by Nadia Waski

We need your help!

Excavations from this past summer’s fieldwork on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts, revealed a 19th century cache of intentionally buried personal items—which we are calling the Cole’s Hill Memorial Cache. (Click here for additional background about the deposit.) While most artifacts from this collection have been identified, we are still puzzled by these copper coils. They were discovered underneath cobbles in the southern half of the excavation unit, associated with a small glass bottle, spectacles, and a pansy pin.

We have considered a number of possible uses for these delicate coils, whose ends are designed to fasten together, including a possible necklace, a girdle, a portion of a woman’s hoop skirt, or even a man’s sleeve garter. Comments or opinions on this object would be greatly appreciated to help guide our efforts to identify this artifact!

In this post, Dennis Piechota, the archaeological conservator at the Fiske Center, recounts the discovery of the central objects in the Cole’s Hill cache. In the field, we recognized that we had something rectangular and fragile, with leather components, so we transferred it directly to Dennis’s care at the Fiske Center, rather than letting it wait at the field lab. You can read more background about the deposit here, and additional posts about other objects from the cache here.
–CMB

From Dustpan to Daguerreotype
By Dennis Piechota

When extremely fragile and unidentifiable artifacts are encountered in the field they are often block-lifted with the surrounding soil matrix and transported to the laboratory where excavation can continue along with conservation and identification through microscopic analysis.

In the field one uses whatever supports are at hand to lift out a fragile artifact, in this case some aluminum foil on a dustpan. When received in the lab we saw only the foil-lined unknown assemblage shown above containing something fibrous and rectangular hidden in a mass of soil. It was transferred onto an archival cardboard support that could be placed in the refrigerator when not in treatment.
Exploratory cleaning began with soft brushing which showed that the fibers came from a single braid of blonde human hair. And next to the braid was a common water-worn rock that lay atop a group of four gold-leafed leather-bound containers.

The braided hair, though originally unpigmented, was now stained brown by contact with the soil. It was consolidated with a cellulosic resin just enough to lift it free of the assemblage and place it on a study/storage support.

Under the braid we found the fragmentary remains of a red paper that appeared to be tied in place with black silk ribbon.

Further cleaning showed a two-by-two stack of four 19th-century photograph cases, the type of hinged display case used for ambrotypes and daguerreotypes. Composed of leather-covered wood frames, their interiors were originally lined with velvet with the photograph held in place by an etched metal mat called a ‘protector’. We had no idea at this point how much of the interiors, especially the sensitive photographic imaging, would be preserved.

One by one the cases were removed and their exteriors were stabilized enough to be opened to examine the four images inside.

Though these images clearly show the effects of their burial in a soil environment for over a century, with 100 seasons of wet springs, hot summers and freezing winters, it is remarkable that any imaging has survived at all.
Currently the photographs have been sent to the specialists in photographic conservation at the Northeast Document Conservation Center. Analysis and interpretation of these amazing finds will continue upon their return.

By Dennis Piechota

Most objects encountered in the field are easily identified. But the identity of some, like this artifact from Coles Hill in Plymouth MA, can unfold slowly for the archaeologist and conservator.
When still partly covered with the soil of the excavation pit in the summer of 2016 this object looked like what is sometimes called an ‘eco-fact’, a natural product, in this case apparently a fragment of a pine cone. Then when freed from the soil its metal base and mounting pin were noted identifying this as a jewelry form, a brooch. During initial cleaning it looked like a delicate wood carving of a compound flower head composed of seven six-petal florets all mounted on a copper alloy base.

In the laboratory microscopic inspection showed the decoration was made not from one carving of a single block of wood, but from a complex of 15 separate miniature carvings that were assembled to form a flower.
Looking into the centers of each floret, away from the weathered edges, we see the carvings are actually translucent and white indicating they are not wood, even though their tips appear brown and opaque; the florets are all carved of ivory!

And the metal base of the flower held one more surprise. While we knew it was a copper alloy, probably brass, we could see a yellow finish here and there through the corrosion indicating the remnants of gold leaf.

While basic processing is now finished the research goes on with questions like what type of flower was this meant to be and what symbolism might it have held for the wearer?

The press release put out by Colleen Locke from the Office of Communications has been picked up by a number of news organizations. The main story is in the Boston Globe by Brian MacQuarrie.  From the Globe, the DailyCaller,  AP and  Archaeology picked up the story. CNN, Fox News, Metro, Cape Cod Today, and the Daily Mail (UK) also expanded the story.   Travel & Leisure also did a write up on the piece.  On TV, WCVB (Chanel 5) aired a nice story and Sue O’Connell on the Take (necn) also has a sit down piece.  Dave Landon did a great job explaining the significance of identifying the exact location of the Plymouth settlement, which is recreated at the Plantation.

Google has a list of all the items.

 

A geophysical survey is frequently the first intensive, visible, field component of a project, and photographs of the survey in progress often are shared on social media to announce the start of the field season (Fig. 1). But what about the results of the geophysical surveys? These results, the discussion of how the geophysical survey guides the placement of excavation areas, and an evaluation of the geophysical data and the excavation results in tandem often come much later and are presented in technical reports, if at all. The aspect of the process that we would like to focus on here, using data from our ongoing project in Plymouth, Massachusetts, is one that is often only a part of unrecorded discussions among the project directors: how do we use the geophysical data when making decisions about placing excavation units?

Geophysics is often used when a structure or archaeological deposit is obscured by overlying material. A map (or some other visualization) of the variation in the geophysical readings is made. When placing excavation units, we look to places where there is a strong contrast between nearby readings, which are called anomalies. For various reasons (limited resources, preservation ethic) it is not practical or desirable to test all of the geophysical anomalies. Conversely, since not all important archaeological deposits will be detected as geophysical contrasts, excavations cannot ONLY target geophysical anomalies. On the site at Cole’s Hill, two of our five units were placed to test specific geophysical anomalies, one of which was a house cellar and foundation. The fact that the geophysical survey detected and defined these anomalies allowed us to test them very efficiently, then to confidently place additional units to avoid these features, which were not from our target time period. This strategy also balanced the archaeological testing so that it did not focus solely on the types of features that can be detected geophysically, allowing for the discovery of other significant features and deposits.

David Landon and I direct the excavations in Plymouth, and we are fortunate to be able to work with experts in archaeological geophysics, John Steinberg and Brian Damiata. Steinberg and Damiata set up the survey and excavation grid, conduct the surveys, and process the geophysical data. Their high quality surveys, with closely spaced (20, 25 or 33 cm) and accurately surveyed transects make the integration of geophysical survey and excavation data possible. Crucially, Steinberg and Damiata are often also present during and after the excavations to discuss the geophysical results, provide input on excavation targets, and later compare the excavation profiles and geophysical results. In the last 10 years, we have conducted geophysical survey and subsequent test excavations at a dozen sites or properties (some as large as a city block) in the northeast. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is the most common geophysical technique, though it is frequently paired with an electromagnetic conductivity or magnetometer survey.

Geophysical Survey on Cole’s Hill

In Plymouth, there are three areas where geophysical surveys have been followed with test excavations: an open lot at the edge of Jenney Pond, a block-length area along the edge of Burial Hill on School Street, and an open lot on Cole’s Hill (Fig. 2). This discussion will focus on Cole’s Hill, now owned by the Pilgrim Society (survey 2015; excavation 2016). This lot was the site of a two family house between ca. 1800 and 1920, when it was acquired by the Pilgrim Tercentenary Commission which removed the structure.

Georeferenced historic maps (Fig. 3) that show the building’s outline disagree on its location fairly significantly (up to 15 m), and maps provide no information about other features that might have once been on the lot such as other houses, outbuildings, wells, privies, or trash pits. Our primary interest in this lot was to test for any evidence of 17^th-century activity, predating all of the features that were specifically mapped on this parcel. In 2015, Steinberg and Damiata conducted GPR and frequency-domain electromagnetic (FDEM) surveys on this lot with transects spaced 20 cm apart (see Beranek et al. 2016: 20-27 for details on the instruments and post-processing software).

The GPR survey showed a roughly rectangular area in several slices between 23 and 100 cm below the surface that contained many strong reflectors (Fig. 4). In the slice at 47 to 73 cm bs, these appear as multiple discrete, linear anomalies. Knowing the history of the lot, we interpreted this area as the cellar and foundation of the ca. 1800 house on the property. Extending west of this area were two linear anomalies leading to two unknown features which we interpreted as possible pipes and cisterns, wells, or cesspools (Fig. 5). The other notable feature from the geophysical survey was an area in the northwest corner of the lot, away from any known buildings, that had a high value on the in-phase component of the FDEM survey (Fig. 6).

 

 

Unit Placement

Local tradition, which has not been confirmed archaeologically, is that parts of Cole’s Hill were used as the burial place for the English settlers who died in the winter of 1620-1621. Because of this possibility, however remote, we decided not to excavate any shovel test pits on this lot but only to excavate 1 x 2 m units. This larger unit size helps ensure that we see enough of a feature to understand its type. Given our time and crew size constraints, we decided to place five excavation units on this lot. Our primary interest was in finding out if there were any features or deposits that predated the ca. 1800 house, so we wanted to target yard area outside the house and to avoid the house footprint.

To confirm the location of the house, we used the GPR results to place a single 1 x 2 m excavation unit oriented N-S to cross the north edge of the reflector that we interpreted as the building foundation (EU1). If we could pinpoint the location of the foundation, we would be able to concentrate our excavation efforts outside the building, rather than spending additional time on deposits in the cellar filled after 1920. We frequently use this method of placing a single unit to cross a long linear reflector, allowing us to test the deposits on both sides and to determine the nature of the anomaly causing the reflection. Here, the reflector did indicate the location of the wall of the house (Fig. 7). Also of note is that the general location of the house’s cellar is also visible in the deepest bulk conductivity (C3) map of the FDEM data (Fig. 6). The GPR results plus a single excavation unit allowed us to be more specific about the house’s location than any of the historic maps, thus making the remainder of our excavation, targeting the yard spaces, more efficient. This also confirmed which maps show the position of the north wall of the 19^th-century duplex most accurately.

We also placed a single unit (EU4) to test the northern of the two presumed wells, cisterns, or cesspools so that we could determine the feature type. We uncovered a dry laid cobble cesspool with a stone cap that was still unfilled for 1.6 m below the cap. This unit helped us to interpret the two anomalies visible in the GPR results of the west yard as a pair of pipes and cesspools, one connected to each side of the duplex. Although the house was constructed ca. 1800, the land that the cess pools are on was owned by another household until 1843 (PCRD 207: 232), suggesting that these features were added after that date. Systematic testing might have encountered one of these features, though probably not both. Again, GPR survey and a single excavation unit proved to be a very efficient way to learn about and interpret the property’s waste and water management system. Getting a comparable amount of information by excavation alone would have entailed much more time, likely without providing much additional information.

Since the GPR data allowed us to predict where the rear (west) edge of the house’s main cellar was located, we were able to place EU5 west of the cellar to test the area for trash deposits behind the house. The GPR was crucial in placing this unit because there was a 15 meter difference between where different georeferenced historic maps placed the rear wall of the known house, so we could not have used the maps alone to confidently place a unit outside of the house’s cellar. Note that the GPR did not rule out the possibility that this area was under an un-cellared portion of the house; it just maximized the possibility that it was not in the main cellar itself. EU5 was not placed to test any specific reflectors, although there are some non-patterned strong reflectors visible in some of the slices. This unit encountered the edge of a cellar hole of a previously unknown building filled with material from the first third of the 19^th century, including a faunal assemblage suggesting that the deposits were part of a kitchen midden. The reflector visible on the 47-73 cm bs slice corresponds to a deposit of clay and displaced foundation stones slumped against the inside wall of the filled cellar. Knowing this, we went back to the GPR-Slice data and were able to trace the outline of this cellar which abuts or is truncated by the main cellar of the house (Fig. 8), and was clearly filled and sealed over while the house was still in use.

The final two excavation units (EUs 2 and 3) were deliberately placed in areas that did not have reflectors on the GPR slices. For these two units, we used the GPR data to help us avoid areas that definitely had 19^th-century features. Many feature and deposit types do not appear as GPR reflectors, especially in urban conditions, so we wanted to ensure that not all units targeted reflectors . EU2, in the north yard of the house, contained dense kitchen midden layers dating to the 19^th century, contemporary with the house, and a post hole and still partially intact wooden post, but no other features. EU3 was placed in an area where the FDEM showed an area of high value in the in-phase data (indicating high magnetic susceptibility) but again nothing in the GPR. The high FDEM values are probably explained by a concentration of slag in the upper strata that was not present in other units. Below these was a very rich and significant deposit, an intentionally dug pit into the subsoil filled with late 19^th-century personal items, but not visible on the GPR slices.

Conclusion

The geophysical survey and excavation on Cole’s Hill illustrate the complimentary nature of geophysical and excavation data. The GPR survey on this lot was very successful in mapping anomalies that proved to be large features associated with the 19^th and early 20^th-century house and utilities on the lot. Defining these through excavation alone would have been labor intensive and unnecessarily destructive to the archaeological record. The GPR data enabled us to place units very specifically, and the combination of GPR and excavation data makes it possible for us to map and understand these large features. Armed with this information, other units could more confidently be located outside of the 19^th-century house to investigate the yard space and look for earlier deposits. These units were placed based on the absence of GPR reflectors both because we wanted to avoid the 19^th-century structure and to make sure that our excavations were not unduly biased towards the kinds of materials that appear best in GPR surveys.

References

Beranek, Christa M., David B. Landon, John M. Steinberg, and Brian Damiata, eds.

2016   Project 400: The Plymouth Colony Archaeological Survey, Public Summary Report on the 2015 Field Season, Burial Hill, Plymouth, Massachusetts. Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research Cultural Resource Management Study No. 75a.

Davis, William T.

1899   Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth, 2^nd edn. A. Williams and Company, Boston, MA.

Plymouth County Registry of Deeds

207: 232        William Cashwell to Henry and Edwin Jackson, 1843.

This post looks back to one of the specialized activities that we did at the outset of the Plymouth field school this year.

We Came, We Saw, We Cored
By Anya Gruber

At the beginning of field school, a small group of professors and students (led by Dr. Heather Trigg) set out to core the sediments at Brewster Gardens, a public park on the waterfront, just down the street from Cole’s Hill. Since we’ve never excavated in this area, we were interested in coring so we could get an idea of what the stratigraphy of the soil looks like under the sod. It seemed like the best way to peek into the stratigraphy since coring works well in wet, marshy soil, just like the banks of the stream in Brewster Gardens. Wet deposits can also trap and preserve pollen, so we also wanted to find a place to take a core to look at changes in the local environment over time.

There are several ways to go about taking a core sample; you can use a hand corer, which is a short metal tube that you push into the ground by hand and then pull out, trapping in soil that can then be pushed out and analyzed for sediment, artifacts, and other clues into the chronology of soil layers in a particular area. This method can be difficult in Plymouth, though, because there are so many rocks that block the core from smoothly entering the soil. The alternate coring method uses the same basic ideas, but with bigger, heavier equipment. At Brewster Gardens, we used a full-size vibracorer, which has many more moving parts to it: a 10 ft. metal tripod, a motorized head powered by two heavy marine batteries, several-meters-long plastic and aluminum tubes, and all sorts of screws and different kinds of tape to keep everything in place. The heavy head generates vibrations that help push the coring tubes into the sediments.

Before we could turn on the machine and take the sample, we had to choose exact locations to core. We wanted a marshy but not super soggy, relatively flat surface far away from large tree roots and utility lines. We decided on three different locations: behind the Pilgrim Maiden fountain, between the stream and the benches, and next to the rock wall. The head hangs from the tripod, which was hoisted up by a pulley. The tube (the plastic one broke the first time we used it, so we switched to using only aluminum) was screwed onto a platform at the bottom of the base and carefully lowered into place, exactly where we want it to enter the ground. We then switched the machine on, and with some help from Blaine Borden, Professor Landon, and Professor Trigg pulling the head down, the tube goes straight into the ground. Luckily, we did not have much trouble with the tube getting blocked by the ubiquitous Plymouth rocks. However, the core was driven into the ground so tightly that we had to turn the vibracorer on again to shake it up so we could pull the tube out again.
We took four samples in total, one of which we kept in the tube to bring back to the lab, and the other three we looked at in the field. The one we kept will be taken out and analyzed in the fall; I’m hoping there’s some seventeenth-century pollen in there! The three we looked at in the field appeared to be mostly fill, from when the whole area was filled in to create land, as Brewster Park had been a tidal pool when the Pilgrims arrived in 1620 – but we did find a few artifacts, including a red rhyolite flake and some redware. There were also different layers of sediments in the core, including dark, organic silts and yellow coarse sand. The process of filling this area, which transformed it from a tidal inlet to a park is one of the landscape changes that we are interested in documenting. Additionally, since the process of filling can cap, bury, and preserve older layers, areas where there are buried ground surfaces could be archaeologically interesting.

By Victoria Cacchione

Our excavation units near Cole’s Hill in Plymouth were placed because this lot may be near the original northern edge of the 17th-century settlement. The lot had a building on it from 1800 to the mid-20th century, but the large back and side yards around the building meant that there were areas where early deposits might be preserved. Prior to 1800, the lot held a house and a blacksmith shop, and earlier there was a lime kiln in the area.

Each of the three excavation units on Cole’s Hill presented its own challenges and questions that required decisions about excavation strategies and provided numerous teachable moments for the student archaeologists. From the beginning, Excavation Unit 1 (EU1) proved to be a complex unit with its multiple contexts each full of distinct artifact types. The student excavators, Kerri, Kerri, and Meredith, have continued to diligently document and carefully remove each layer of soil. In doing so, they uncovered the northern-most limits of the previously known 19th-century dwelling on the property. This foundation wall consists of a jumble of coarse stones that appear to have been dislodged into unstable positions when the structure was demolished after 1920. Knowing this, the archaeologists were faced with deciding how to proceed with their excavations. Do they continue excavating the southern half of their unit that includes the interior of the foundation filled with 20th-century debris? Or do they confine themselves to the northern section of the unit? Ultimately, they decided to continue with excavating solely the northern portion of EU1, the outside of the building. This decision had already yielded a find in the form of a French drain and possible remnants of the cellar bulkhead entry. This find adds to the overall understanding of the occupation and use of Cole’s Hill while also exposing new questions.

Over in Excavation Unit 3 (EU3), the student archaeologists (Victoria, Nadia, and Laura) continually unearthed mysterious and complex artifacts from the beginning of the week until the end of the day Friday. Monday brought the first of many preservation challenges when the students discovered possible preserved organic material (mainly leather and wood), a surprise given the rare instance of such a find archaeologically let alone in New England with its acidic soil. The rarity of such a discovery provided challenges of knowing how to preserve the organics in the summer heat once the excavators removed them from the soil. We quickly became experts in making tin-foil packages of various sizes, wrapped around dust pans, clip boards, and lunch trays in order to create sealed, stable, protective surfaces for these fragile artifacts. Once excavated, the organic materials were whisked away to the nearest refrigerator to keep them from drying out and then taken to UMass Boston and turned over to Dennis Piechota for conservation and examination in the lab. Even when some of the organic objects are not preserved intact, he will be able to provide information about the materials that they were made of. Associated with the organic materials are small finds of female personal adornment pieces and sewing equipment dating to the late 19th century. However, these findings again prove to present more questions than answers. How and why were these artifacts deposited? Archaeologists hope to answer these questions with continued excavations and research.

Not to be left out, Excavation Unit 5 (EU5) also exposed the challenges of urban archaeology and provided a lesson in excavation safety. Professor David Landon described this unit as the epitome of urban archaeology as the unit measures three feet deep and is still full of destruction rubble. For instance, one moment the archaeologists shared their excitement over uncovering 17th-century ceramics; the next, the presence of a mid nineteenth century sherd of ceramic dashes all traces of celebration as it indicates the context is a fill layer. It seems that the units crosses the line of a filled cellar from an earlier, previously unknown building on the site that was filled after the new house was built in 1800.
Nevertheless, the finding of 17th-century artifacts is an exciting indication of possible earlier occupation of the site. In addition to its lessons on urban archaeology, EU3 also provided the student archaeologists with an example of how to navigate voids in the soil. Voids in the soil could be the result of burrowing animals, or small air pockets between loose rubble, or large air pockets in an incompletely filled structure. In instances where soil disappears into these abysses, it is always wise to be aware and carefully determine the depth of such voids. Luckily, the voids in EU5 were small gaps in the rubble fill and did not pose a threat to the archaeologists. The archaeologists working on Cole’s Hill hope to answer some if not all of the questions this week’s excavations presented as they wrap up this session of the Plymouth Field School.

Victoria Cacchione is a student in the MA program in Historical Archaeology at UMass Boston.

UMass Boston Plymouth Fieldschool
Friday, June 24, 9 am-3 pm

Burial Hill
School St., Plymouth, MA

Coles Hill, Pilgrim Society Lot
Corner of Middle and Carver, Plymouth, MA