September 20, 2003

From: Scott Beld
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003
To: Oxbow Archaeologists
Subject: Web Site and Ponton Site - September 17 and 20, 2003

Hi Oxbow Archaeologists,

Karen got our web site up and running!!! You can get there one of two ways: 1) go to the CNC website (www.chippewanaturecenter.com) and on the front page there is a button with a picture of some earthenware (it’s in with the hours CNC is open etc.) or 2) go directly to the site by typing www.chippewanaturecenter.com\oxbow. This is still a work in progress – I’ll probably asking some of you to supply information for pages (Dave on the gaming pieces from Cater, Terry on faunal remains, etc.). I notice that I forgot to reduce the size of many of the pictures in the Cater and 20MD534 pages – I’ll try to do that soon.

We made it out to the site on Wednesday (Sept. 17) and Saturday (Sept. 20) this week and managed to excavate six units (see pontonmap 9-20-03.pdf).

On Wednesday, John H., Conrad, and I excavated unit 517R500. This unit didn’t have a lot of diagnostic material in it and the brick fragments and structural remains seem to be decreasing in frequency. We did find a fragment of Blue Edge earthenware and a pipe stem fragment (see 517R500 artifacts.jpg).

Saturday (Sept. 20) was the fall festival at CNC. Dave and Kevin manned our booth on Saturday and Marianne and Alex on Sunday. On Saturday, Marianne (morning), Greg and Lia (morning and afternoon), and Jim and friend Liz (morning) excavated at the site. We managed to get five units excavated on Saturday!

518R500 – This unit produced a biface tip (of Bayport chert) and a fragment of Old or Staffordshire Blue Transfer earthenware (see 518R500 artifacts.jpg).

519R500 – This unit produced quiet a few diagnostic artifacts including Old Blue, Brown and Red Transfer, Handpainted, and Blue Edge earthenware, a fragment of pressed glass, a olive glass flask fragment, and a stoneware fragment with traces of blue lettering (see 519R500 artifacts.jpg).

517R499 – Diagnostic artifacts from this unit included Blue, Brown and Red Transfer and Polychrome Handpainted earthenware, an embossed bottle fragment (with the letter “E” or “F”), and a scraper/spokeshave (Bayport chert) (see 517R499 artifacts.jpg).

518R499 – This unit has a square stain in the center that is possibly a postmold and another brown stain in the northeast corner (see 518R499a.jpg). Diagnostic artifacts included Old Blue, Light Blue, and Red Transfer earthenware, a ribbed/fluted pipe bowl fragment, a piece of cut brass, and a projectile point tip (see 518R499 artifacts.jpg).

519R499 – Diagnostic artifacts included Old Blue and Red Transfer, Handpainted, and Blue Edge earthenware, a ribbed/fluted pipe bowl fragment, two pipe stem fragments, and a lug handle from a stoneware jar.

We also recovered an open pontle bottle base, but I missed this when I was going through the bags to get artifacts to photographed. Pontle bottle bases are a good indicator of a pre-Civil War date.

You may recall that we found a couple door lock fragments on August 30. I’ve attached pictures of one of them (door lock front.jpg and door lock back.jpg). You can see the keyhole on the front and the lock mechanism on the back!

Plans for this week:

On Wednesday we’ll plan on excavating. I should be to the site by 5:00 P.M. (or earlier). If it rains we’ll be at the RB.

Saturday is a little up in the air. I may have to go on a mastodon dig in the southwest part of the state – I won’t know whether that will be Saturday or Sunday or whether it will happen or not till latter in the week. If I can make it to the CNC on Saturday we’ll plan on digging, if not I’ll probably have you wash the bags we’ve found over the last couple weeks (we’re starting to get a backlog and need to process some of these). I’ll send another email latter in the week about Saturday.

Also, we’ll be trying to get over to the site to excavate on as many Wednesday evenings as possible for the rest of the season.

Hope to see you at the site tomorrow evening!

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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