This past week we finished up some units and opened up some
new ones. It was a tricky start to the week as we had just enough rain to keep
our geophysical guru Chet Walker from getting going. By Thursday and Friday, we
had more great data and new units to open up.
The units in Grids 1 and 2, 5, 6, and 7 were all closed out.
Last week we saw the nice wall-trench in Grid 7, the small posts in Grid 5, and
the single-set posts in Trey and Owen’s unit in Grids 1 and 2. This week, after
digging down past a meter, Anna, James, and Tim came down upon a big chunk of
daub and then a couple of single-set posts and a shallow pit feature. This was
as we had hoped given the magnetic signature of the anomaly investigated.
The unit dug by Grant and Ben in Grid 6 continued to be
confusing. At 70cm down they came down upon a fairly wide trench feature. This
could be a wall-trench, but it is wider than the one found in Grid 7 and does
not contain any evidence of posts. This trench feature doesn’t show up in the
magnetic or GPR data, but might have been masked by the single-set post
building apparent in those data.
As a way to clear up this confusion, we opened up another
1-m unit on the south side of this same anomaly. Within 20cm, Grant and Tim
came down upon some burned daub, a piece of burned cane, a smashed pot, and a
whole pot all sitting on a surface. This is obviously the floor to the building
that shows up in the gradiometer data that we somehow missed in the first test
unit excavated on it. The smashed pot looks to be a Wilbanks Complicated
Stamped vessel, while the whole pot is a plain jar with a strap handle. Grant
and Tim took the whole vessel out on Friday but still have the mass of sherds
to map and excavate. I doubt we will see the wall posts in this unit so we will
have to expand it to the south. We have great datable material and lots of
daub, now I need to confirm that the wall is made of single-set posts.
At the insistence of my graduate student, Amy, we opened up
1x2m unit on the edge of southernmost anomaly in Grid 6. It is unique in that
it is defined by magnetic lows instead of highs. I still suspect it is a
wall-trench building, but the proof is in the dirt. At this point, they have
encountered some stratigraphy that may be indicative of a wall-trench but we’ve
found no real trench features or posts. Perhaps tomorrow will tell. In this
unit, they did find a very nice discoidal made of stone. It came, as have most
of the artifacts in this unit, from the southernmost part where the suspected
trench may be.
Late last week we opened up a unit on the anomaly in Grid 4.
It is a little unusual, but should represent a wall-trench building.
Unfortunately, the crew excavated down past a meter and did not encounter any
features. Like the instance in Grid 6, we may have placed this unit poorly. We
did encounter a basket-loaded surface at around 40 to 60 cm. This anomaly is
located on the slope of a landscape feature that looks like a flood chute cut
through the site by the Etowah River. Those basket-loaded fills may represent
an attempt to level that chute or it may represent some other activity
associated with the modification or even creation of this feature. For now we
have moved on, but may return to this anomaly later.
We also opened and finished a 1-m unit in Grid 8 to
investigate the large anomaly there. As the crew excavated, we could see two
single-set posts that originated from the plowzone. We did not, however, find
the anticipated wall-trench building. We may try again with another test unit,
but for now we will move on to other anomalies in other parts of the site.
Chet really got going with data collecting on Thursday, with
the help of GPR guru Kent Schneider, and finished off all the grids we need by
Friday afternoon. I will show more of those data once we have them in digital
format, but they include two really interesting circular buildings and two very
large “longhouses.”
Friday before lunch we set in two units on a large circular
building west of Mound C. This building is on the scale of the reconstructed
earthlodge at Macon—big.
We also set in a unit on one of the large, rectangular
buildings. It is another big one, measuring some 30m on its longest axis.
This week we will continue working n the units we have
open. We also will start some 1-m squares on three anomalies west of Mound C
that look like single-set post buildings. Hopefully we will do the same on
another circular anomaly located north of Mound A and also a couple of
wall-trench buildings in one of the discrete neighborhoods we think we can see.
We were fortunate to have some great volunteers help us this
week, including CJ Jaramillo, Dana Russell and her girls, David Kasriel, Bob
and Deb Skarda, Dick Brunelle, and the incomparable Pat LoRusso. We all really
appreciate the help and really enjoyed meeting and working with them all…and we
all hope they will come out again to share in our efforts. This coming week we’ll
have some returning volunteers and many new ones, including the much
anticipated Boy Scouts.
This past week was my daughter’s turn to help us out. Like
my son, she had a great time digging, screening and driving the gator. She also
had a great time hanging out with the crew after work. She gave them all
nicknames that I am sure they will treasure for a long time to come.
Mama has been cooking away and trying to get us free (or
reduced price) tickets to all kinds of local attractions. So far we are set to
go to a minor league baseball game and a couple of local museums plus the Atlanta
History Center. While I went home yesterday, some of the crew enjoyed the Cartersville
Rodeo —making sure to soak up all the culture Cartersville has to offer.
It was a busy week after work too. On Tuesday Dr. Reilly
gave a lecture on Mississippian religion to the students, Wednesday we were all
treated to a lecture on geophysical prospecting from none other than Chet
Walker, and on Thursday I spoke to the Northwest Georgia Chapter of the Society
for Georgia Archaeology who had their monthly meeting at Etowah. That latter
meeting brought in a huge crowd of about 90 people. As always happens when I
come to Cartersville, people were anxious to hear about what we are doing and
what we are finding. Saturday I spoke for the Etowah Day of Discovery for Kids
hosted at the park before the fine folks from the Waring Lab of the University
of West Georgia organized a mock dig and staff from the park lead tours and demonstrated
Native American games and weapons.
We all ended the week tired, but it is a good tired.
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