August 3, 2002

From:   Scott Beld
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2002
Sender:   Oxbow Archaeologists
Subject: Ponton Site - August 3, 2002

Hi Oxbow Archaeologists,

    We made it out to the Ponton site on Saturday and excavated five units (see MAP - AUGUST 3, 2002). John O., Marianne, Dave, Kevin, John H. and I were at the site. We started the morning excavating on the R480 line. As we are proceeding east on the site fewer structural elements (brick fragments, nails, and flat glass) are being recovered. There is still some earthenware and a fair amount of prehistoric material (flakes and fire cracked rock).

515R480. John O., Marianne, and Kevin excavated this unit. Decorated earthenware included a fragment of a Red Transfer double curved cup, Brown Transfer, and a Polychrome Handpainted sherd (note the red stem - see 515R480).

520R480. Dave and John H. excavated this unit. Decorated earthenware included Blue Edge. A spokeshave made of Bayport chert (associated with a prehistoric occupation) was also recovered (see 520R480) and all of the units are producing fairly large numbers of flakes and fire cracked rock.

505R475. John O. and I excavated this unit in the afternoon. Decorated earthenware included Blue Transfer, Brown Transfer, Polychrome Handpainted (note the "apple" green leaves - this is unusual at Ponton so far and is a later variety probably introduced about the time of the site), Blue Edge, and a couple sherds of Redware. See 505R475.

510R475. I excavated this unit. Decorated earthenware included Old or Dark Blue Transfer, Brown Transfer, Red Transfer (including one frag. possibly from a "London" form cup), Polychrome Handpainted, and Blue Edge. See 510R475.

515R475. I excavated this unit. Decorated earthenware included Brown Transfer, Handpainted Polychrome, and Annular/Mocha. I also recovered two white clay pipe stem fragments (they are still very dirty in the photo - see 515R475). At the bottom of the plow zone I recovered a large fragment of a brass kettle or pail. This is about the first piece of brass from the site (we may have also recovered a small fragment in one of the earlier units) and this seems to be a difference between Ponton and the wigwam sites across the river (Cater and 20MD534). As you will recall at those sites we were constantly recovering small fragments of kettles that had been cut up to make ornaments, etc. The fragment from Ponton is much larger than those from the Native American occupations.

We've now reached the edge of the site area that we identified from the surface collection. The density of material has definitely dropped off - particularly structural elements - but we are still recovering some material. Ultimately we will probably want to run a line or two of units farther to the east (but that probably won't be this year).

Next Saturday, we'll either excavate the northern row of units (525R line) or start excavating the west half of the site (R505 line). We'll do the northern units if it doesn't rain a lot this week. The ground is sloping down to the north and these units will probably be too wet to dig if we get much more rain. Wednesday we'll plan on doing flotation and washing 1/8" screen bags.

Hope to see you at the site.

Scott

Hit Counter