Saturday, May 12, 2007
What are you finding? Out at the Mission site we have some interesting historic period finds.
In one area we located what we thought was a brick fireplace.
Excavating the brick lined feature.
As the crew cleared the dirt and rubble from inside the bricks, they found artifacts from the 1860s and 1870s. It kept going down and down and it rapidly became apparent that it wasn't a fireplace. Instead, it was a brick lined well.
Well excavated.
The bottom was two meters (6.5 ft) below the modern ground surface, the water table was very high in this area before ground water pumping made it drop (now down to about 100 ft).
The area directly south of where we are working was used as a landfill in the 1950s. right along the edge of the landfill we found a large pit with rocks sticking out of its side. On the top I could see bits of cattle bone and Native American pottery, so I suspected it dated to the Mission period (1770-1820). The archaeologists digging it discovered a layer of 230 rocks after removing about two feet of dirt. We found three arrowheads made during the Mission occupation, as well as a horse toe bone and lots of tiny pieces of smashed pottery. When the rocks were pulled up we found a surprise.
Cattle skulls.
Beneath the rocks were at least ten cattle skulls. Unfortunately, the pictures are difficult to interpret, the light was horrible when we photographed the pit.
A close up of some of the skulls.
Nothing like this has ever been found before. We think that some sort of feast was held at the mission, they butchered ten head of cattle, and then threw their heads (which contained little meat) into the pit, and piled rocks on top to keep the dogs and coyotes from digging them up.
Majolica.
As I was removing one of the skulls (which totally fall apart into a zillion pieces), I spotted something white. When I turned it over I found that it was a relatively large piece of majolica pottery from Mexico, a rare find at the Mission. When I turned it over I was excited to see that it was a nice example of Aranama Polychrome.
It is pretty cool to be finding interesting, unexpected discoveries. One aspect of being an archaeologist is that you never know what you will find when you go to work.
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In one area we located what we thought was a brick fireplace.
Excavating the brick lined feature.
As the crew cleared the dirt and rubble from inside the bricks, they found artifacts from the 1860s and 1870s. It kept going down and down and it rapidly became apparent that it wasn't a fireplace. Instead, it was a brick lined well.
Well excavated.
The bottom was two meters (6.5 ft) below the modern ground surface, the water table was very high in this area before ground water pumping made it drop (now down to about 100 ft).
The area directly south of where we are working was used as a landfill in the 1950s. right along the edge of the landfill we found a large pit with rocks sticking out of its side. On the top I could see bits of cattle bone and Native American pottery, so I suspected it dated to the Mission period (1770-1820). The archaeologists digging it discovered a layer of 230 rocks after removing about two feet of dirt. We found three arrowheads made during the Mission occupation, as well as a horse toe bone and lots of tiny pieces of smashed pottery. When the rocks were pulled up we found a surprise.
Cattle skulls.
Beneath the rocks were at least ten cattle skulls. Unfortunately, the pictures are difficult to interpret, the light was horrible when we photographed the pit.
A close up of some of the skulls.
Nothing like this has ever been found before. We think that some sort of feast was held at the mission, they butchered ten head of cattle, and then threw their heads (which contained little meat) into the pit, and piled rocks on top to keep the dogs and coyotes from digging them up.
Majolica.
As I was removing one of the skulls (which totally fall apart into a zillion pieces), I spotted something white. When I turned it over I found that it was a relatively large piece of majolica pottery from Mexico, a rare find at the Mission. When I turned it over I was excited to see that it was a nice example of Aranama Polychrome.
It is pretty cool to be finding interesting, unexpected discoveries. One aspect of being an archaeologist is that you never know what you will find when you go to work.
