CCAS is now CCASM, Inc.

The Articles of Incorporation for CCAS to become a non-stock tax-exempt corporation in Maryland was accepted this month.  So now we are

Charles County Archaeological Society of Maryland, Inc. (CCASM)

CCASM is a non-profit organization, but we do not have federal 501(c)3 tax-exempt status yet.  We will file that application the first of next year. 

Finding Out What Happens After the Digging is Done

Silas Hurry

At the December 1 CCAS meeting, Silas Hurry talked about what archaeologists do with artifacts after the excavations are finished and how these artifacts can tell us about the past.  There were examples showing how looking at the artifacts can tell us about the date of the site, what was at the site, e.g. where a doorway was located,  or how the material culture changed over time, e.g. the increased use of individual drinking vessels.

Like many other archaeologists, Silas said that much has changed in archaeology in the past thirty years.  He showed several rusted iron blobs as well as the X-rays indicating the objects hidden within.  This was just one of the examples indicating the importance of conserving artifacts for the future when new technologies may become available to analyze the objects.

Silas Hurry is the Curator of Collections at Historic Saint Mary’s City.
For more about archaeology at Historic Saint Mary's City see www.stmaryscity.org/Archaeology.html

Discussions    
Holiday Refreshments

Below are the winners of the raffle for the Archeological Society of Maryland, Inc classic t-shirts.

       

Sami

  

Alex

   

Washing the Latest Burch House Artifacts

CCAS volunteered to wash the artifacts obtained from the Burch House excavations done with the GWU students in October.  Washing artifacts is a time to see what was found and also to learn how to identify different types of artifacts.

Joshua, Elsie, Phil, Janice, Phil

 On Sunday November 14 CCAS and ASM members with the help of one other volunteer washed over half of the Burch House artifacts outside in front of the Port Tobacco Courthouse.  Luckily it was a nice day.

Those helping wash were Phil Angel, Carol Cowherd, Joshua Eller, Rich Gorski, Jane Keller, Steve Lohr, Elsie Picyk, Belinda Urquiza, and Janice Hawkins, a journalism student.

Brogan, Elsie, Rich, Barbara

On Sunday November 21 Phil, Carol, Rich, Elsie, and Janice returned to help wash the remaining artifacts.  They were joined by Barbara Kane and her grandson Brogan.  It turned out to be another nice day.

This was CCAS' first time to organize a lab for washing artifacts.  Several CCAS members provided the equipment needed -- wash pans, strainers, tooth brushes, paper clips, and cardboard flats. 


Below are some of the artifacts washed the second Sunday.  You should be able to find old coins, bone buttons, a jaw, a military button, a door knob, and pieces of a plate that mend.  The leaves are recent.  What else do you see?

Click for Larger View

Learning About Native American Ceramics, Oysters, Ethics, and Law

One advantage of being in ASM's Certified Archeological Technician (CAT) Program is attending special workshops.  Saturday October 13 the CAT Workshops offered were Identifying Native American Ceramics, What Oysters Tell Us, Archeological Ethics, Archeology and the Law, and Archeology Report Writing. 

Several CCAS members traveled to Derwood, MD, to participate in the workshops.  Dr Jim Gibb, who is also a member of CCAS, conducted the Archeological Ethics Workshop.

At left Dr Bob Wall is explaining how to characterize Native American ceramics.

CCAS is a chapter of the Archeological Society of Maryland (ASM).

Walking the Fields Near Zekiah Swamp

On Saturday November 6 CCAS had an opportunity to walk a soybean field adjoining a creek running into the Zekiah Swamp.  The day turned out to be beautiful.

For us walking the fields involves flagging the location of artifacts followed by recording the location and description of the artifacts at each flagged location.  Artifacts are sometimes retrieved so they can be identified and possibly photographed.  After that the artifacts are returned to the landowner, and a report is written about what was found where.

Josh, Belinda

We found several clusters of artifacts with a lot of fire cracked rocks.  Although we haven't looked at everything yet, we did find at least one archaic point.

The general area was known for having archaic artifacts, and at lunch we saw some of the thousands of artifacts the farmer had collected during his lifetime.

CCAS and ASM members participating included Phil Angle, Carol Cowherd, Josh Eller, Robert Eppley, Jim Gibb, Rich Gorski, Calvin Martin, Robin Martin, Elsie Picyk, and Belinda Urquiza,  Six of those participating are in ASM's Certified Archeological Technician Program.  Joe Gleason, who made arrangements for us to have access to the field, also participated.

We would like to thank Joe Gleason for setting this up.

We also would like to thank Jim Gibb for all the guidance, for providing the Total Station used to determine the location of the flagged artifacts, and for offering to create the map for the report.

Hearing About Forts, Traitor, and Traders in Charles County

Julia King

At the November 3 CCAS meeting, Dr. Julia King topic was "Forts, Traitor, and Traders".  "The Forts and the Traders" refers to closing in on the Zekiah Fort, which was used by the Piscataway Indians in the late 1600s.   Dr. King reviewed the historical records that pointed to certain locations in the Zekiah Swamp where the Zekiah Fort might have been.  Then she showed the results of the shovel test pits done by her and her students from St. Mary's College and how these results might or might not indicate the location of the Fort.

"The Traitor" refers to discovering the site belonging to Maryland Governor Josias Fendall, who was a hero to some and a traitor to others. Again Dr. King indicated how the historical documents pointed to the property belonging to Josias Fendall and subsequently owned by William Digges.  The resulting archaeology done by her and her students this summer indicated they had probably found the site of Josias Fendall's house and later William Digges' house.

Question and Answer Time

Julia King is a Professor of Anthropology at Saint Mary's College of Maryland.  We always enjoys hearing her talk about Charles County archaeology.

Here are some additional pictures taken by JoAnn Queen, a photojournalism student who was at the meeting.

Volunteering at Burch House Addition - Part 3

Port Tobacco Archaeological Project (PTAP) opened two new units next to the Burch House. You should recognize the location from the pictures of the previous excavations in this area (Volunteering at Burch House Addition).
 
On Sunday October 24, eleven George Washington University students from the Classics and Archaeology Club worked at the Burch House along with the PTAP crew and other experienced volunteers.  There were five screens and plenty of soil to screen and plenty of artifacts to identify.  It was a great day.

CCAS members Phil Angle, Carol Cowherd, Jane Keller, Steve Lohr, and Elsie Picyk as well as ASM member Calvin Martin assisted the PTAP crew members Anne, Alyssa, and Scott. Scott was there with his new wife Laurie. And, of course, Jim Gibb was there overseeing everything.

On Tuesday October 26 PTAP and CCAS along with Rich Gorski completed the units.  Now all that remains is washing artifacts, cataloging artifacts, and writing the report.  PTAP will do the cataloging and the report in Annapolis.

CCAS plans to schedule a weekend day for washing the artifacts.

Volunteering at Burch House Addition - Part 2

During September and October Charles County Archaeology Society members helped the Port Tobacco Archaeological Project  (PTAP) with the additional excavations needed to provide an addition to the Burch House.   This house is one of three surviving 18th-century houses in the town.

Alyssa, Jim. Anne, Elsie, Jane

PTAP looked at two areas around Burch House.

On the left new PTAP crew member Alyssa Marizan along with Dr. Jim Gibb, Managing Director for the Port Tobacco Archaeological Project, PTAP crew member Anne Hayward, and CCAS members Elsie Picyk and Jane Keller excavated a unit in the woods.   The well will be in this area Not pictured is CCAS member Carol Cowherd.



The second area was to the east of Burch House.  This unit was full of layers of heavy gravel, lighter gravel, sandy soil -- normally not a very interesting unit.  But the unit shows the sedimentation that occurred in Port Tobacco and may even give a clue to the date.  Also over 2 feet down, Jim excavated a gully.  Sorry I didn't get a picture of it, but on the right is a picture showing some of the stratigraphy.   Below this level were additional brick fragments and pieces of eighteenth century ceramics.

See Volunteering at Burch House Addition for pictures of the excavations completed next to the house itself.

October 16 ASM Annual Fall Meeting

George, Carol, Elsie, Jim, Anne, [Belinda]

On October 16 the Archeological Society of Maryland (ASM) held its Annual Fall Meeting at the Oregon Nature Center in Cockeysville, MD.

At left are the CCAS members that represented the Charles County Chapter at the meeting.  Carol Cowherd gave the report on the Charles County Chapter at the Business Meeting.
Of note to CCAS members, Jim Gibb was elected Treasurer of ASM, and Belinda Urquiza was elected ASM Membership Secretary.

Anne Hayward presented a talk on The Burch House, Archeology at Port Tobacco. Other talks included Michelle Kerms on Recent Anne Arundel Chapter Projects, Don Housley (Mid-Potomac Chapter) on Archeology at the Josiah Henson Site, and Stephanie Sperling on Excavations at Pig Point.  (You may remember Stephanie talked to CCAS about Pig Point last spring. Well, this talk included an update of what has been found since then.)

The 2010 Frederick Stiner Memorial Lecture was The Archaeology of the Irish Immigrant Village in Texas, Baltimore County, Maryland by Dr Stephen Brighton, Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland at College Park.

Hearing About an Early Prince George's County Town

Mike Lucas

At the October 6 CCAS meeting, Dr. Michael Lucas described the historic archaeological activities taking place at Mount Calvert Historical and Archaeological Park in Prince George's County.  Mount Calvert includes part of Charles Town, the first county seat of Prince George's County.  Charles Town was established in 1684 and gradually disappeared after 1721 when it was no longer the county seat .  Mike showed details of some of the excavations and indicated what the excavations could tell us about the type of buildings that had been there and how those buildings were used.  

Anticipating Talk

Mount Calvert Excavation

Mike is an archeologist at Prince George's County, Natural and Historic Research Division of  Maryland National Capital Parks and Planning Commission.

Mount Calvert offers Public Archaeology programs from April through October.  To volunteer or for more information you can e-mail Mike at Michael.Lucas@pgparks.com.

October 2 Garage Sale to Benefit CCAS

The Garage Sale was a success.  Jane Keller organized the Garage Sale that was held Oct. 2, and the proceeds were donated to Charles County Archaeological Society (CCAS).

We would like to thank Jane for all her fund-raising efforts.  Also we want to thank all the CCAS members as well as all of Jane's neighbors who donated the money from their sale items to CCAS. 

Almost set-up

People browsing

At Nanjemoy Heritage Day

CCAS had an exhibit at the 10th Annual Nanjemoy Heritage Day on Saturday September 25.

Jane, Elsie, Carol at CCAS Exhibit Table

Phil also at the Exhibit Table

Elsie talking about the archeology
that has been done at Port Tobacco

Jane Keller, Elsie Picyk, Carol Cowherd, and Phil Angel represented CCAS at the event.  They had an enjoyable afternoon meeting others interested in archeology as well as promoting archeology in Charles County.  They were so busy they forgot to take many pictures.

If you look closely at the exhibit, you might be able to see the Port Tobacco Display, prehistoric ceramic sherds, projectile points, posters for telling time with historic artifacts, and notebooks with diagnostic information for identifying historic and prehistoric artifacts.  

We would like to thank those CCAS members that provided items for the exhibit as well as the extra tables on which to display the items.  And we would especially like to thank Dr. James Gibb for allowing us to use the Port Tobacco Display.

Learning about the Posey Site and its Artifacts

Sara Rivers Cofield

At the September 1 CCAS meeting, Sara Rivers Cofield talked about the Posey Site and its artifacts.  These artifacts show how interaction with European colonists changed the material culture of Maryland’s Indians.  The Posey Site is a late 17th Century Charles County site located at the Indian Head Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center.

Sara is the Curator of Federal Collections at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory. 

She also brought some of the Posey artifacts housed at the MAC Lab.  Below members and guests get a chance to look at shell beads, bone objects, terracotta pipe fragments, copper objects, and glass buttons among other things.

Joshua, Barbara, Elsie, Bob

image from www.jefpat.org

She was unable to bring the Posey artifacts in the image at the right since they are in a display on the first floor of the Charles County Government Building.  So the next time you visit the building be sure to look for the display.


For more information on the Posey Site, visit Posey Site Summary on the Jefferson Patterson Parks and Planning website www.jefpat.org.

Thank You for the Munsell Soil Color Chart Book

New Munsell Soil Color Charts

A person who wants to remain anonymous has donated money for CCAS to purchase a new Munsell Soil Color Charts book.

Thank you so much.




We have already used it for the excavations at the Burch House.  It will also be used as CCAS gets more opportunities to do field work.

For those of you familiar with the Munsell book, you will notice this is a new edition with much nicer pages, ones from which the paint chips will not be falling off.

Munsell Soil Color Chart- 10YR Page

So once again, Charles County Archaeological Society thanks you.

Volunteering at Burch House Addition Excavation

Starting April Charles County Archaeology Society members helped the Port Tobacco Archaeological Project  (PTAP) with excavations at the Burch House in Port Tobacco, MD.  On August 31 we reached the "bottom" of the units next to the Burch House.  The excavations were necessary for a planned addition to the Burch House.   This house is one of three surviving 18th-century houses in the town.

Here are the pictures of us working as well as pictures of progress over the past months.

Elsie and Kelley
Carol and Elsie
Anne, Jim, and Jane

Jim, Elsie, and Carol
Elsie
Peter

Pictured above are CCAS members Carol Cowherd, Elsie Picyk, and Jane Keller along with Dr. Jim Gibb, Managing Director for the Port Tobacco Archaeological Project.  The women sitting in the units are PTAP crew Anne Hayward and Kelley Walter.  And the person with the  big smile is Peter Quantock, another member of the PTAP crew and also a CCAS member.  The last picture indicates how we tried to cope with the heat during July.  Elsie Picyk brought her box fan, and everyone drank lots of water.

On May 20 the foundation to the 19th century addition to Burch House was uncovered.

May 22

Burch House
To find out more about the 19th century Burch House addition, go to http://porttobacco.blogspot.com/2010/06/some-burch-news.htm

On June 22 we identified a post hole with a post mold from an earlier structure.  The picture on the right was taken looking north from the dirt pile behind the two orange buckets seen in the June 22 picture.

June 22

The work to uncover earlier strata continued while Peter took time to talk with visitors.

 
July 8

Aug 4

In all the units we have found a layer of burned oyster shells about 2.5' to 3' below the surface.  In some places only black loamy soil with no artifacts was below the oyster shells.  But on August 3 an area containing charred wood fragments (up to  approximately 3" x 1") was uncovered.  See the darker area in the lower central part of the picture at the left.  It could be a fire pit or ...   The last stratum removed before the picture was taken contained very few artifacts but those found included 3 tobacco pipe stems, 3 quartz flakes, and one prehistoric pottery sherd! 

Aug 31

On August 31 we reached sterile soil in all the units.  The picture at the left shows the foundation of the Burch House.  On the left are the bricks for the original cellar. To the right of that in the exposed soil under the foundation are a post hole and post mold, probably from a structure that predates the building of Burch House.

We'll let you know when the report documenting this effort is available

To see some of the artifacts we found see Finding 19th Century Ceramics and Glass

or look on the PTAP blog http://porttobacco.blogspot.com/. 

Saying Good-by to Peter

Once again we are saying good-by to one of the PTAP crew-- Peter Quantock.

For three years Peter has been working with us volunteers as we try to learn more about Port Tobacco.  But Peter is also a CCAS member and has spoken at several of our CCAS meetings.  Remember hearing about a Roman coliseum in sunny Spain while we were bundled up one January.

He will be working on a masters degree in archaeology at the University of Denver.  And he promises to come back and see us next summer.

By the way, ask him what barbeque has to do with determining the route he will be taking to Denver.

Saying Good-by to Kelley

Too bad it takes someone leaving for us to have a party--maybe not a party but at least a lot of good food.  Today was Kelley's last day at Port Tobacco, and we wanted to let her know we would miss her.   Yet we somewhat envy her since she is going to graduate school in archaeology at William and Mary.  

Peter, Kelley, Anne

Above is Peter Quantock, Kelley Walter, and Anne Hayward--the PTAP crew that we have been excavating with this year.