Field Day 13

Today was a fun day - for those working on STP 3. STP 4 continued to be unexciting, as did, disappointingly, STP 5. By unexciting, I mean that there were very few artifacts and no features found. We had been hoping to find some evidence of the eighteenth-century church in STP 5. The funny thing is, the lack of evidence may be evidence in itself. If the church didn't have a stone foundation, we might not expect to find anything but a lot of disturbed soil, especially if we're in the middle rather than the periphery of the building. It's also a possibility that the removal of the church left a depression that was filled in later with material from elsewhere in the site, also producing a lot of disturbed soil and explaining the lack of artifacts.


Here's what we did find in STP 5 - lots and lots of rocks. Again, it is not very compelling, but it does tell us something, even if that something is that nothing was there. Depending on how we believe these relatively unproductive units contribute to our research goals, we will have to make some decisions about how to proceed in the few weeks we have left to dig this season. Should we continue to open new units in areas where we think the church might be? Or should we restrict new units to the areas that have proven to be productive?


STP 4, while yielding very few artifacts, revealed this interesting layer of rocks, averaging about 3 inches in diameter. Is this a lower part of the gravel walkway (it's in the right place to be), or is was it the foundation for some sort of structure?

Here's John, Dene, and I discussing the location of the church while we work on STP 5. He told us that during his coring tests he found that he could go fairly deep into the ground at this exact spot, while in a spot about a foot to the south he could only insert the corer a few inches. This could suggest that we were digging in the middle of the church, perhaps a foot away from the foundation wall.

Meanwhile, work continued on STP 3, which now looks like this:

STP 3C produced some more nails, some large pieces of glass, a sherd of pottery, and this ...


What is it? Well, for now I'm calling it Z Rock, because it has a Z-shaped edge. There were pieces of mortar stuck to it, suggesting that it was used as a part of the foundation wall. But why was it shaped like that? What was its original purpose? We don't know, but it delighted us all.

STP 3 also produced this button, the second button we have found on the site. I believe that the first was also found in STP 3C (it's all recorded, but I'm too lazy to go look it up). It's hard to see, but the button has four holes in it. This is the reverse.


Metal detectors can be useful not only in finding things, but in analyzing what we've found. It's not always easy to tell whether something is made of metal. Angelika used her smaller metal detector (I'm sure it has a name, but I'm not an expert) to test our units as we were digging them. In a dig I visited at Dorchester-on-Thames last year, a metal detectorist regularly went over the piles of dirt that had already been screened, looking for metal items that had been missed. He found a large number of tiny Saxon sceattas (pronounced "shatters." I know).


And she located this GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) star close to the surface of the ground near the south wall of the cemetery. This star would have been used to decorate the grave of a Civil War veteran, such as the one shown in this photo. There are fourteen Civil War soldiers/veterans buried in the cemetery, some of whom have stars, and some who don't. We may be able to reunite this star with its owner in the future.

In other news, being an archaeology dog is hard work. You have to sniff everything, roll in the leaves, and play with big roots that get cut out of the units - you know, for science.


We're all looking forward to what the next few weeks will bring. If we can't find some suggestive evidence of where St. George's was located, I would be happy to build upon what we have found by opening up more units in the area of STP 3. It may be that a winter's worth of research on eighteenth-century churches and cemeteries may give us insights into our site that will allow us to hone our research plan for the spring. There is always the possibility that new documentary evidence will come to light that will provide us with the breakthrough we are looking for. A breakthrough might also come with the analysis of the finds we have already made. As always, we will have to wait and see.