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Glen Dornoch
is a public golf course along the Intracoastal Waterway ("ICW") just a few minutes from the North and South Caroloina border. The view from the green towards the water is awesome, and the course itself is very nice. Glen Dornoch was planning on expanding its facilities by adding a hotel for their patrons. Our company had already done the first two stages of surveying and archaeology. In March of 2004, we went back to finish the last stage, data recovery.
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The goal was to research the shell middens and other archaeological resources and answer some questions. Some of the research was on the content of the shell midden, and also the Woodland ceramic component. Prehistoric ceramic decoration in S.C. has been studied in great detail. The method for creating these decorations sometimes involved fabric impressions, whereby the fabric was pressed onto wet clay in some fashion. Although we know how these decorations were created, we never thought to ask what type of fabric was being used.
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The first week on the project turned out to be a chilly one, and the weather fluctuated over the next seven weeks, but was mostly warm and sunny. After clearing and cleaning several areas, we were ready to begin excavating. Two sites, 475 and 476, each had two 1-meter by 2-meter areas, or units, and two 4-meter by 4-meter areas, or blocks. Each block was then divided into eight units. he photo shown here is a test unit dug during the previous Phase II.
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For awhile, we had golf carts to transport ourselves and our equiptment to the sites. To get things like the large screens there, we had to put them on top and ride slowly, making several trips back and forth. We eventually drove down the cart path to the two sites in our trucks.
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Before clearing the area and getting it ready to be excavated. It was a really thick area before we cleared it, so working there didn't seem so bad. Once we wandered off into the bushes to hunt for more middens we realized how bad it really was. I mostly worked on the smaller stuff, clearing off the underbrush, raking the areas, cutting some trees and limbs, and probing for middens. I got a chance to use the bush ax and found this was definitely my weapon of choice.
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The first block in 476, seen from the north and then from the south. This is after it was cleared, the small twigs and saplings removed, and the leaves and acorns removed.
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We started by measuring the areas and placing stakes around the edges. Archaeologists use the metric system as well as mathematical equations (like hypotenuse) to accurately lay out units and levels. From each stake, a string was pulled across the units and blocks and attached on the other side. This also helps lay out the edges of the individual units inside the blocks.
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The first level of block 2 in 476.
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On a Phase III, more dirt is excavated at a faster pace, so large tripods and screens are set up. Three trees were chopped down and tied together to form the tripod and a screen was hung on it. The dirt is moved from the hole to the screen and the "screener" shakes the dirt through a 1/4" mesh. All the objects which are larger then 1/4" stay in the screen. Anything that is not natural, or an ecofact, is kept and placed in an artifact bag. Sometimes natural objects will be kept if they can help determine what happened in that area.
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The tools of the trade: not only do we use kewl things like tripods, screens, probes, shovels, and bush axes, we also use scientific materials like the Munsell book, used for determining soil colors. Each page has a different number, such as 10YR, 5YR, etc, and a grid of colors. The colors range in hue and value, so that you can narrow down what color soil you have in a level by placing it on the corresponding page and then particular color.
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Meet The Crew:
Bobby, my boss. He's a very good archaeologist and very good boss. Since I'm an inquisitive person, I'm always asking him questions about what we're doing or working on and he tried his best to answer whenever he can.
Dawn
Aaaron is an archaeologist from Tennessee, who brings his laid-back hippiness and humor with him. He always has a story to go along with everything, and always prepared to dig up some buried treasure, or sherds, in this case.
Angus: He is an avid golfer, so he was very excited to be working here. He walked out on the green to gaze at the Intercoastal Waterway. The view is rather nice, especially for golfers and hard-working archaeologists.
Joe
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Across the path from our sites was a small bridge surrounded by shell. Many of the cart paths had shell erroding out of the ground, evident of the numerous shell middens in the area.
The ICW in this area is very close to the North Carolina border. As gambling in South Carolina is illegal, many people board casino boats in NC and then cruise down the river, playing casino games and having a good time. This one was particularly loud.
At the end of each day, we covered some of the blocks and units, especially ones with features or areas that we didn't want to be disturbed. We had a few small storms and also a rodent problem. The rodents couldn't really be dealt with, as they were underneath the tarps. We had a mole we called "Lemmiwinks" and a mouse and her three babies (Number One, Number Two and Number Three) who made a nest from bits of our broom and leaves.
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Each level, dug in ten centimeter increments, revealed many artifacts. Some areas had a higher amount due to either features, the shell middens, or areas where a Prehistoric person may have been sitting, working, cooking, etc (sometimes called "work areas"). The level shown here has a large amount of artifacts. Because we knew where shell middens were, and because the shell was just a result of food consumption, there was no need to collect each shell for further study. The shells were sorted and weighed by type (eg: oysters, clams, moon snails) and then thrown into the discard pile, unless they were a unique type of shell. A high numer of oysters and clams were found, which was unusual as normally the amount of clams is lower, and these clams were also larger than normal. Some pretty shells, like the one shown here, are also found. Before each level we'd guess as to how many ceramic and lithic materials we would find and see who came the closest. The pile includes lithic, ceramic and bone artifacts.
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Lithic arrow points (called PPK for Projectile Point/Knife to cover all possible uses) are really interesting and exciting to find. If they can be identified, they are called diagnostic and can be used to date the level and area they are in. We found a number of PPKs, ranging from Woodland to Archaic Time Periods. On the left is a Triangular Point. This point is called a "Bird Point" by amateur archaeologists and pot hunters because of their small size; they are mistakenly thought to be used to hunt small birds. The next point is a Diamond Point, for its shape. The third point is a Morrow Mount. The fourth point is one that is broken on the "tail". The last PPK is actually a drill. This type of tool was used for drilling holes and other uses not associated with hunting.
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Many sherds were found, mainly because of the shell middens (it was a good place to throw broken bowls and ceramics when you can't put them back together!). We also found clusters of pottery, which was either broken in place and left, or placed there and broken later, or just thrown together for whatever reason. When a cluster is found, it's important to clean the area to see the placement of each sherd, as that will give us a clue about how the pottery was broken and possibly why. We can also use these sherds to reconstruct the pottery, later on in the lab. Aaron is troweling around a cluster of ceramic sherds.
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Angus and I found a bead in one of the units. It is a prehistoric shell bead.
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This photo shows two sherds placed side by side. The sherds would have originally been part of a larger pot. Later on, they will be mended together and documented. The interesting thing about these sherds is the design. Normally, this is called a check stamp design and the design would repeat without an edge all around the pot. This check stamp is very deep and prominent, and there was a space between the two stampings. It is highly unusual to find a stamp that has a space between its patterns like this.
The other sherd (on the right) shows a hole. These holes are called "mend holes" and are creted in order to stop a crack in a bowl from splitting more. Sometimes these holes are found along a crack, and sometimes they are found side by side, with the two possibly being used to tie the bowl together to strengthen it. Some archaeologists think these double-mend-holes were possibly used to hang bowls from trees or high places, but this is just a theory. We know that they were often used to mend the pots because there is an obvious crack which has been repaired and is a slightly different color than the clay around it.
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Archaeologists get hungry from all their hard work. Every day we gather and "feed". This gives us a chance to go over things we found, our theories on the site and chatter about topics we're very interested in or what our plans for after-work activities are.
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