2019 Public Archaeology Lab Days (July-Dec )

CCASM is working with Charles County at the ongoing Public Archaeology Lab Days in Port Tobacco.  The lab is for processing artifacts recovered from various archaeology initiatives in Charles County -  including processing artifacts recovered recently from savage archaeology in County as well as those recovered in the 1970's around the Courthouse.  Esther Read is the archaeologist in charge.

Here is what we did in the second half of 2019.

December 9 was our pizza / potluck Christmas lunch.  First we removed the archaeology displays but left the Christmas decorations in the South Wing of the Courthouse.  (The Holiday Trail was this past weekend.)  Then we spent the rest of the time eating and sharing "archaeology" stories.  Always fun.

(Thanks to Denise, Linda, Janna, and Carol for bringing food, Mary for bringing drinks and supplies, and Esther for supplying the pizzas.) 

December 2 we took a break from the Lab to set up the South Wing of the Port Tobacco Courthouse for the upcoming Charles County Trail.  Elsie and Carol brought greenery.  Denise, Linda, Mary, and Janna decorated while Carol set up the archaeology displays. 

A number of different things were going on during the November 25 Lab.  Before lunch Linda, Janna, and Carol catalogued while Mary, Elsie, and Denise went to Burch House to retrieve our Christmas decorations from the attic.  After lunch Esther held the second session of the Archaeology Academy. 

At the November 18 Lab Denise, Mary, Linda, and Carol continued cataloging the artifacts that were processed this summer.  And we came across this large oyster shell that we designated the artifact of the day.  It was found in Port Tobacco BF1 Square 3 in one of the lower levels.

November 4 Denise, Mary, Linda, and Carol started merging the recently processed artifacts into artifacts from the same provenience that had already been catalogued.  Interesting learning experience.
We choose this decorated ceramic sherd as the artifact of the day.  Since the two pieces fit together, they are counted as one.

 We have processed a large number of artifacts this summer, mainly from BF1 locations.  At the October 28 Lab Denise, Mary, Linda, Elsie, and Carol sorted through all the the bags of artifacts in preparation to updating the information in the catalog. And we chose this Nottingham stoneware rim with a chevron design and breadcrumbs as the artifact of the day.

October 21 lab was a little different.  In the morning Denise, Linda, and Elsie washed the remaining artifacts at Burch House while Carol and Mary took the boxes of bagged artifacts to the Courthouse.  We were getting ready to return to the Courthouse for the colder weather. We choose a bone button with a metal shank from BF1 Square 4 as the artifact of the day.

Then in the afternoon Esther presented the first session of her Archaeology Academy.

October 7 Denise, Mary, Linda, and Carol talked about this and that as well as the recent ASM meeting that CCASM had hosted. Then three of us measured the internal bore of pipe stems and bagged the white tobacco pipe stems and bowls that we had previously washed.  All of the bowl fragments except for one were from a plain pipe type (Type 18) that was made 1720-1820.  The exception -- a small fragment from a decorative pipe type (Type 21 or 25?) made 1780-1820 -- was chosen as the artifact of the day.  (The type numbers are from Noël Hume's Artifacts of Colonial America.)

September 29 Denise, Linda, Mary, Elsie, Janna, and Carol washed pipe stems - lots of white tobacco pipe stems.  And among all the stem and bowl fragments, we found the artifact for the day - part of a wig curler.  Remember those white powdered wigs that men wore in the 18th century?  To find out how the wig curler was used, check out www.mountvernon.org/blog/2018/10/boiling-baking-and-curling-18th-century-wigs

Denise, Linda, Janna, and Carol sorted and bagged until after lunch on September 23 and then started washing white tobacco pipe stems -- lots of white tobacco pipe stems.  The weather was nice working outside on the benches, but caterpillars kept falling out of the trees. We choose this rusty two-tined fork as the artifact of the day.  You can still see how the handle was attached.

September 16 Denise, Mary, Linda, Janna, and Carol processed numerous small bags of artifacts - sorting and bagging those that had been washed last week and washing additional ones.  All the artifacts were from the Port Tobacco collection.  We choose this ceramic rim from BF-1-3 as the artifact of the day.

On September 9 Denise, Linda, Mary, Elsie, and Carol completed bagging the artifacts recovered from an area behind a historic house in the Mount Vernon view shed.  Esther catalogued the artifacts and indicated 270+ had been recovered.

Since there was still lab time left, we also washed artifacts from the Port Tobacco collection.  And we chose this pressed glass goblet stem from BF1 as the artifact of the day.  At the top of the fragment a small amount of the pressed design can be seen.  This slightly pink color occurs when glass decolored with manganese dioxide is exposed to uv light.

August 26 Mary, Denise, Linda, Janna, and Carol washed the artifacts that we had recovered from an area behind a historic house in the Mount Vernon view shed.  (See Fieldwork near Potomac River)  It's always interesting when washing an artifact reveals something not expected - a possible fire cracked rock turns out to be part of a dark gray brick or another dirt-covered artifact turns out to be a prehistoric pottery fragment.  Historic ceramics can be somewhat easier to identify in the field, especially when they are white.  That was the case with the artifact of the day - part of a hand painted Chinese export porcelain lid. 

Mary, Linda, Carol, and Esther spent most of the August 19 lab getting ready for fieldwork on land near the Potomac River,  The work was requested by the Historic Preservation Commission.  Then we sorted and bagged artifacts to free up two additional drying screens for any artifacts recovered this weekend.  It always important to maintain the provenience in the screens.  But we didn't forget the artifact of the day.  We choose this fragment of a hand-painted Chinese export porcelain plate.

On August 5 Linda, Luke (Linda's grandson), Mary, Janna, and Esther picked up more artifacts from the Courthouse.  The cabinets on the rafters in the Courthouse attic had finally been moved (Thanks to Charles County), and we can now get into them!  Looks like lots of this stuff is labeled...BF1. A few labelled PT were also noted.  We will continue to dig through paper work looking for documentation for all the other numbers found on artifacts.  We chose this Rhenish stoneware tankard rim fragment with an incised checkered motif as the artifact of the day.
Thanks to Esther for the info, and Mary for the photo.

Only Mary and Denise were at lab on July 29 - several people enjoying family or vacations with another being under the weather. We spent most of the time at the courthouse researching and gathering items for the event on Saturday at Port Tobacco, but did not get an opportunity to choose artifact of the day.
Thanks to Mary for info.

July 22 Mary, Denise, Linda, Janna, and Carol continued bagging and sorting artifacts.  There were a number of metal artifacts - some rusty iron and some copper alloy.  Our artifact for the day is this half of a copper alloy object.  We thought is might be part of a lamp or a candlestick.  And Esther continued working on her report.

On July 15 Elsie, Mary, Janna, and Carol sorted and bagged artifacts, washed ceramics and glass, and dry brushed some more rusted artifacts.  It's time for another trip to the attic for more artifacts.  Once again we chose to work outside on a shaded picnic table.  We selected a rusty mule shoe that still had the remains of three nails as the artifact of the day. 

The July 8 Lab was delayed an hour because of traffic problems caused by the heavy rain.  The Lab was held in the Courthouse.  Only Esther, Linda, Janna, and Elsie were able to make it.   After examining the sketch from the 1970 Mathay Report about the Port Tobacco investigation, we started getting ready to catalog the artifacts from PT2.  Elsie and Jenna sorted and merged the many bags from PT2 102 into similar categories.  Linda and Esther assembled a new shelving unit so we could reorganize the artifact boxes from both Rich Hill and Port Tobacco.  We chose this knife blade recovered from PT2 102 as the artifact of the day.  (As you probably already guessed, the sharpie is only for reference.)
Thanks to Elsie for the photo and the information.

On July 1 Linda, Elsie, and Carol sorted and bagged artifacts outside on the picnic table.  For the "artifact of the day" we decided to share this photo of rusty iron artifacts that had been found together in a bucket in the attic.  There is no provenience, but there are a lot of recognizable (or almost recognizable) objects.  Since they were iron, they had not been washed.  Instead Linda had dry brushed them on a previous lab day.
Around lunch we had a visitor, Joe, who brought his research and artifacts to share.  Esther and Joe spent the afternoon talking about what he had brought. 

2019 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Jan-June)
2018 Public Archaeology Lab Days (July-Dec)
2018 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Jan-June)
2017 Public Archaeology Lab Days (July-Dec)
2017 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Jan-June)
2016 Public Archaeology Lab Days (July-Dec)
2016 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Jan-June)
2015 Public Archaeology Lab Days