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 26th 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 7th. 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.