This was a rather eventful day.
We dropped by Subway on our way to the site to get some sandwiches for lunch. I just got a plain ham sandwich. That turned out not to be the last life choice because apparently the ham had a corn glaze on it, and I felt kinda sick later because of it.
Anyway, we got to the site around 10ish. We unloaded the equipment and set up a tent Robin brought for us to have our paperwork station under. Then we decided where test pits 5, 6, & 7 would be. Dru and I worked on STP 6.
We found a strange metal fragment (it looked like it might have been part of a hinge), lots of glass, some nails, and rocks. Around 12in, we hit the clay layer that turned out to be sterile in the other pits. We were going to keep going down for consistency, but ended up stopping before that.
Some members of the town historical society dropped by while we were working. They gave us some pictures and town records of the church so we could get an idea of what we were looking for. Then they mentioned that a woman in town had bought a fence from a thrift store, which was supposedly from the original church. Robin and Chris went to go check it out. Based on the size and shape of the poles, it appears that the fence was not from the church.
While they were gone, the rest of us (Sam, Emily, Dru, and I) continued digging our test pits. Then we heard a whooshing noise. And suddenly there was a tent pole a few inches from my head. Apparently the wind from the creek had gotten so strong, that it blew the tent off the ground, flipped it over the stone monument, and landed it so that the tent poles happened to be inches from us as we were digging. While I was still trying to recover from the mini-heart attack that caused, I noticed a black cable being held down by the wires. It was stretching from a telephone pole to the house neighboring the site. We assumed that it was a power cable, and were very concerned about touching it or the tent flipping again and possibly doing something to it. So we carefully backed up the tent and folded it up so it couldn't catch the wind again. Then we stood far away from the cable and tried to contact Robin. We weren't able to get her on the phone (it turns out her phone had gotten switched to mute somehow).
When Robin and Chris got back to the site, we explained what had happened with the tent. Dru had gotten a better look at the cable by this point and realized it was actually for delivering cable TV, and so would not actually be carrying enough charge to electrocute us. Robin was still very wary of it, and told us to move everything away from that part of the site. While we did so, the cable kept shifting toward us (it was apparently being held away from its desired angle by the screens). After we moved everything, we put the tent back up, and actually secured it with stakes this time so the wind couldn't steal it again. The president of the historical society got in touch with the homeowner for us to explain what had happened, and called the cable company to get the cord re-stapled to the side of the house. The homeowner did get back later that day. She was a very nice and understanding woman and was not angry at all about us accidentally removing a cable from the side of her house. Apparently she'd switched to satellite over a year ago, so the cable was not even active anymore.
We started back digging again after that, but not anywhere near the cable. The initial test pits were filled in. We didn't put STP 7 in the originally planned spot because it was right in the cables path, and instead put it in between the tent and the house we had accidentally de-cabled. Dru dug it while I screened. Chris and Emily worked on finding and mapping various spots where the bases of fenceposts were.
STP 7 had some odd finds in it. There were several pieces of ceramic of three different varieties, one was even decorated with pink paint. We also found a lot of weird iron fragments. They were very thin, and many of them were clustered together in large clumps. Robin guessed they might have been chicken-wire, but there was no cross-hatching and having a bunch of straight wires doesn't seem useful as any sort of fencing. So we're not really sure what those were. There were also a few small bone fragments.
At the end of the day, we filled in STP 7 and packed up to go. Overall, the day was quite productive despite the tent incident. We found the old fence line, got some interesting artifacts, and learned useful information from the town historical society.
We dropped by Subway on our way to the site to get some sandwiches for lunch. I just got a plain ham sandwich. That turned out not to be the last life choice because apparently the ham had a corn glaze on it, and I felt kinda sick later because of it.
Anyway, we got to the site around 10ish. We unloaded the equipment and set up a tent Robin brought for us to have our paperwork station under. Then we decided where test pits 5, 6, & 7 would be. Dru and I worked on STP 6.
Dru and Chris lifting out the soil for one of the STPs.
We found a strange metal fragment (it looked like it might have been part of a hinge), lots of glass, some nails, and rocks. Around 12in, we hit the clay layer that turned out to be sterile in the other pits. We were going to keep going down for consistency, but ended up stopping before that.
Some members of the town historical society dropped by while we were working. They gave us some pictures and town records of the church so we could get an idea of what we were looking for. Then they mentioned that a woman in town had bought a fence from a thrift store, which was supposedly from the original church. Robin and Chris went to go check it out. Based on the size and shape of the poles, it appears that the fence was not from the church.
While they were gone, the rest of us (Sam, Emily, Dru, and I) continued digging our test pits. Then we heard a whooshing noise. And suddenly there was a tent pole a few inches from my head. Apparently the wind from the creek had gotten so strong, that it blew the tent off the ground, flipped it over the stone monument, and landed it so that the tent poles happened to be inches from us as we were digging. While I was still trying to recover from the mini-heart attack that caused, I noticed a black cable being held down by the wires. It was stretching from a telephone pole to the house neighboring the site. We assumed that it was a power cable, and were very concerned about touching it or the tent flipping again and possibly doing something to it. So we carefully backed up the tent and folded it up so it couldn't catch the wind again. Then we stood far away from the cable and tried to contact Robin. We weren't able to get her on the phone (it turns out her phone had gotten switched to mute somehow).
When Robin and Chris got back to the site, we explained what had happened with the tent. Dru had gotten a better look at the cable by this point and realized it was actually for delivering cable TV, and so would not actually be carrying enough charge to electrocute us. Robin was still very wary of it, and told us to move everything away from that part of the site. While we did so, the cable kept shifting toward us (it was apparently being held away from its desired angle by the screens). After we moved everything, we put the tent back up, and actually secured it with stakes this time so the wind couldn't steal it again. The president of the historical society got in touch with the homeowner for us to explain what had happened, and called the cable company to get the cord re-stapled to the side of the house. The homeowner did get back later that day. She was a very nice and understanding woman and was not angry at all about us accidentally removing a cable from the side of her house. Apparently she'd switched to satellite over a year ago, so the cable was not even active anymore.
Emily and Sam mapping the fence-posts (note the cable in the background).
We started back digging again after that, but not anywhere near the cable. The initial test pits were filled in. We didn't put STP 7 in the originally planned spot because it was right in the cables path, and instead put it in between the tent and the house we had accidentally de-cabled. Dru dug it while I screened. Chris and Emily worked on finding and mapping various spots where the bases of fenceposts were.
Dru and I setting up STP 7.
STP 7 had some odd finds in it. There were several pieces of ceramic of three different varieties, one was even decorated with pink paint. We also found a lot of weird iron fragments. They were very thin, and many of them were clustered together in large clumps. Robin guessed they might have been chicken-wire, but there was no cross-hatching and having a bunch of straight wires doesn't seem useful as any sort of fencing. So we're not really sure what those were. There were also a few small bone fragments.
At the end of the day, we filled in STP 7 and packed up to go. Overall, the day was quite productive despite the tent incident. We found the old fence line, got some interesting artifacts, and learned useful information from the town historical society.
