Tiny Pinch Pot Found at Pig Point

We got pretty excited at Pig Point when we found our first stone projectile point.  Then we got really excited when we found the small complete paint pot.  But our latest discovery has blown all of our previous finds out of the water…

A tiny pinch pot with a dot pattern found at Pig Point.

Last week, while screening soil in the lower excavation block at Pig Point, William found a tiny pinch pot about the size and shape of a thimble.  The inside is smooth and round, while the outside is round with a series of tiny dots aligned in a pattern around the rim and down the sides in a diagonal fashion.  The whole thing is about half an inch in diameter and height and it barely fits on the tip of my pinkie finger!  Who could have made such a pot?  Could it have been a child who was playing next to their mom while she was making coil pots?  Or, since the decoration is in such tiny detail, is it the work of some experienced potter?  And what was the function of such a tiny pot?  Was it possibly a child’s toy?  Was it used for some ceremonial purpose?  Or maybe to actually hold something?

As work continues, we hope to uncover more about this tiny pot, it’s maker, and it’s use.  But for right now, we have to settle for simply marveling at it’s size and the secrets that it holds.

We’ve been blogged!

So, it turns out that we are not the only ones blogging about the Lost Towns Project…  Sheila Campbell, an attendee of our Dig Day in September, maintains a travel blog and she blogged about our Dig Day!  It was really fun for us to read, and we’re tickled!  Thanks also to Barbara Wendell who let us know about Sheila’s blog.  You can read the post at http://sheilacampbell.com/an-archeological-dig-in-historic-london-town/#comments.  Sheila, we’re glad you enjoyed our Dig Day! 

Enjoy the beautiful fall weather, everyone… it’s best spent digging with the Lost Towns crew out at Pig Point! :)

~ Lauren

“Archaeology through a Microscope”

     Resting on a bluff overlooking the Patuxent, the Pig Point site offers a fascinating window into our past.  Those of you who have worked a sifting screen at Pig Point knows how easy it has become to spot an artifact as the sandy soil quickly falls through the screen.  There are thousands of other, tiny artifacts that offer a lot of information that would fall through the screen if we didn’t carefully collect them.

Steve agitates the water to break down the soil, and collects the seeds in the fine mesh.

    These artifacts mainly consist of seeds, many of them smaller than the head of a pin!  They are leading the Lost Towns Project in a new direction, into the world of archaeobotany.  Archaeobotany is the study of plants and seeds at an archaeological site.  We analyze nuts, seeds and other plant remains to understand how these people interacted with their environment and how it sustained them, and we are very interested in learning about this dynamic at Pig Point!
    The primary way that archaeobotanicals are preserved is through carbonization, which occurs when seeds or nuts are burned.  This preserves plant material that would otherwise rot away.  Not surprisingly, archaeolobotanical materials are usually found in a hearth or food preparation area.
    In order to collect the small botanical specimens, we sample the dirt from the features at the site such as pits, hearths, and living surfaces, and run the dirt through a process called flotation.  This involves pouring the soil samples into a large container of water that is constantly pumped with fresh water.  As the water percolates, the heavier artifacts, which we call “heavy fraction”, such as lithics, bones, and ceramics, sink to the bottom and collect on a fine mesh screen.  The “light fraction” - what we call seeds, charcoal, and plant remains - float up and into an even finer mesh (also known as pantyhose!) that catches them, while the dirt particles pass through.  Some of these seeds are almost invisible to the naked eye, and are very delicate. This flotation process collects them without damaging them. Once we take the light fraction back to the lab, we sort and study the botanical materials.  We use a microscope to identify and study the seeds, comparing the texture, size and shape of the seeds to other known specimens from this region that are still in existence, as well as those that are now extinct!

Steve looks through the tiny artifacts that we're finding!

    As archaeologists, we use seed analysis to understand both plant use and past climates. We can also learn if the prehistoric peoples lived off of the wild plant life, grew their own food, or both.  Interestingly, the seeds of wild plants are visibly different from plants that were adapted for use in agriculture.  This offers the potential to determine if and when the Native Americans at Pig Point shifted from subsistence to agriculture.  As we explore the history at Pig Point layer by layer and collect archaeobotanical materials each step of the way, we can discover how the Native Americans’ diet changed and how the environment transformed into its present state. 
    I will be presenting a lecture on Archaeobotany on Nov. 10, from 5-6pm in the London Town Visitor’s Center, and I hope you will come out to learn more about this exciting project!  Please contact the lab with any questions at 410-222-1318.  

Best,
Steve Tourville

Thanks to all for a great Volunteer Appreciation Party!

Our volunteers and interns!

Three of our Fearless Lab Ladies: volunteers Betty, Caroline, and Anne!

Joey Peake receiving the Junior Volunteer Award

Bocce ball!

Pig Point site generates interest from County Exec., MHT, and the press!

The orange sticks represent the arcs of the wigwam postholes.

The Pig Point site just keeps getting more and more interesting, and is getting a lot of well-deserved attention!  As you may have read in our hot-off-the-presses Summer 2009 newsletter, we have uncovered the remains of postholes belonging to several wigwams.  Artifacts found around the wigwam remains indicate that they date to the Late Woodland Period.  We are looking for a hearth in the vicinity of the wigwams to get a good charcoal sample to use for radiocarbon dating.  The remains of these wigwams join only 3 other known wigwam remains in Maryland.  The wigwams from Pig Point are unique because they have been found in the Tidewater - which is not known for having soils condusive to preservation of delicate, ephemeral remains.  Yet this site has incredible artifact preservation, and delicate artifacts such as bone and features such as the wigmwam postholes are being found in pristine condition. 

Two radiocarbon dates that we got from the lower block - which we are interpreting as the living and cooking area - date to A.D. 1300.  In the same block, we have uncovered a small, unbroken pinch pot (which Steph wrote about in her last post), as well as several curious inverted disks.  These disks were all found in the same vicinity, and a few seem to be placed in a semi-circle.  They seem to be fired soil or maybe clay - we are still determining exactly what they are made of.  We are also trying to figure out what they are, and what they were used for.  In other words - we have a new mystery artifact!  

One of the small disks that we've found in the lower block.

Excavations in the upper block have uncovered the remains of an intricately decorated Rappahannock incised pot, the pieces of which Al has patiently and expertly mended together a portion of the vessel.   (We’re hoping to find the rest of the pieces…)  The decoration on this pot is like nothing we’ve seen before, and nothing we’ve come across so far in literature on the topic.  Truly, this is an astonishing find.         

Rappahannock Incised Pot

The site hasn’t only piqued our interest.  In the past couple of weeks, we’ve have some very honored guests come to the site, and have also gotten some stellar press!  On Wednesday, July 24, we had a very special guest visit Pig Point -John Leopold, the Anne Arundel County Executive!   

County Executive Leopold, with Al, speaks to a cameraman about Pit Point during his visit.

His visit was precipitated by our discovery about the wigwams.  We were honored that he visited the site, and are so pleased that he recognizes its importance.  An article came out on Friday, July 26 in the Capital about our new findings and the County Exec’s visit.  You can read the article by clicking here. 

That same Friday, a van-load of archaeologists and staff from the Maryland Historical Trust visited the site.  Our excavations at Pig Point are part of a multi-year study of the Middle Woodland Period in Anne Arundel County.  This study is being partially funded by Maryland Historical Trust, and the folks at the Trust were really excited about what we have been uncovering and learning about the site. 

Finally, this past Thursday, July 2, the Baltimore Sun ran a terrific front-page article about our excavations at Pig Point.  It does a nice job explaining the site and its importance,  you can check it out here.  There is also a great photo gallery featuring some of our staff and volunteers, click here to view it. 

We are so pleased that this site is garnering much-deserved attention and interest from all quarters - County officials, the archaeological community, the media,  and the public at large.   We will keep you posted with new finds and insights!

Dig Day this Saturday!

Some boys enjoy sifting for artifacts at a previous Dig Day.

Come one, come all to the second of our 2009 Saturday Public Dig Days!  The Dig Day is this Saturday, July 11, from 9 am - 2 pm.  We welcome the public to Historic London Town and Gardens  to sift dirt and find artifacts, take tours of the site, and do mini-workshops with the archaeologists of the Lost Towns Project.  The event is free, and we welcome the entire family.  Help us uncover the past of London Town, and make history come alive!

Please call London Town at 410-222-1919 to reserve your spot.

Our public archaeology program and this Dig Day was featured on Sunday, July 5, in the Baltimore Sun.  You can read the article here. 

(Note: Jessie Grow is the Education Coordinator for the Lost Towns Project, not London Town, as stated in the article.  Lisa Robbins is the Education Coordinator for London Town.)

Lost Towns Earns New Merit!

Local boy scouts participate in experimental archaeology by making pinch pots like Native Americans.

On Saturday, June 20th, the Lost Towns Project Education Program provided its very first Boy Scout Archaeology Merit Badge class!  Steve and I were lucky enough to spend the morning and early afternoon with seven bright and engaged young men who worked very hard to complete all the requirements for the archaeology merit badge.  For those of you who were never boy scouts (like myself), these badges are not easy to acquire!  We spent the morning wading though all the archaeology jargon (what exactly do the terms ”artifact”, “context”, “anthropology”, “excavation”, “absolute dating”, and “feature” mean, anyway??). 

The scouts also had to research three archaeology sites and present them to the group, as well as discuss ways in which they can be stewards of the past (not to mention why it’s important to do so!).  They also researched historical groups that lived in the Chesapeake region and described their way of life.  I managed to squeeze in a tour of London Town between rain showers so that they could see what a site actually looks like in progress as well as ask questions they wouldn’t think of otherwise (like “Why we dig in squares?”).  After lunch, we listed a bunch of careers in archaeology and what kind of training is necessary. 

One of my favorite tasks included listening to the scouts discuss what they would include in a time capsule and what future archaeologists might discover about them due to what they left behind.  The most popular item?  The iPod, of course.   So I asked what if the future doesn’t have the capability to listen to iPod technology, like 8-track tapes today?  The response?  After they asked what an 8-track tape was, they decided that they’d also leave directions on how to build a computer with the capability to listen to iPods. 

At the end of the day, the scouts got to participate in experimental archaeology.  I brought in some clay and everyone made pinch pots like Native Americans would have hundreds of years ago.  They quickly caught on that anything laying around can be used as a decorative tool.  Once the pots dry, I plan to fire them in a kiln and give them back to the scouts so they can always remember their day of archaeology!

All the scouts have left to do is 8 hours of work in the field or in the lab.  I never knew that getting merit badges was so involved and detailed.  Each scout becomes a mini-expert in the generalities of archaeology, and really, what’s better than that?

I look forward to having more scout troops in the lab to do more archaeology merit badge education days! 

-Jessie

The Lost Towns Project Digs an Amazing Prehistoric Site

When we began working at the Pig Point site in late April, none of us could imagine the rich archaeological resources that we would soon uncover.  The owner of the site first contacted Al and the Project over a year ago to tell us about the wealth of artifacts he’d found on his property.  Last winter, Lauren and Shawn visited the site as part of our Middle Woodland grant project, and they dug a few shovel tests and checked out the owner’s collection of artifacts.  What they found was very intriguing, and the site went to the top of the list to further examine during Year II of the Middle Woodland project.

The site is located on Jug Bay on the Patuxent River, an area occupied by Native people throughout prehistory and by Europeans beginning in the seventeenth century.  The river widens and slows here, forming a large tidal estuary.  This results in a diverse landscape of freshwater wetlands, forests and meadows that are filled with a wide variety of plant and animal species.  Beginning in the Late Archaic (ca. 2500 B.C.) and continuing through the Woodland time period, Jug Bay was heavily occupied and used for increasingly settled village life.  Think about it as a “supermarket of the prehistoric world,” perfect for a base camp.

The wooden stakes outline a house/wigwam pattern.

We are excavating on a bluff overlooking Jug Bay at Pig Point, so named for the “pig iron” that was shipped from a wharf located here in colonial times.  Our two open excavation blocks, located about 75 ft apart, have revealed two different activity areas occupied during the Middle and Late Woodland (beginning about 400 B.C.).  The block on top of the hill has revealed a series of postholes marking the footprint of a house, or wigwam.  The house was oval in shape, at least 20 ft in diameter, and was repaired or rebuilt in the same spot several times.  These rebuilds can now be seen in stratified layers, which is unique in Maryland.  Charcoal recovered from a hearth in the vicinity of one of the houses has been sent off for radiocarbon analysis, and we eagerly await the results.  Radiocarbon analysis gives us approximate dates for distinct features of the site.

The block just downhill from the living area seems to have been a cooking and working area.  We have uncovered no fewer than six firepits in the 10 ft square block, along with a number of freshwater clam shell middens, projectile points and stone tools, and hundreds of sherds of Middle and Late Woodland pottery.  Just last Friday, Al found a whole “pinch pot” sitting intact and upside down next to a firepit!  This small cup-like vessel would have been used to hold paint or other substances. 

A small shell-tempered pot found intact and upside down next to a fire pit

 The bone preservation in this excavation block is also amazing.  We recovered a number of bone awls, tools, and arrowheads between and within the firepits.  A carbon sample was also sent off from this block to try and nail down dates of occupation.

Selection of bone tools and projectile points found on site

We have only scratched the surface of the Pig Point site, and we are grateful to  the owners of the site for their generosity and patience as we slowly pick away at thousands of years of prehistory.  Check back to the blog or join our new Facebook group, as we will be frequently updating with new finds!

Quaker National Register Nomination featured on NPS website

Most of you have likely learned about some of the colonial Quaker archaeological sites that we have excavated over the years in southern Anne Arundel County, either through our newsletter articles, lectures, or published articles.  We believe that these Quaker sites, considered as a whole, are culturally significant and deserve recognition and protection.  The Secretary of the Interior, who is the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places, agrees with us.  The multiple-property National Register nomination that we prepared almost two years ago, entitled “Quaker Sites in the West River Meeting, A Quaker Community in Southern Anne Arundel County, Maryland, c. 1650-1785″ was approved for listing in the National Register of Historic Places at the end of December, 2008.  Listing on the National Register is largely honorific, but it does offer certain protections to listed sites.  A multiple-property nomination allows us the flexibility to add sites to the Register through this nomination as we discover more Quaker sites and determine their significance within the structure of the nomination.   We recently learned that the nomination was the online National Register highlighted property for the week of January 2, 2009, which is a huge honor.  The National Register’s weekly “Highlighted Properties” list can be viewed here, and the nomination can be viewed here.  History is alive and well here in Anne Arundel County!

Lost Towns excavations featured in Capital article

Photos from the Capital article, featuring volunteers Dave and Lois! Photos by Paul W. Gillespie

Our ongoing excavations of a prehistoric Native American site in the County were highlighted on Monday, May 4 in an article in The Capital newspaper!   You can read it here.  We are investigating the site as part of our Middle Woodland research project.  We originally began excavating it because investigations by archaeologists in earlier decades turned up evidence of habitation in the Middle Woodland period.  This site is proving to be quite interesting, and it may give some insight into the transitional periods between the Early, Middle, and Late Woodland periods of prehistory in this portion of the Middle-Atlantic.  Stay tuned for more information about this site as we uncover more, and if you are interested in helping us uncover the history of Anne Arundel County, contact Jessie Grow at volunteers@losttownsproject.org