Etowah Archaeological Field School: Week 4

Most of our efforts shifted to the west side of Mounds A and C this week, thanks to some new data Chet Walker collected for us on a set of anomalies in that part of the site. However, things kept going on the east side as well.

Grant and Tim continued mapping and removing the broken vessel fragments in Grid 6 and then expanded to the south in hopes of finding some posts to go with what looks like a house floor. They exposed more of the broken pots, mapped and remove them and, on Friday, came down on some things that might be posts. Hopefully, things will be clearer on Monday. In addition to the whole vessel—which Grant emptied of its soil fill during the week and found nothing inside—we should have major portions of a few more vessels to reconstruct from this house. That plus some good carbon samples should allow us to date it pretty securely.

Amy and Will continued working on 1x2m unit that we placed to investigate a unique anomaly also Grid 6. Unlike most of the other anomalies, this one is defined on low magnetism rather than high magnetism.

The unit revealed some pretty confusing stratigraphy of which we never really made clear sense. It appears that some pits were dug in this area, but may have been intruded upon by natural disturbances like tree roots and rodent burrows. Maybe if we study the profiles long enough we will make some sense of it all.

On the west side, we continued the units in Grid 19 where the circular structure is located. It is a big one and very clear in the gradiometer data. 

Tara and Anna finished a unit on its east side where they came down on the very edge of a daub concentration. Just to the east of it they found a couple of nice posts and a small pit feature. On the west side of the building, Trey and Julia excavated a unit that came down squarely on an arc of daub (that fit perfectly what the gradiometer showed). Just to the east of that daub concentration they found two nice, single-set posts not unlike the ones Anna and Tara found. Their close association with the daub arc makes it pretty convincing that the building was made of single-set posts and then its walls were daubed with clay. We got a few Late Wilbanks phase diagnostics (1325-1375) just above the daub suggesting it may date to that phase. Hopefully we captured some carbon in the posts that we can data as well.

Grids 16, 17, and 18 all have very clear anomalies that should represent single-set post buildings. Brenden, Danny, and others excavated a unit in Grid 17 and came down on a very nice daub surface. 

It covers the southern ¾ of the unit’s floor and was within 20 cm of the surface. You can see some wood and grass impressions in the daub. Immediately to the north of that surface Brenden uncovered and excavated a relatively small (ca. 10cm diameter) but deep post (almost 50 cm). The fun thing about this post is that you can see its charred remains trapped within the collapsed daub wall just next to it. This really looks like the wall burned and fell to the inside of the house. Brenden found some Wilbanks diagnostics with this building as well.

James, Danny, and Nile worked on a unit in Grid 16 that looked very similar. In this case, we placed the unit on off the edge of the magnetic highs of the anomaly hoping to capture the outer wall. 

They diligently dug 70cm down only to find that we were likely too far outside of the building to find posts. They did, however, find some cool artifacts including a portion of a broken celt, two pipe bowl fragments (one stone, one clay) and some more Late Wilbanks phase diagnostic pottery. They opened up a unit immediately to the west on Friday with the hope of encountering the structure’s wall. In that unit they came down on a daub concentration and hopefully there will be posts nearby.

We had the pleasure of hosting a visit from Georgia State Senator Jason Carter and his family, including Jim Langford of the Coosawattee Foundation. We set up a unit in Grid 18 over the third of these structures. 

Jason’s two boys had a great time excavating and screening and found several pieces of a Ruddercomb Incised vessel in the midden just above a daub concentration. I suspect this house is a lot like the ones Brenden and James et al. examined. It is interesting that all three seem to date to the Late Wilbanks phase as I expected them to date to the Brewster phase (AD 1475-1550). Hopefully the Carter house (as we will now call it) and the one being worked on by James and Danny will be done early next week.

These three buildings do a pretty good job of confirming that the Type 1 anomalies Chet identified really are single-set post buildings packed with daub. This coming week I am anxious to spend more time on some anomalies that I think should be wall-trench buildings.

In the middle of the week we opened up two new units on a large complex of anomalies in Grid 20. Taken together they seem to represent one large building not unlike ones Larson excavated beneath Mound C. 

I suspect, like what Larson found, we will eventually see that there are several buildings in this anomaly. Trey and Julia began a unit on the building’s south side while Anna and Tara stared on its northern side. Tara and Anna came down on an interesting daub surface that covers the entire unit floor. 

I believe they have found some Etowah period (AD 100-1200) diagnostic pottery above that daub surface. Instead of digging through that daub, I have asked them to open up another unit immediately north of their original unit. I hope that we will be able to make more sense of this side of the building once they finish it.

Trey and Julia came down upon a dark and fairly artifact-rich feature on the unit’s south wall.

In it they found plenty of Late Etowah phase (AD 1100-1200) diagnostics as well as part of a ground stone artifact (maybe a celt) and a worked stone piece that might be part a stone gorget. This feature continues into the south wall of the unit so we cannot see its shape. It looks like it might be a trench, but we will not know until we expand to the south. One post is visible at the bottom of the feature and in its profile.

The surprise of the summer (so far) has come out of the units in Grid 15. As the gradiometer data shows, this looks like a large, rectangular building. We located units at its edge on both the north and south sides. 

On the north side, Owen and James came down on a solid clay surface that was red in the south and orange in the north, split by a narrow band of brown sandy soil. On the south, Luis and Ben found the same thing except they exposed mostly red clay. Puzzled, I got out my archaeological crutch—a one-inch push core. Using it, I discovered that the clay surface extended a few meters north and south of my units and disappeared. More specifically, it sloped down until I couldn’t find it in my cores.

Suspecting we were dealing with a clay platform and not just a building, I asked Owen and Johann (with the help of Boy Scouts, Josh, Mr. Blair, and Barbara) to extend the northern unit through the clay platform while Luis, Ben, and Debbie were tasked with extending their unit to the south in hopes of exposing that outer slope of the platform.

Below is the final profile of the northern unit and the effort it took the create it.

You can see the homogenous red clay layer slope down and disappear beneath an orange layer that over laps it. In between is that brown sandy soil. Beneath it all is an incredible blue-gray silty clay layer with lots of charcoal flecks and some artifacts. At the very bottom the red clay subsoil was finally found (at 140cm). The red clay surface looks like the first stage of this platform. I think the brown sandy soil is wash from its exposed surface that went down the flank. The orange clay represents an expansion of the platform after it had been in use. Interestingly, there are no plow scars visible on the surface of the platform, which tells me that its summit was not destroyed by plowing. It also tells me that the expansion of the platform only happened laterally—they wanted a bigger surface. The blue-gray layer at the bottom is a puzzle. It was put there by people and its color looks like something that was taken from a submerged setting. The fact that it is flecked with charcoal and has artifacts throughout suggests that people used it before it was deposited at the base of this platform.

The southern expansion is still going, but one good looking charcoal-filled feature is visible on the platform surface as are a couple of potential posts. The presumed slope of the orange expansion hopefully will be exposed tomorrow. Then we will investigate the features present on the summit and try to understand when and why this platform was built.

To say the least, it was another great week. The crew is doing a great job and we had more wonderful volunteers to help us out. Debbie Wallsmith and her son Danny Congleton along with Mr. Blair and Nile Freeman came back out for more. We had Boy Scouts from several troops brought by Amy Morris (Jacob Morris and Bradley Pilcher along with friend Mark LaSalle) and Shea McClure (Jordan Mercure and Jackson Counts). Barbara Flack helped dig that deep unit on the platform. Maricruz Salizar came out on Friday and we somehow lured John away from volunteer grass cutting at Etowah to dig with us. As I already mentioned, we also hosted Georgia state Senator Jason Carter, his parents, and two sons as well. Although I missed my teacher and friend, David Hally also paid a visit to the site on Friday.

This coming week is going to be even better, even busier with guests and volunteers. With only two weeks left, the push is on to get as much done as we can.