JULY 10, 2004

From: Scott Beld
Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004
To: Oxbow Archaeologists
Subject: Ponton Site - July 10, 2004

Hi Oxbow Archaeologists,

We made it out to the site yesterday and had a good day excavating. John O., Dave, Francis, Kevin, Greg, Lia, and I made it out. We finished Feature 4 and began excavating Feature 5 (see Photo 1 in the photo gallery below).

John and Francis excavated the last two levels of Feature 4. Level 6 (45-50 cm) had quiet a few artifacts (see Photo 2 in the photo gallery), including an iron bolt (see Photo 3), annular, handpainted, red transfer, and stoneware sherds (see Photo 4), several pipe fragments (see Photo 5), and a couple bone fragments. Level 7 (50-55 cm) was the bottom of the feature. A blue edge sherd (see Photo 6) and a pin were recovered. This was the last level of the feature. We still don’t know what it was but I now suspect that it may date later than the Ponton occupation (1830’s) on the basis of three artifacts – 1) one of the nails recovered last week appears to be a wire nail (though it is badly rusted) and not a square nail; 2) the Blue Edge sherd we recovered yesterday is a variety called “Blunt Arrow” that is common on sites in the 1840’s and 1850’s; and 3) one of the bones we found yesterday appears to be quiet new (or at least not as exposed to the elements, I’ll send pictures to Terry as I can’t identify it). I suspect that most of the material we found in the feature was laying around on the surface and got incorporated into the feature fill as secondary fill. One of the last things I did in the Feature 4 was to dig a stratigraphic test in the bottom of the feature excavation. This indicated a yellow/orange slightly gravelly fine sand (60-104 cm) followed by a reddish brown gravel and sand (104-126 cm). At the bottom of my test (126 cm) was an olive silty clay.

We also began excavating Feature 5 yesterday (see Photo 7 -- with Francis, Kevin and John -- and Photo 8 – me photographing sections of the feature taken by Dave). Dave, Kevin, Greg and Lia deserve a special thanks for screening the scrapings from the top of this feature – a lot of nothing but flat glass and nails. Greg and Lia excavated two levels in unit 517R495, Kevin, John and I excavated three levels in unit 516R496, and Francis excavated a level in unit 516R498 (on the corner of the feature). John found a couple stoneware sherds (see Photo 9) and Greg found a flake, both in the first level at the top. Other than that the levels were STERILE – lots of gravel. My initial impression of this feature is that it may be quiet deep (over a meter – most of the fill on the surface of the feature seems to be derived from the reddish brown gravel and sand layer with quiet a bit of the olive silty clay that I saw below 1 meter in my stratigraphic test) and that there may not be a lot in it (until we get to the bottom??). On Saturday we saved all the dirt for flotation, but will start to be more selective next week – we’ll save samples from organic layers not the gravel layers.

There are several things happening this coming week for the Oxbow Archaeologists. Wednesday is Volunteer Appreciation Day at CNC, so we won’t meet for our evening lab session but will go to the picnic and boat ride at the tridge. On Thursday several of the Oxbow Archaeologists will help Kyle and Dennis with a program for Steve Matthews' summer enrichment course. Finally, next Saturday we will continue to excavate at the Ponton site. We’ll work on Feature 5 and maybe start some more plow zone excavation (depending on how many people show up)!

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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