It’s been such a mild winter here that we were back in the field on Tuesday to finish uncovering the dairy floor at the Durant-Kenrick House in Newton.  Here’s a picture of the complete floor. The dairy is in the … Continue reading →

Since our last post, we uncovered much more of the small, brick floored outbuilding at the Durant-Kenrick house and have tentatively identified it as a dairy where milk would be set out in broad shallow pans to cool and allow … Continue reading →

One unit opened up during week three at Newton revealed at brick surface beneath layers of soil and destruction rubble, including cobbles, broken bricks, and mortar. The 1 x 2 meter unit was placed in an area of the backyard … Continue reading →

Among the contenders for the “artifact of the week” award are these fragments of a large plate with a multi-colored, hand painted decoration on a tin glaze. These pieces came from a trash layer about a foot below the modern … Continue reading →

Week two at Newton was spent excavating ten shovel test pits along the south (right) and west (front) facades of the house. Shovel test pits (STPs) are 50 x 50 centimeter square holes oriented on a grid system that give … Continue reading →

John & Ryan take point to set out the grid.

Today we are surveying with the smaller, 500 MHz GPR antenna. While it does not “see” as deep as the larger one we were using last week it gives better resolution. Here Danielle, Chris & Sam pull the unit over … Continue reading →

Using the Malå 250 MHz ground penetrating radar (GPR) Chris, Kat, Sam, & Danielle are surveying the back yard.

The crew begins excavation by shovel scraping. This will give us the very smooth surface that we need to do geophysics to detect buried structures or other archaeological features.

Christa Beranek is getting ready for excavations