Another Building?

The team, seven strong today, took on two tasks. As you can see from the photograph to the right, one of those tasks involved excavation. We completed Unit 81 and found, in the lowest deposits, more early 19th-century artifacts. I'm not sure if Anne was annoyed or surprised when she pulled a large sherd of Middle Atlantic slipware out of the wet, muddy gravel layer at the bottom of the unit. But it is consistent with what we have been finding. Exactly why this material is mixed with gravels rather then laying on top of a gravel layer, which is what I expected, remains to be determined.
On a second front, we cleaned up the last bits of vegetation off of the pile of brick and stone rubble exposed Tuesday. As you can see in the photograph, some of the artifacts aren't quite as old as we might have hoped. Calvin identified a tail light assembly on one bumper as early 1950s. We have the remains of at least two automobiles, a bicycle, and other fascinating junk on top of the rubble pile that we think is part of an 18th-century building that survived into the 20th century. We'll have to remove this stuff before we can begin excavating. Perhaps we can call one of those companies that buys derelict cars for $100 bucks.

In the afternoon, the crew cleared additional brush to expose what might be a second building, also consisting of sandstone and brick rubble, but without the auto parts. It may be a kitchen outbuilding, but it is too soon in the process to make any judgments. We will explore it further tomorrow (Friday) and, weather permitting, on Sunday.

Jim