Progress on the trail

As Jim previously mentioned, we are in the process of creating at least three signs to be part of an interpretive trail winding through Port Tobacco and neighboring historical sites. A lot of progress has been made on the design of the signs since Jim last posted an image. We now have three completed signs that are ready to be made and placed in front of the courthouse. For an updated image of one of the introductory sign click on the image below (sorry for the small size, but hopefully this helps to give you an idea of the layout and topics we discuss).

As an additional part of this project Pete, Anne, and I have been working to pull together information on each of the important people, places, or objects mentioned or pictured on each sign. This information will be incorporated into a website that will accompany the interpretive trail. This website will not only make the information on the signs accessible for those unable to see them in person, but will also provide additional information on each subject mentioned on the signs. By clicking on a link embedded in a general write-up of the main text that appears on the sign, a person will be able to read more specific information about a topic. For instance, there will be additional pages for people like George Atzerodt and John Wilkes Booth, as well as places like the Smoot and St. Charles Hotels, that will be reached through the main text from the sign discussing the connection of Port Tobacco to the Lincoln assassination. Also, if there are any particularly helpful books or websites related to one of the topics they will be listed at the bottom of each page. As such, I have spent the day working on writing up some of these topics and gathering images to accompany the text. The real magic will happen when Jim starts to pull all of these documents together and incorporating them into a website...which will also make everything I just explained much easier to understand! We will keep you posted on our progress!

Kelley

High Adventure

Yes, I know...our blogs have been irregular lately. The GAC crew has been investigating a plantation site in a nearby county, testing new techniques...not just for investigating sites, but for getting our equipment to them. We have had to use back packs to haul in digging and surveying equipment over hill and dale, through a heavily forested tract.

These techniques should prove useful for our work in the Port Tobacco area. This coming year the PTAP and the Charles County Archaeological Society hope to expand research beyond the town. We'll have to pack equipment into some of the sites. Volunteer technicians and mules welcome.

Jim

Guess these bones!

Indeed Valerie and our other blogger were right about last week's mystery artifacts! We have identified these as gunflints, though the one pictured on the left is actually made from quartz, not quartzite.

The flint on the right is English flint (French gunflints tend to be a lighter more honey-brown color), while some earlier gunflints, known as gunspalls, were generally made from chert or obsidian.

Both edges of these gunflints have been worn from repeated striking. For a bit more information about gunflints, take a look at some of our previous blogs.


For this week's challenge I invite you to take a look at the bones pictured below and identify the species to which they belong. If you are up for it, feel free to identify the specific bones as well! I figured a hint on this one would be too easy, but do not expect it to be some sort of exotic creature--this is a local fellow.


Good luck!
Kelley

Grains of Sand

For archaeologists, soils brim with information. During our initial training, we learn how to glean some of that data and make sense of it. But lots of archaeologists lots of the time throw away useful information with each shovel full of soil that falls through the screen.

Grains of sand, for example, can be classified and the sediment of which they are a part can be interrogated. Where did the sediment come from? How was it modified? How did that sediment play a role in the human use--or avoidance--of a particular landform.

A very useful and remarkably inexpensive tool rarely seen on archaeological sites is the sand grain size and shape chart. This handy little tool folds up to the size of a wallet--and, unfortunately, as thin as many wallets-- and conveniently fits into the jacket pocket of a Munsell soil color book.

The chart illustrates sand grains of different sizes, allowing the field worker to describe the material as fine, medium, or coarse. Examine sediments under magnification of, say, X10 (ten diameters, or ten times the actual size), and compare the grain shapes to the Roundness chart. Large, angular grains probably haven't been transported very far, while small, spheroid grains may have been carried great distances. Large (coarse) grains probably were deposited in a high energy, high velocity environment (wind or water) while finer sediments settle out in lower energy environments.

As a case in point, there are many relict sand dunes in northern Anne Arundel County and on Maryland's Eastern Shore that formed several thousand years ago during a stretch of dry weather. The sand grains that dominate these deposits tend to be coarse and well rounded, a product of wind erosion in an increasingly arid environment. When those winds encountered any obstruction--an existing dune, a clump of trees--the obstruction sufficiently sapped energy from the wind to allow the heavier particles to precipitate, forming an elongate sandy rise that continued to accumulate additional material. These typically appear on aerial photographs and topographic maps as crescent-shaped rises aligned northeast to southwest. They were favored occupation sites for many Archaic period peoples, probably because they typically were associated with wetlands with rich resources.

Grain size and shape in the various deposits encountered at Port Tobacco also can reveal information about how they formed and, by extension, how the various landforms in and around Port Tobacco were created and modified over the millennia.

Jim

Color me 10YR5/8

At any archaeological site it is absolutely crucial to analyze the soils as well as the artifacts. Investigating the soils can reveal how different strata formed and how processes such as erosion shaped the landscape. This is especially important at Port Tobacco, where the movement of soils and the silting up of the river had a major impact on the town. In the field we record the depths of different soils and note their color values. Now, without some sort of color standard we would end up taking a look at excavation notes and finding all sorts of color descriptions...with names like "brownish red" or "mouse brown." While these sorts of descriptions may be somewhat accurate, they are quite subjective. How do I know that what I consider to be light brown is the same thing you consider to be light brown? What if I have two different shades of light brown? Since everyone sees colors differently, it would be near impossible to create a clear set of soil descriptions for an archaeological site...but no need to fret! This is where the handy-dandy Munsell book becomes our reference (a tool of sorts) of choice.

This brilliant blue book contains 322 color chips on 9 different charts, identified based on hue (a color's relation to red, yellow, green, blue, and purple), value (lightness or darkness of a color), and chroma (the purity of a color). Created in the early 20th century by an artist and professor named Albert Munsell, it was adopted by the United States Department of Agriculture in the 1930s as the golden standard for conducting soil research.

When reading a page in a Munsell book, the vertical numbers denote the value of a color, while the horizontal numbers specify the chroma. The hue is designated by what page you are on. For example, the Munsell notation of a particular soil is 10YR5/8. The color name of this notation is yellowish brown. The YR is the abbreviation for yellow-red, and the 10 refers to where on this particular letter range (yellow-red) the color is. The 5 represents the value, and the 8 is the chroma.

In the field a soil should be matched to the most similar color chip, and its texture and any inclusions should be noted. The best way to compare colors is to either hold a bit of the soil behind each cut-out hole by a color chip, or simply by holding it next to the chip.

While there will still be a little bit of variation in how people see the colors of soils, the Munsell book established a universal system for describing colors that gets us much closer to an accurate soil description of a stratum. The book is also handy for estimating proportion of mottled soils and looking at a soil's granular structure. Munsell books are not only used for soils, but are a standard for describing hair and skin colors in forensic pathology, as well as describing colors of beer in breweries! Someone has to make sure that amber ale is actually amber!

So, when on a site learn to love the Munsell book. Identifying soil colors quickly and accurately requires practice, practice, and more practice!

Kelley

Heidelberg Invades Florida

The indomitable April Beisaw led a large group of Heidelberg University students to the Society for Historical Archaeology conference at Amelia Island, Florida, last week. They drove for nearly 18 hours through snow and ice to get there.

Not nearly enough instructors bring their students to professional conferences. The setting provides students the opportunity to meet prominent people and young up-and-comers like themselves in a collegial environment. Kudos to Dr. April and Heidelberg University.

Port Tobacco participants may recognize a couple of the ladies: that's Magen in the red coat at the far left; Theresa in the purple sweater third from right, front; and Amanda standing next to the inestimable April. The tall fellow in the back is Dr. David Bush who for many years has involved students in all facets of archaeological research at the Johnson's Island prisoner of war camp, a Union facility on a small island in Lake Erie.

I expect we will see many of these same faces at future academic conferences.

Jim

Get the Point?

Last week's Mystery Artifact was identified by newcomer ComradeM. She correctly guessed that B was a machine-cut nail and C was a wire nail. A was in fact a hand-wrought nail. The telltale sign is the shovel-shaped tip.

Hand-wrought nails are the oldest type. They have been around for thousands of years. Beside a shovel-tip, they can be identified by the fact that they taper in two dimensions.

Cut-nails are made from sheets of metal by a machine. They came into wide spread use in the 1830s. Cut nails have two parallel sides and two tapering sides. They taper in only one dimension because they are cut from a steel plate of relatively uniform thickness. Some cut nails are hand-headed.

Wire nails appeared in the 1880s and supplanted machine-cut nails by 1910, although cut nails are still used for masonry work. Wire nail manufacture is entirely mechanized. This is the most common type of nail in use today.


This weeks artifacts:

Here's a hint: these are not prehistoric or Native American artifacts.


Anne