Our last class in the field!  We focused on finishing Test Units 4 and 5, but the weather did not cooperate.  The rain came early and the temperature dropped.  Despite the miserable conditions, we excavated Test Unit 5 below the demolition layer finding a few nineteenth-century artifacts and several rodent burrows.   By the end of the day, we finally located the bottom of the foundation wall in the south half of the trench (Test Unit 4).  Only one mortared course remained. The foundation wall seems to have been disassembled and robbed of stone from the interior.  We also finished digging shovel test pits to the north and east of the structure finding a mix of eighteenth and nineteenth-century artifacts, but we did not find any features. Unfortunately, we were not able to wrap up all the excavation and documentation that day.  Therefore, we came back on November 26^th and finished the remainder of the mapping and photographing before backfilling the last units.

The south half of TU 4 looking north showing the mortared stone wall

Finishing mapping the trench in the cellar hole.

The well-camouflaged stone wall of the “corn house.” The foundation stones are covered in green moss.

Even though the fieldwork was finished, the students successfully presented the preliminary results of their hard work at Hampton National Historical Site on December 7^th.   Over the winter and early spring, we hope to analyze the recovered material culture and write a report detailing of our findings.  Stay tuned.

Thank you to all the field school students and Brittany Bednash who helped to write this blog.  Please contact Adam Fracchia (fracchia@udel.edu) if you want to find out more about the project or have any questions.

The hardworking 2019 field crew.

We reached the bright orange subsoil (a non-cultural soil layer) in the north half of the trench (Test Unit 4), but no wall.   The excavation of the south half of the trench unearthed a range of artifacts, including a slate pencil and nineteenth-century ceramics.  We finished the excavation of the Test Unit 3 and began the slow process of mapping and photographing the unit.  In Test Unit 5, we excavated several layers of soil with several interesting artifacts like a stoneware marble and a lice comb fragment before finding a demolition layer of stone and mortar.  To the southwest of the dwelling, we also found another wall feature which likely corresponds to the “corn house” depicted on the 1843 Barney map.

West wall profile of the north half of TU 4 (left side) and TU 2 (right side). The mortar and rock layer is visible just below the sign board as is the bright orange subsoil.

TU 3 showing the north and west foundation walls

A slate pencil found in the south half of the trench, TU 4

Demolition layer in TU 5

We resumed excavating the trench, finding several slumping layers of soil but no wall.  One of these soil layers contained a large amount of small mammal bone.  Unfortunately, we failed to find any artifacts within the small builder’s trench in TU 3 that could help us date the stone wall. We also documented evidence of extensive rodent activity that has mixed soil layers even at the base of the foundation wall. To explore the wall further, we opened TU 5 on the other side of the stone wall.   We hope this unit will explain the nature and sequence of the structures.

Stone foundation wall of the dwelling

Artifacts from TU 3

The weather finally changed from hot and humid to misty and mild. We had an appropriate haunting hike through the fog to the site just in time for Halloween.  Our shovel test pits have not yielded any trace of buildings or artifact concentrations. The excavation of Test Unit 2 and the trench continued, along with Test Unit 3. We continued the search for the foundation wall in Test Unit 4. In Test Unit 3, we possibly located the builder’s trench along the west wall, a pit in the southeast quadrant, and subsoil along the north and east walls.

Misty hike to the site

Excavating Test Unit 2 and the Trench

We continued to excavate Test Unit 3, with the intention of finding the floor of the dwelling and the builder’s trench. These features did not appear within the unit, however we did find a fragment of an iron fork, along with slag, glass, ceramic fragments, and nails.  The unit had a mix of eighteenth and nineteenth-century material culture.  We believe the mixing of these artifacts is due to the rodent activity in the unit.

In Test Unit 2, we were unable to locate the foundation wall.  Instead, we located a possible pit for a post . Within Test Unit 2 we found nails, thimbles, scissors, mortar, plaster, slag, ceramic fragments, bricks, and animal bones.

To cover more surface area and aid in the efforts of locating the foundation wall, we started to excavate a trench (Test Unit 4)  just south of Test Unit 2 and leading into the cellar hole. Within the trench, we found many animal bones, nails, glass and bricks.

Beginning the excavation of the Trench, Test Unit 4