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US Route 301 Archaeology

Written on: August 20th, 2012 in Archaeology Updates, US301

Additional artifacts found this week include an assortment of plain and decorated pewter and copper alloy coat and vest buttons; a fancy, decorative button with a glass faux gem; and pins used to secure clothing and paper (pins were used prior to the invention of wire paper clips).  During the 18th and early 19th century, men’s clothing contained an abundance of functional and decorative buttons, some of which we found littered across the site.  Objects like those featured in this week’s blog help us form a picture of the style of dress used by the occupants, and firearms used in defense.   

US Route 301 Archaeology Update

Written on: August 20th, 2012 in Archaeology Updates, US301

The Houston-LeCompt Site has had its share of complications as fieldwork has gone on.  Saturday we arrived to find the site largely underwater due to torrential rains in the Middletown area.  It was a long day of bucket bailing, shopping for a sump pump capable of removing that much water, putting up with wet clothes, and sloshing in wet boots.  All of that fun archaeology stuff that never seems to make it into a History Channel documentary or Indiana Jones movie.  The nature of working on a site that has been stripped of topsoil also means that rains generate a sheet wash along the surface that carries fine silt and clay particles with it, that always seems to find its way to the exact features we were working on before the rain. This sheet wash covers the exposed features with a layer of slimy red dirt that leaves us starting the feature clean up process all over again.  Despite that, we have managed to move a lot of dirt, and are making our way through feature excavation.  We are exposing more of the brick cellar walls, and getting deep down into well shafts.  We also encountered a possible roasting pit with lots of charcoal and animal bone.

By Sunday we had the site partially drained, and dried out enough for an army of volunteers and observers.  Over a dozen volunteers plus family members came out as we opened up the site, not only for serious archaeology work, but also as an interpretive site and community activity center.  Kids young and old had a blast combing the back dirt piles for artifacts.  Area residents who had been passing by the site for weeks got a chance to shovel dirt out of the piles, screen for artifacts, and wash them.  A lady who had read about the site in the paper came to the site with her “LeCompte” family tree and coat of arms, which we photographed to see if historic research shows a connection between the previous owner James LeCompt and her family.   What a difference a day makes when you have a good crew.  Everyone on the Dovetail team did a great job of getting the public involved and going with the flow.  Our thanks to the crew, and thanks to the great folks of the surrounding community!

The Houston LeCompt site this past Sunday

US Route 301 Archaeology Update

Written on: August 20th, 2012 in Archaeology Updates, US301

Last week Hunter Research, Inc. started data recovery excavations at the Cardon-Holton Site (7NC-F-128, N14508), another early historic farmstead along the U.S. Route 301 alignment.  (Below is a link to a handout about the site.) 

Initially six, six-foot square excavation units were targeted to recover artifacts from the plow-zone in areas where concentrations were observed on the surface and subsurface during the earlier excavations.  Numerous important artifacts dating to the late 17^th and early 18^thcenturies recovered from these first excavation units led us to increase the number to 16.  At the same time the backhoe was busy stripping off the plow-zone from the northern portion of the site.  Equipped with a sharp, flat steel collar, the machine leaves a crisp clean surface which is then refined with a flat-bladed shovel and trowels to reveal disturbances to the underlying subsoil, both cultural (such as pits and post holes) and non-cultural (such as trees and animal burrows).

Early colonial artifacts of note recovered from the excavation units included fragments of bulbous German Westerwald stoneware jugs with rilled necks colored with purple manganese pigment (bottom row, right), Midlands mottled from central England (top row left), dot and combed buff-bodied earthenware attributed to Staffordshire, England (top and middle row, center), small bits of sgraffito (scratched decoration) red-bodied earthenware plates similar to vessels identified as originating from the town of Bideford in North Devon, England (middle row, right) and dipper white salt glazed stoneware also from England.