SEPTEMBER 24, 2005

From: Beld, Scott
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005
To: Oxbow Archaeologists
Subject: 20MD263 - September 26, 2005

Hi Oxbow Archaeologists,

Marianne, Dave, Nik, and I made it out to the site Saturday and continued excavating the 2x3 m unit at 110 m west. We excavated the 20-25 cm level and continued to find numerous grit-tempered pottery (GTP) sherds, flakes (mainly Bayport chert), and bone fragments. Most of the bone fragments this week seemed to be deer, though we did note a few fish vertebra and I saw one sturgeon dermal plate. The pottery seems to be from the same vessel as we were finding last week and a couple of the sherds I cleaned in the evening had trailing/incising (see Photo 1).

In the afternoon, we began to excavate the 25-30 cm level. Nik and I found GTP, flakes, and bone fragments in 2S-110W. Later in the afternoon I decided to trowel and piece plot unit 3S-110W (25-30 cm) – see Photo 2 – and found a feature. The feature is a dark grayish-brown stain in a mottled brown and dark grayish-brown silt/very fine sand matrix. There was an area with ash and charcoal in the northwest corner of the feature. I saved some of the charcoal for potential dating (there was also a little charred material on the interior of one of the bodysherds – so we’ll have to watch for that when we’re washing them in the lab). Almost all of the plotted artifacts were found outside the feature. When I went over the photographs in the lab I couldn’t see the feature in the previous level in the adjacent units (see Photo 3 for comparison to the drawing). I suspect that the feature begins at 25-30 cm. One of the first things we’ll do next Saturday is to re-trowel the floor of the other units to see if we can see any trace of the feature at 25 cm!

I will be at CNC this Wednesday, so we will definitely meet in the evening. If it's not raining we’ll wash our 1/8” screen bags and screen the remaining dirt samples from Ponton, Feature 5. If it rains, we’ll wash artifacts inside.

Next Saturday is Archaeology Day at the State Museum (11 A.M.-3 P.M.) for anybody who is interested in going to Lansing. We don’t have a display this year, but we will be hosting the MAS Fall Workshop on Sunday, October 23.

I’ll be digging at 20MD263 next Saturday – weather permitting. Hopefully we will be able to expose the rest of the new feature!

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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