 2000 season was a subfloor pit (or “root cellar”). Capped with a thick, charcoal-rich layer, and silted-in at its base, the root cellar was a major indication that the large house at CG-10 had likely stood abandoned for some time before being destroyed by fire.
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| The plowzone was excavated in a “checkerboard” pattern. |  |
Students stand on the location of postholes for the main dwelling. |
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| Subfloor pit found under the main dwelling before excavation. | Students excavate part of the Refuse Pit. |
A refuse pit on the side of the adjoining slope was also examined, and it was determined that a great deal of the site’s artifacts had eroded downslope, covering the primary “cut” of the refuse feature with strata rich in artifacts. Only a single test unit was expanded into the refuse feature below the level of the seventeenth-century ground surface. This small test enabled us to recover soil samples and assess the stratigraphy of this pit, which, together with its overlying layers, was producing the highest density and diversity of artifacts anywhere in the site area; with few exceptions, significant quantities of artifacts were virtually absent from the area where the structure would have stood, supporting the evidence for downslope erosion. One posthole was also excavated in 2000 to determine how much of the original ground surface was lost.
2001 Season
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Steve Archer working in Colonial Williamsburg’s phytolith lab. |
Over the winter between 2000 and 2001, Archer, working at the University of California at Berkeley, continued to coordinate laboratory analysis of some of the specialized samples taken in 2000. Phytolith analysis of the root cellar revealed a series of different plant combinations contributing to each of the fill levels in the cellar, including one dominated by European-introduced grasses, as well as a strong indication that the root cellar had a wooden lining or structure at its base, long since decayed to the point of being visually undetectable. Even more intriguing was the phytolith composition of the pit feature, which seemed to have a mostly homogeneous fill, except at its base. The base layer of the pit (i.e., what was most likely a soil active in the seventeenth century, not later fill) had strong signatures of oat (Avena sativa) or similar cereal chaff, possibly suggesting crop processing or animal fodder activity happening in or around the pit. Faunal analysis conducted by Stephen Atkins of Colonial Williamsburg on materials from the pit revealed a surprising variety of animal bone. In addition to the expected domestic animals such as pig, cattle, and chicken, Atkins identified bone of numerous fish, wild birds, raccoon, opossum, and turtle, and even a dolphin vertebra with butchery marks. The laboratory analysis helped to guide our decisions for field strategy in the 2001 summer field excavations.
In summer 2001, Kevin Bartoy and Steve Archer directed another excavation season using students from the College of William & Mary. One of the largest questions left at this point involved the nature of the space surrounding the structure and pit. We knew where a house was, and where most of the domestic refuse was eventually deposited, but we had no idea of where more ephemeral features such as fence lines, outbuildings, or even additional structures may have been located. These more “mundane” aspects of the site are in many ways equally important to the interpretation of the past.
A thorough survey of the area around the known features was designed, and headed up in the field by teaching assistant Catharine Dann, a Ph.D. student in history at the College of William & Mary. Before beginning excavation in May, we cleared, by hand , nearly an acre of woodlot for the survey. An old-fashioned “high-tech” method was tried before shovel hit ground in an attempt to pinpoint any outbuildings—a metal detector. The entire area was swept with a metal detector, and each individual “hit” or anomaly was mapped to see if any patterns emerged prior to any actual excavation in the survey grid. It was hoped that concentrations of iron (e.g., nails in the plowzone from a collapsed outbuilding) might reveal locations of structures related to CG-10. Although nothing definite was identified through the detector survey, a general trend of decreasing levels of metals away from the “core” area of the site seemed to confirm that we had located the primary center of the site. Over the summer, field school students were generally divided into two camps, one group working on the survey area, and one continuing to define and excavate the pit feature, and later, the postholes of the main structure.
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| A survey of the area around the known features revealed relatively little, although once the area was stripped in 2002 several features appeared. |
After the metal detector survey, the survey group began excavating 50 × 50 cm test excavation squares (“units”) every five meters across the cleared acre of land. Unfortunately, test after test in the large tract west and south of the structure came up empty. Logging in the late 1980s had extensively disturbed this area, and at the time, we presumed that any seventeenth-century features that may have existed here have been destroyed beyond recognition. Artifacts were virtually absent from the plowzone in this area. As we would later discover upon the 2002 excavations, the absence of artifacts can be a misleading indicator that “nothing” is to be found.
Meanwhile, the students excavating in the refuse pit were discovering incredible numbers of small finds that continuously enriched our mental picture of the inhabitants of CG-10. Because, unlike elsewhere at CG-10, preservation conditions in the pit were especially favorable to bone and metal objects, many unusual artifacts were recovered in this deposit. Some of them, in no particular order, include:
While the primary evidence of archaeology is in the overall pattern of artifacts together with strong interpretation of their contexts, these small finds add immeasurable detail and richness to how we think about the people who lived at this location, as well as opening up new questions. Perhaps they were handy with repairs and made some of their own objects, as the bone plug, various woodworking tools, and scrap metal seem to suggest. The book clasps may suggest literacy, or they may have come from a family bible that was treasured but not read. The jaw harp is a fantastic, personal find conjuring up images of informal music being played around the house. Locks suggest questions of property and privacy in the seventeenth century. Other items recovered from the pit help in constructing a picture of the architecture and furnishings, such as window leads, and upholstery tacks. Much of the refuse pit deposit was recovered using flotation, a very fine recovery technique that captures both plant material and virtually every other artifact larger than 2 mm from the soil. As a result, many tiny bones, beads, and straight pins that would be otherwise lost were recovered from the pit at CG-10.
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| A field school student maps the profile of the root cellar in the main dwelling. | |
Students work in the Ravine Pit. |
As the final layers were removed from the pit, a posthole was identified on the eastern edge of the feature. Although no comparable features have been identified at any of the other Carter’s Grove/Martin’s Hundred sites, the posthole, together with the phytolith fodder evidence, suggest the possibility that the pit may have been used as a rudimentary shelter for animals such as pigs, before its later use as a refuse dump. The post may have supported a simple roof to protect animals from the elements. As is true today, a single “feature” may be used in many ways through time. Perhaps the pit was initially dug to retrieve clay, later used as a rough animal pen, and finally as a trash container.
Advanced students in the field school also completed some analysis during the summer on the imported British tobacco pipe fragments recovered from CG-10. These common, disposable artifacts have a short “use-life” and are very useful for establishing dates. Using a number of researchers’ methods for dating pipe stems and bowls, the 1792 pipe stem fragments verified a peak occupation between 1680 and 1710 and a mean date of 1700.
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