JUNE 26, 2004

From: Scott Beld
Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2004
To: Oxbow Archaeologists
Subject: Ponton Site - June 26, 2004

Hi Oxbow Archaeologists,

We made it out to the site yesterday (Saturday) and had a good day excavating – the weather was perfect again!

Dave and Marianne had to attend the new “river overlook” dedication in the late morning so they worked in the lab yesterday. DeeDee, Francis, Greg and I excavated at the site. I spent part of the day removing overburden from Feature 5 and gridding out the units over it (area in upper left behind Fea. 4 where Francis and Greg are excavating in Photo 1 in the photo gallery below). DeeDee, Francis, and Greg spent the day finishing Section 2 of Feature 4 (see Photo 2 in the photo gallery).

DeeDee and Greg excavated Level 5 (40-45 cm) of Section 2 (Feature 4). They recovered several earthenware sherds including Blue Transfer, Brown Transfer, and Handpainted, a pipe stem fragment, and a shell button (see Photo 3 in the photo gallery). The shell button is the first that we have found at the site! They also found a piece of slate that is possibly from a slate writing board, though it is about twice as thick as ones I’ve found in the past (see Photo 4 in the photo gallery).

Greg and Francis excavated Level 6 (45-50 cm) of Section 2 (Feature 4). They recovered several Brown Transfer and Annular sherds (see Photo 5 in the photo gallery). These probably go with the Brown Transfer sherds I found in Section 1 and the Annular sherds that John O. found in Section 3 at this level. They also found more pins (see Photo 6 in the photo gallery) as well as pipe bowl and stem fragments and a brass object (see Photo 7 in the photo gallery). The “Artifact of the Week” was found in this level – a complete (large) 5-hole bone button (see Photo 8 and 9 in the photo gallery). We’ve recovered several fragments of bone buttons, but this is the first complete specimen!

Level 7 (50-55 cm) was near the bottom of the feature and we only recovered a very small pipe bowl fragment, some small bone fragments, a little glass, a brick fragment and a Bayport chert flake. At Level 8 (55-56 cm) only traces of the feature remained and we only took a flotation sample at this level (no artifacts were noted).

We finished the day by photographing and drawing the profile of Feature 4 (see Photo 10 in the photo gallery).

This Wednesday we’ll plan on doing lab work and flotation samples at the RB. Next Saturday, we’ll plan on excavating at the site.

Hope to see you at the site.

Scott

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Scott G. Beld, Ph.D.
Research Associate II
The University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology
1109 Geddes Road
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1079
Phone: 734-764-0489 (UMMP Main Office)
734-763-9253 (My Office)
Fax: 734-936-1380
Email: sbeld@umich.edu
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