JULY 3, 2004

From: Scott Beld
Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2004
To: Oxbow Archaeologists
Subject: Ponton Site - July 3, 2004

Hi Oxbow Archaeologist,

Happy Fourth of July! We made it out to the Ponton site yesterday. It was another beautiful day and we had a full day excavating. John O., Francis, Elisabeth (1st time at site – from Ann Arbor, originally from France), and I made it out (see Photo 1 in the photo gallery below). We continued to work on Feature 4 (see Photo 2 in the photo gallery) and I exposed Feature 5.

John, Francis, and Elisabeth spent most of the day excavating Sections 4 and 6 of Feature 4. They didn’t find much except nails, flat glass, some brick fragments and F.C.R. Elisabeth did find a brass ferrule (?) in Section 6, Level 4 (at 40 cm, see Photos 3 and 4 in the photo gallery). I excavated Level 5 (40-45 cm) late in the afternoon and recovered several artifacts, including a 1-piece brass button (see Photos 5 and 6 in the photo gallery), several pipe fragments (see Photo 7), two possible iron buckle fragments (see Photo 8), a couple iron object (fragments – see Photo 9), a Brown Transfer earthenware sherd, a brass fragment and two slate writing board fragments (see Photo 10).

I spent most of the day trowelling the top of Feature 5, my “big mess,” to get some pictures and see how big it really is, etc. (see Photos 11 and 12 in the photo gallery). This is a large feature, 4 or 5 meters across. I was pretty much able to figure out how I want to attack this feature – we’ll probably start on the north side and work into it. We’ll start excavating Feature 5 when we’re done with Feature 4 – maybe next Saturday. While I was trowelling I noticed a lot of artifacts on top of the feature, particularly nails and flat glass but some earthenware. I found on large stoneware sherd (ca. 10-15 cm) and the “artifact of the week” (unless we find something better tomorrow), another fragment of a brass filigree trade knife handle (see Photo 13 in the photo gallery). This may be the other side of the one John found on June 12 in Feature 4 (about 5 meters away). They date sometime from the late 1700’s to the early 1800’s.

Tomorrow (Monday) we plan on digging again for the holiday! I’m going to try to be at the Resource Building by 9:00 and to the site by 9:15-9:30. I should be at the site till late in the afternoon. Come out if you can!

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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