Artifact Show and Tell - Archaeology Open House

It’s two days after Public Day and I’m still tired. Like many of us, I was assigned to man a single station. By myself. As ASC Lab Manager the artifact table was a natural selection. I felt quite smug that morning when I set up an “Easy-Up” to provide shelter from the rain for the artifacts and, just as importantly, myself. I soon recognized the folly of my ways. Only a few passing showers appeared and I was left shivering in the shade as the wind picked up throughout the day. By the final hour I was literally holding onto the shelter to keep it from blowing away into the Porto-lets located just behind me.

Those scattered showers and high winds did nothing to curb the public in their interest in archaeology. More than 500 people came to visit the site… and the artifact table which was covered with the fruits of our labors to date. Probably the most asked about group of artifacts were the Chinese medicine vials, often mistakenly assumed to be opium bottles. These small, thick-walled, tapered vials are often found on archaeological sites and typically contained a single dose of a liquid medicine or a small quantity of pills. Opium, a thick sticky substance, would have been impossible to remove from these vials.

Among the finds from the project was a grinding stone with a wonderfully smooth surface over which the kids liked to run their fingers. Several visitors spent some time explaining to me exactly how the stone was used; one gentleman went into great detail as he had toiled many an hour as a youngster using the same type of grinding stone in his mother’s kitchen. His family would soak soybeans overnight and then feed them into the hole on the top of the stone. As he used a sturdy stick to turn the stone and grind the beans, soy milk would be caught in a lower, wider grooved stone while soy paste would be held in the stone. He informed me that product was “very nutritious”.

All who came to visit the artifact table found something of interest. Children were as curious about the food bones I had set out for display (an assortment of pig’s feet, chicken, and cow) as they were the bone toothbrush and porcelain doorknob. I could feel the sincere pleasure of several elderly Chinese women when they viewed the items on the table, things that may have been used by their parents and grandparents. Local historians were intrigued with a silver knife handle from the Hotel Vendome, a first-class hotel in San Jose which was built in 1888 and later demolished in 1930. Truly, there was a little something for everyone!

Erica Gibson
Lab Manager &
ASC Archaeologist

View from a Trench: Archaeology Open House

The rest of the crew solemnly avowed that I was the one of the few members who had the intellect and the ability to write a blog entry. Deeply honoured, I agreed to write on the public day we had yesterday. So tonight, after work hours, that is what I am doing. The rest of the crew is at a bar.

"The View from a Trench" is kind of a standard title for archaeological papers, but that is all I can offer. I literally went into a trench at 11:00 am at the start of public day and (other than one hasty potty break) did not come out again until 4:00 pm. I have no idea what went on in the other trenches. I have no idea what went on anywhere. For me it was 5 hours of standing in a muddy 30-ft square pit and expounding on my three features to group after group after group. My three features were a robbed-out foundation trench for a Chinese tenement, a wood-lined sewer, and a later trench for a terracotta sewer-pipe.

I talked about the process of exposing feature stains, excavating sections to identify and date them, and I talked about the nature of backyards in the late 19th and early 20th century. I talked about sewer hookups and privies and trash disposal. I talked non-stop for 5 hours. At the end of the day my jaw ached and my lips were numb. I was hungry because I didn't get lunch AT ALL. Did I mention I only got one potty break?

It sounds bad but it wasn't bad. I really didn't notice that I hadn't had lunch, when normally I start citing union rules and labor law if lunch is called 5 minutes late. I can't speak for the audience but the public day was exciting for the archaeologists. The number of people was far more than we anticipated. Far more. It was gratifying and a bit unexpected to see that level of public interest in the archaeology and in the history of Heinlenville and Nihonmachi. I was near the end of the tour, and people still seemed alert and interested. Given that each tour was about 40 minutes and I was waxing eloquent on the significance of sewer pipes and trash pick-up, the visitors may have just been unusually polite. Or maybe they had used our on-site porta-johns and really understood the utility of a fully functioning sewer line. But I think it was more than that.

Sewer lines, porcelain bowls and spoons, a discarded reel of movie film—these are all incredibly mundane. But it is because they are so mundane that they have power. Archaeology is not about great events, famous people, and great architecture and art. It is about regular people getting by the best that they can, often under difficult circumstances. These are things with which most people can empathize. The importance of this site lies not only in the decency of John Heinlen, but in the lives the inhabitants of Heinlenville and Nihonmachi managed to create for themselves, even amidst the looming threat of mob violence and legislative repression.

Mark Walker
ASC Archaeologist

Looking for Artifacts – Archaeology Open House

During our Open House, I worked at the artifact screening station, where visitors had a chance to try their hand at archaeology. Kids and adults experienced firsthand the process of archaeological excavation as they searched through soil that we had excavated earlier this week. They found artifacts used during the area’s historic-period occupation, including fragments of food bones, tools, dishes, and food storage containers. These artifacts will go back to our ASC lab for analysis, and will help us to tell the stories of the people who used them.

Sandra Massey
ASC Archaeologist