The afternoon (1-4pm) group’s first day in the field was exciting and fruitful. The opportunity to finally practice what we’ve learned in the classroom over the years to benefit and enrich Old New Castle’s ‘story’ is an honor. The morning group did an excellent job of preparing and setting-up for the work our archaeologists did. They set up the equipment, completed site photography, and began site mapping.
We met with De Cunzo and had a short briefing on the day’s plan, goals, and the progress, and frustrations, of our historical research. The first group wrapped-up with almost all the site mapping done except for the East North Lot. Myself and three other early-bird arrivals completed the mapping of site with that final area. Andrea supervised while the rest of us took turns mapping and measuring. One of us was mapping in site features while the other two used measuring tapes to take precise measurements of the features. The many trees in this area made precise measuring difficult; it was hard to get a straight level measuring line with branches in the way of the tape, but we did our best.
While we were finishing up the site mapping another group was again working with the transit to make sure the site grid was accurate and so we could begin working with the shovel test-pits. Apparently this was a trying task and getting the transit to be level was difficult. The third group was split up into pairs that began laying out the shovel test-pits or beginning to excavate previously existing ones from the morning group. All the shovel test pits and excavations we began were on the water lot. When our group finished mapping we joined those beginning to excavate the shovel test pits and screening the dirt. The top-soil sod layer proved to be the most difficult, it was hard to screen and we had to be very careful not to miss any artifacts that might be tangled in the roots. During the screening the team already had one local approach with his dog to check out our progress and give some encouragement to the group and the project. That was really nice to know the community’s supportive of the project and is already interested in our work and New Castle’s story. Two of the excavating pairs found artifacts in the second level of soil. Myself and Chelsea found a few tiny pieces of brick and a tiny piece of glass, and I believe brick was also discovered in the other pair’s excavated soil. The artifacts were bagged and properly labeled and taken back to the lab to be cleaned and processed the following Friday.
The end of the first field day felt great. Collectively our team accomplished a lot and now we’re really ready to ‘dig-in’ for this coming field day. I, personally, remember the smell of dirt as I was heading home and really feeling excited about the project. It’ll be a wonderful journey to see what tales Old New Castle has buried beneath its surface.