Update - Test Unit Excavation

This week we began excavating this season's first test units. Excavating test units is more time-consuming than digging shovel tests because a major goal of test unit excavation is to get a better idea of the area's stratigraphy, or soil layering. A basic principle of archaeological investigation is borrowed from Geology and states that new layers are deposited above old ones; as a general rule, the deeper you dig, the farther back in time you go. Therefore, test units need a high level of vertical control, which is a fancy way of saying that we dig with trowels more than we do with shovels and that we separately document each level that we excavate.

Some archaeologists prefer to start a new level whenever the soil composition or color changes, but at Arcadia, we have chosen to excavate in arbitrary 10-centimeter levels. This allows us to maintain a flat test unit floor at all times, which is important for finding stains in the ground that might otherwise have been mistaken for the start of a new level. Any of these stains could be what archaeologists call "features" such as post holes, ditches, drains, burials, trash pits, or hearths. These are assigned a different "provenience" or context number and excavated separately. We are currently excavating one block (1-meter test units in a grid) and two trenches (1-meter test units in a row.) Their locations were chosen according to the results of geophysical techniques such as soil resistivity and gradiometry that we applied last year, along with predictive models based on prior shovel test data as part of a GIS. Later posts will go over these techniques in greater detail.


Here are some of our finds this week.

This lead shot, as you can see, has been fired. Given its association with with period artifacts, it's a safe bet that the people who lived here relied on hunting local animals to supplement their diet. One thing that we find perplexing about this, however, is that other than some oyster shells from our trenches, we aren't finding as many faunal remains as we thought we would. We are on the lookout for disposal areas or middens that would tell us more about what people living here ate.

We couldn't have been happier to find this iron door hinge. While cut nails and bricks are also categorized in the "architectural" group in our database, distinctive items like hinges give us vital hints about where certain elements of a single building like doors and windows might have been. On the right side of the image are two fragments of lead-glazed stoneware, put together to demonstrate that they "cross-mend." Cross-mending ceramics is done in the lab in the off-season to link proveniences to each other archaeologically.

While some artifacts have an immediately apparent function, others can be tougher to identify. This punched metal disc could have been part of a lock, or perhaps a clothing fastener. Even though we aren't sure what this was for, it is nevertheless documented and stored for later identification.

Student Highlight - Paul Gorman

Paul Gorman is an undergraduate senior at UWF who is majoring in General Anthropology. While he is primarily interested in paleoanthropology, he was interested in our program this year because he wanted to learn about historic archaeology and explore it as a possible career path. He is a fan of metal, post-rock, and science fiction novels.

Student Highlight - Richard Dams

Richard Dams is an undergraduate junior at UWF who grew up locally and graduated from Pensacola High School in 2009. He is currently pursuing a degree in Terrestrial Archaeology with a minor in Geography. His interests include reading and hiking.

First Week of Field School 2011

Welcome to the blog for the 2011 Arcadia field school! You are invited to follow along as this year's crew of students learn the principles of field archaeology (some for the very first time) and help the UWF Archaeology Institute gather valuable information about one of 19th century Florida's premier industrial complexes, all while wearing more sun block and mosquito repellent than is probably healthy.

While the 1990 Arcadia investigations documented the structural remains of water-powered industry such as the foundations of the textile mill and sawmill, the 2009, 2010, and 2011 field crews have been building off of a foundational survey conducted in 1988 that located residential deposits in the uplands surrounding Pond Creek. Recovering additional data in this location will give important insights into community organization and economic status among people living and working at the mill. Highlights from previous field schools at Arcadia can be found on the sidebar and include the recovery and documentation of thousands of artifacts from the antebellum period such as medicine bottles, ceramic fragments, pipe bowls, and even leather boot heels. Past crews also discovered brick and local "ironstone" piers that held up a structure or group of structures that potentially housed some of the Mill's workers.

This year's field school aims to continue the efforts of previous years through shovel testing, trenching, block excavation, remote sensing, and digital mapping to locate evidence of additional structures and other features on the landscape such as roads and trash deposits associated with the community. These techniques will help piece together a better idea of what it was like to live and work at Arcadia.

This week began with clearing the underbrush at a location that we call “Area A.” Recent hurricanes have damaged the tree cover in this area, making it possible for smaller plants to turn what was once relatively clear of obstructions into a jungle in a matter of months. This gave the crew plenty of machete practice.


The next task was to add a few reference (or datum) points to the on-site coordinate grid for our total station, a machine used to take precise spatial measurements. While some archaeologists like to use an arbitrary grid for their sites that places a point at “x=1000, y=1000” and references all other points off of that, Arcadia uses the UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) coordinate system that assigns a unique value to every location in a region. While it might take a little longer to label bags and photo boards (UTM Coordinates in this area are seven digits long), this system has the advantage of making the data much easier to put into a digital Geographic Information System (or GIS) for analysis.

Finally, we finished off the week with shovel testing. Archaeologists work from what they know to what they don't know, so we dug 50cm round shovel tests between rows of tests made by earlier field schools just north of a small logging road directly north of Area A. This was done in order to more accurately determine the village's boundaries. A couple of shovel tests had at least one period artifact in them, including a piece of transfer-printed whiteware. One shovel test had a fragment of local "ironstone," a type of sandstone known for its high iron content that gives it a characteristic red color. Since ironstone was not native to area A and had to be cut out of a quarry to the south, this could point to the existence of additional structures in the area. However, there are several negative tests with no cultural material in them, which suggest that one of the boundaries of the village might be the logging road.

Check back later this week for crew member bios, more pictures and some additional details concerning our work this year.

Last-but-not-least Student Highlight! Robin Hardy

Robin is a student of the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse. This fall she will be entering her senior year in hopes of graduating in the Spring with a Bachelor's in Archaeology, minoring in Anthropology. She's originally from Minnesota and became part of our field school because she plans to go into Maritime archaeology and wanted to take part in both Maritime and Terrestrial experiences.

The time has come

Alas, all good things must come to an end. Such is the case with our 2010 Arcadia Mills Village field school. All in all, we had a terrific season! We finished three 2x2m (3.3 x 3.3 foot) units, and made significant progress on six more. In total, we moved enough dirt to equal the weight of a school bus! We're all very proud of how quickly our students learned and developed into proficient archaeological field techs. Any one of them would do well in a professional position.

Before I get into the events of our last week, I'd like to show you the results of some of the geophysical surveys done. Unfortunately, the raw GPR and Gradiometer results are quite complicated and need additional processing before they can be interpreted here. I will, however, present to you our soil resistivity results (below).

On the left, are last year's results, and on the right are this year's. The dark bands running in perpendicular lines align nicely with our previously suspected architectural features, and further suggest that there were a number of additional structures in and around the area where our Block 1 and Trench 1 are located. Future work will prove just what these variously resistive soils indicate.

The crew spent much of the last week rushing about, making final maps (left) and preparing for final pictures (right). All this tedious work is in an effort to document exactly how our units looked before we filled them back in. For some units (units 4, 5, and 6), this documentation will mark the final glimpses of what the units' whole picture looked like. Those three units are now completed and will not be uncovered next year. For the rest (units 3 and 12 in Block 1 and units 13, 14, 15, and 16 in Trench 1), these maps and photos will give next year's archaeologists an idea of what was discovered during the 2010 season before work in the 2011 season begins.

These two photos below show just how far we excavated in Block 1 this year. On the left is a shot of Block 1 taken 20 May 2010. On the right is the final picture of the Block taken on 22 July 2010.

It's remarkable how far we got! Well done, 2010 Arcadia Crew!

Finally, it was time for backfilling. We lined the unfinished units with gardener's filter cloth to protect and delineate the exposed surfaces, then filled in the units from our mountainous backdirt pile. Before filling in the finished units, we tossed 2009 and 2010 pennies into the sterile bottoms. This was to create a new terminus post quem. This is a Latin term used by archaeologists meaning "time after which." This will show future (possibly very distantly into the future) researchers that past archaeologists have disturbed those sediments, and anything found therein is likely of a very disturbed context.

And then it was finished. (Except for the months of labwork, of course...)

I'd like to thank our two crews of rotating maritime/combo students and our steadfast core of solid terrestrial students for being archaeological rockstars. I'd like to thank my awesome supervisors Tara Giuliano, Kad Henderson, and Andrew Christensen for their wonderful support. We also have to recognize the fine efforts of our fearless leader, Mr. John Phillips, and the overwhelming and obliging hospitality of the Arcadia Mill staff. This has been a wonderful and rewarding experience, and I'm glad I've been able to share it with you!

Thanks for reading!

Melissa Timo

Graduate Director-in-Training

Arcadia Mills Village 2010 Field School

Student Highlight! Bob Rutledge

Bob retired from a career in social services and continue to operate rental properties in his hometown of Bemidji, Minnesota. He has a BA from the University there. His training in chemistry and biology dovetailed nicely with his interests in the history of human evolution and cultural development. He's returned to school as a senior in anthropology. Bob plans to work toward a MA with a dual focus on maritime and terrestrial archaeology. He expects to spend his future traveling the world, from project to project, experiencing a wide range of cultures and environments along the way.