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Mapping and Excavating Features at Ravenscroft

• July 31, 2008
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Before field school at the Ravenscroft site I had a lingering question on my mind: What does an archaeologist actually do? Having had no prior experience in archaeology all I could think of were two words…digging and sifting. However, after participating in the field school for nearly four weeks, I have quickly learned that archaeology is more than just digging and sifting, in fact, there is just as much important paperwork and calculations to be completed.

During the first couple weeks we, the field school students, had the opportunity to participate in all the daily procedures and activities typically practiced at the Ravenscroft site. Taking elevations was one of those routine procedures that we all quickly became familiar with. Before excavating anything on the site, we had to record the opening height above sea level using a laser transit. Then we were ready to dig a layer of soil, but features (stains in the soil left by human activities on the site) were handled differently. We didn’t just begin tearing out the features with our trowels; instead we had to map the surface of each feature on graph paper before beginning excavations. Mapping is an important archaeological procedure because it provides an accurate illustration of a feature’s shape for future analysis. In addition, mapping gives archaeologists a better visual understanding of what the occupational surface looked like around the time the foundation was built. At first, mapping features was a confusing concept for me, but once I had the chance to do it a few times I eventually got the hang of it. Once my mapping skills became more refined I had the privilege to map the profile of an exquisite series of midden (trash) layers and a posthole. After the layers were carefully measured and mapped I could then clearly see the different layers present on the profile. Having the chance to map this context was not only a rewarding experience for me because it put my artistic ability to good use, but it also gave me a better understanding of the technical side of archaeology that I had not previously known.

We’re coming up on the last days of our fourth week on the Ravenscroft site. It’s hard to believe we’re a little more than a week away from the end! The progress we’ve made is incredible. This week, we’ve worked on scraping away one last layer in the cellar to reveal what we think is the original floor. There are a few depressions in the clay floor that very well could be 18th-century footprints—very exciting. We’ve also continued excavating features such as Jimmy Knight’s trenches and posthole/postmold combinations in the area outside of the cellar. (A posthole is a stain left in the ground by a hole dug to set in a post for a fence or building. A postmold is the stain left when the post itself is removed and the ground filled in.) While postholes may not seem as interesting as other features, they are an important part of the site. People don’t usually do anything without a reason, so the postholes obviously represent something that was necessary to the owners of the property. Did these fences keep out threats, or mark boundaries? Once postholes are found and can be connected, the purpose of the fence may become clear.

Another interesting fact about postholes—and something that is a usual occurrence at the Ravenscroft site—is that people will not generally take down a fence only to construct an entirely new one on the same line. Rather, if a post is decaying or has fallen over, it will be taken out and, depending on its condition, either stuck back in, or a new hole will be dug close by for a different post. This results in postholes overlapping one another as fences are maintained or repaired, and can cause confusion for those of us who are trying to figure out which is the youngest posthole or postmold (youngest being the one we excavate first). I encountered an especially frustrating cluster of postholes earlier this week. What appeared to be only two features close together soon multiplied to four—perhaps even more—as we dug further down into the soil. Needless to say, I am no longer working in that area and have moved on to less complicated tasks!

The weather has continued to influence our progress on the site. Earlier in the week, we had a couple of days that really felt like summer. During those days, I had trouble imagining how the colonists survived such extreme heat in their conservative clothing and no air conditioning. It was hardly bearable in T-shirts! Thankfully it cooled down as the week progressed, but we faced another facet of Virginia weather—thunderstorms. Thankfully, the two storms that rolled through the area came during the evening, but our site was still affected by them. Despite the tarps that we had put over the area at night, the rain managed to find its way into the site and collected in some of the postholes and trenches, and turned a good amount of the ground into mud. This made digging, which can be awkward enough on its own at times, difficult and dirty work. As much as we try to avoid it, I think we’ve left our own marks on the site in the form of footprints.

One of Ravenscroft’s distinguishing characteristics is its multi-layered occupational sequence. It may appear to visitors that we are indiscriminately digging a big hole; we are in fact, adhering to a stratigraphic modeling technique known as the Harris Matrix method. We excavate the youngest layers first, and work our way backward in time, tracing our roots all the way to the earliest evidence of colonial occupation. However, as we pull the discarded and long-forgotten fragments of lives once lived out of the dirt, we deposit our own material culture (artifacts, such as the nails and flagging tape we use to grid the site) as a testament to our transient settlement at Ravenscroft.

The reality of our time here as students is designed to augment our educational experience. Our individual goals are as significant as the collective project. But what will our endeavors mean in the future? We explain to interested tourists our project’s findings, objectives, and history, but often their questions have a more personal quality. They want to know who we are and what we are doing, where we go to college and what we are studying. They want to know where we are from originally and what inspires us to pursue archaeology. Essentially, they are curious about us as we are curious about our historical subjects.

One day, it will be our material culture that is subject to archaeological inquiry. If William and Mary scholars choose to re-excavate Ravenscroft in three-hundred years, how will they interpret the traces of our presence we leave behind? They may read our blogs and study written articles; correspondingly, they may find the seeds from a watermelon one of the students brought in for us to share one afternoon, or a clay figurine fashioned out of backfill. But how will they interpret our methods or understand our perspective? We deconstruct the site, layer by layer to uncover the past, while simultaneously laying down evidence of our present for the future.

All of us are in the process of creating the archaeological sites of the future each day. Just as the residents of colonial Williamsburg did in the past, we all produce trash on a daily basis, and we also leave features behind in the ground whenever we build a fence, dig a hole to plant tree, or till a new garden bed. Many of our activities leave their traces in the ground beneath us, a material record which (unlike our tax records, marriage certificates, and other documents) we do not consciously or intentionally produce. Visitors often ask us if we have found anything, and are amazed to hear that we bring back hundreds of artifacts to our lab each day. In fact, given that people can’t help but leave trash and alter the landscape around them, it would be almost impossible not to find something in any densely settled town. As Jen points out, we ourselves have altered the Ravenscroft site in the process of studying it. The excavation area, once backfilled, will leave a gigantic feature here—the result of our archaeological inquiry. Just this morning I noticed a large scatter of sand leaking from the sandbags we use to secure our tarps over the site each night—another feature created here by archaeologists, rather than removed by them!

Now that we have entered our final week of field school, it almost seems like a race to finish. We are very diligently mapping and photographing all the features we don’t have time to excavate. Some students have been working on specific groups of features for nearly a week, and are carefully continuing to excavate intersecting postholes and sort out complicated stratigraphy. We have finally finished excavating the cellar floor — and it has taken nearly a day just to trowel the surface clean for a closing photo.

In the last few days, we are doing our best to help each other out. Someone always needs a hand taking a closing elevation (the height above sea level of the deepest part of a posthole or other feature), drawing a map or profile, or sifting some dirt before we leave for the day. I must say, I expected archaeology to be all about the dirt. I find it fascinating to learn about different types of ceramic artifacts or to recognize changes in soil color and texture. But as time has gone on, I have learned that working at an archaeological site is not just about the dirt — it’s about the people.

While we study material objects, it is important to remember that ultimately, it is not the artifacts that matter, but what they can tell us about the people who used them. One of our major goals is to uncover the stories of the people who didn’t leave documentary evidence (historical records) written from their own points of view, like perhaps the enslaved African-Americans who may have worked and lived in Structure A if it did function as a bake house.

Another important part of archaeology at the Ravenscroft site is to share what we find with the public. Each of us has had experience telling visitors about the excavation and site history. It’s a really great experience to help people get excited about what we’re doing. On one of my shifts at our public interpretation table, I encountered a biology teacher who was most excited about the effort and passion we as students put into digging the site, but most visitors remark that work looks very tedious. Well, it can be. There is always troweling, screening and cleaning to do, elevations and photos to take, and maps to draw. It's not only the finds that make it fun—the first time you could identify a piece of white salt-glazed stoneware, or when you find a feature—it’s the jokes and conversations. One time it took six people to hold up shade tarps to provide even lighting for a photo, and by the end we were all laughing. Working at the site with all kinds of different people, you get a chance to get to know each other while excavating. Most of us walk down to the Cheese Shop on Duke of Gloucester street for lunch on Wednesdays. Aside from learning all about field methods, what I will remember best from the field session are the people—from Jenny, the escaped slave who may have lived here, to “Jimmy” Knight who excavated here in 1954, to the little girl who so meticulously sorted through seeds during the children’s activities yesterday, to all of us who have spent the past month digging together.

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