What looked yesterday like a small, gravelly depression in a trench otherwise made of compacted clay, today took on a whole new dimension…
My name is Kristin Converse – I’m a graduate student at Sonoma State and a part-time employee of the Anthropological Studies Center. For the past two days I and Brian Mischke have been excavating feature number 151, which although it started out as an unassuming little dimple, has turned up some interesting artifacts and an ever-evolving story.
After a backhoe removed the modern asphalt and fill, and after the historic-era surface was scraped, mapped, and photographed, Brian and I began hand troweling the fill from the feature. Artifacts soon appeared and the outline of a pit began to take shape. We removed, among other things, half of a child-sized jade bracelet; the jawbone of a medium-sized mammal; a handful of buttons; fish bones; bird bones; a half dozen small glass ‘go’-type game pieces, a rectangular piece of translucent tortoise shell, the rim of a soy sauce bottle, and an intact, but cracked bowl in the ‘bamboo’ or ‘three circles with dragonfly’ pattern.
By noticing, differentiating, and following the changes in soil texture, we explored the northern extent of feature 151, leaving the southern half intact in order to reveal a good cross-section of the soil filling our feature. Several noticeable differences in the fill we were excavating had us scratching our heads, until we found the remains of vertically-placed lumber at right angles. Suddenly it appeared that we might have the remains of a wood-lined privy or outhouse on our hands (pun intended)! The later discovery of red clay sewer pipe extending into the pit, led us to believe that the privy had been plumbed subsequent to its original operation. And, late in the day, when our neighboring excavators discovered additional trenching aiming directly towards us, it appeared we might, in fact, be digging up the remains of a two-seater. Nevertheless, as the saying goes:
A crappy day in the field beats a great day in the office!!
My name is Kristin Converse – I’m a graduate student at Sonoma State and a part-time employee of the Anthropological Studies Center. For the past two days I and Brian Mischke have been excavating feature number 151, which although it started out as an unassuming little dimple, has turned up some interesting artifacts and an ever-evolving story.After a backhoe removed the modern asphalt and fill, and after the historic-era surface was scraped, mapped, and photographed, Brian and I began hand troweling the fill from the feature. Artifacts soon appeared and the outline of a pit began to take shape. We removed, among other things, half of a child-sized jade bracelet; the jawbone of a medium-sized mammal; a handful of buttons; fish bones; bird bones; a half dozen small glass ‘go’-type game pieces, a rectangular piece of translucent tortoise shell, the rim of a soy sauce bottle, and an intact, but cracked bowl in the ‘bamboo’ or ‘three circles with dragonfly’ pattern.
By noticing, differentiating, and following the changes in soil texture, we explored the northern extent of feature 151, leaving the southern half intact in order to reveal a good cross-section of the soil filling our feature. Several noticeable differences in the fill we were excavating had us scratching our heads, until we found the remains of vertically-placed lumber at right angles. Suddenly it appeared that we might have the remains of a wood-lined privy or outhouse on our hands (pun intended)! The later discovery of red clay sewer pipe extending into the pit, led us to believe that the privy had been plumbed subsequent to its original operation. And, late in the day, when our neighboring excavators discovered additional trenching aiming directly towards us, it appeared we might, in fact, be digging up the remains of a two-seater. Nevertheless, as the saying goes:A crappy day in the field beats a great day in the office!!
Kristin Converse
Graduate Student
Graduate Student
