History on Vacation - vacation week 1

I recently returned from two weeks of vacation. I spent the first week at James Madison's Montpelier outside of Orange, VA where I took place in an archaeological dig. We were digging in the South end of the "Tobacco Barn Quarters." It is believed that a group of field slaves lived in this section, so the point of the excavation in this area is to determine if there actually were living quarters in this area and maybe to get an idea of just how much the Madison field slaves interacted with the house slaves.

This is what it looks like to actually work on a pit. The hole in the middle is an STP (shovel test probe). This is where holes are dug every so many feet (I believe 10 feet is a typical distance) in a grid to test the soil and see if any artifacts can be found. This pit is almost completed (in many dig sites the pits may be much deeper, but since we're only looking for artifacts that are less than 300 years we don't have to go as deep). 

This is one of the pits that I was actually working on. This is only the second day to work on it. You have to dig very carefully, and it's more like scraping it down layer by layer with a trowel than digging. The cobbles that you can see are believed to be a part of a wall. That particular wall extends into the pit that you can see in the upper left corner of this same picture. This is a very tedious process because we can't just pull out the cobbles or anything else that we find. We must uncover it completely before removing it from the site. If something is removed too early, there could be a disruption of patterns that may be found. 

This is a bone handle fork that was found in the wall of the pit in the upper left corner of the previous picture. Typically, if you come across something hanging out in a wall like this, you don't take it out. Items that are jutting out of a wall are usually left in place unless you dig out the area immediately adjacent to it. However, it was decided that the fork should be completely excavated from the wall because it would fare better after preservation in the lab than it would if it had been left it in the wall after exposure. 

Another picture of the fork before removal. Dental picks were used to remove it from it's home.

This is the fork after it was completely excavated. The tines had rusted off before the excavation, that's why it doesn't really look like a fork. 

Sorry I don't have more pictures. I didn't take my camera out to the field except for the very last day. I had originally intended on staying a second week, so the plan was to take the camera out then. However, by Thursday I had decided that I would rather take my second week and go on another adventure. Stay tuned for week two.