By Caitlin Bumford
As an anthropology major at the University of Michigan, it’s great to be learning and working in the field. It is giving me a much better idea of the concepts that I’ve been hearing so much about in the classroom. I am also enjoying the historical and industrial approach to archaeology that I don’t get focusing on prehistory during the school year. This experience is making my future seem like much more of a reality. Now I’m actually starting to feel like an archaeologist, amassing the necessary skills and experience through active field research for the first time. I am getting so absorbed in these projects that it will be hard for me to leave it three weeks from now.
This week was a short week, as we’re just coming off of a long one last week. Last weekend was our Open House, where the public to a chance to see our site and to learn about the West Point Foundry. It was great to share our interests with others, especially those from the community with further historical insight into the foundry and the village. We made a lot of progress and met several hundred interested people, but a break was definitely in order. We worked Tuesday through Thursday this week, making great headway at the Blast Furnace, and wrapping up some critical work at the East Bank House.
This was a big week for those of us up at the East Bank House. On Thursday, we finally finished all of the shovel test pits (STPs) in the yard that we have been working on for two and a half weeks. We started in the south yard, moving along the side yards and finishing this week with the north yard. With all of the test pits done, we will have a good idea of the scatter of artifacts all over the entire yard. Mike will do statistical analysis of what types of artifacts we have found where, which will tell us a lot about how the occupants of this house used this land. In order to complete these STPs this week, we had three groups working all three days.
Working along the edge of the bank, Dan and Janelle had some tough STPs to dig, encountering large roots and cobbles. On Wednesday, Jim and Evan came across what may be another midden (trash dump) far north in the yard near the road. On some raised ground among large scattered rocks, they found an area with high artifact concentration. When Mike and I dug just 5 meters away, on the same mound, we found very few artifacts, but a very fine sand, unlike any we’ve encountered so far. We have speculated that this earth (and trash) may have been piled up to keep the road, which is at the base of a steep hill, from being washed out in heavy rains.
Although we lacked artifacts where we had expected them, on the path to the privies, we will be sure to learn a lot next week when we start excavation units. We hope to find out what kind of people were the last to occupy the East Bank House when we dig in the privies. We also plan to open excavation units where we discovered interesting brick and stone features while digging our STPs.
A lot of progress was made this week at the Blast Furnace as well. A great example of industrial archaeology, Jeremy and Cameron have been hard at work in their excavation unit near the casting arch, moving lots of rubble; they can get an idea of the original construction of the furnace as they move the stones away.
Graham and Patrick, in the other excavation unit, came across the interface between the original landscape and the foundry’s blast furnace. Also in pursuit of the furnace’s original foundation, Arron focused on boring through the center of his excavation unit, using a corer. He had to dig 250 cm below the current ground surface before encountering a stony masonry bottom. It turns out that this bottom is at the same level as the retaining wall on the western edge of the brick, upon which the layers of slag that Patrick sampled last week are piled. This confirms that Arron has reached the original foundry surface, though far below where the group is currently excavating. Soon, those working at the Blast Furnace will be able to start wrapping up the parts of the project that they’ve been working on for 2 weeks now.
