JULY 31, 2004

From: Beld, Scott
Sent: Sunday, August 01, 2004
To: Oxbow Archaeologists
Subject: Ponton Site - July 31, 2004

Hi Oxbow Archaeologists,

We made it out to the Ponton site yesterday. Only John O. and I were there and we continued excavating Feature 5.

John continued excavating the two probable postmolds in 516R493. He started the east half and finished three levels. I drew the profiles of 516R498 and began excavating 516R497 – I finished five levels (see Photo 1 in the photo gallery below).

We didn’t find a lot of artifacts yesterday. The section of Feature 5 I was working on contained several nail fragments and I found a piece of grit tempered pottery (cordmarked).

John found a Green Edge sherd in the south “postmold” (see Photo 2). This is only the third or fourth sherd of Green Edge we’ve found at the site. It probably comes from a plate. This type of decoration occurs in the early nineteenth century and went out of style in the mid-1830’s. It certainly originates from the 1830’s Ponton occupation. John also found a bone fragment (radius of a small-medium mammal??) – I’ll send pictures of it to Terry to identify.

This Wednesday we’ll plan on lab work (flotation and washing artifacts) at the Resource Building. Next Saturday we’ll plan on excavating at Ponton, as usual.

Hope to see you at the site.

Scott

P.S. I may be hard to get in touch with this week as I’ll be on vacation for much of the week.

********************************************************************
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
*********************************************************************

Hit Counter