September 6, 2003

From: Scott Beld
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003
To: Oxbow Archaeologists
Subject: Ponton Site - September 6, 2003

Hi Oxbow Archaeologists,

We made it out to the site last Saturday (9-6-03) and had a good day excavating! John O., John H., Marianne, Kevin, Jim, Conrad and I were there.

We started the morning excavating unit 516R500 on the west side of the 515R500 5x5 m block. I gridded out another 5x5 m block (520R500) to the north – the test units indicated that there might be another feature in the northern part of this block.

The rest of the day was spent excavating four units on the west side of the 515R495 5x5 m block to trace the edge of the large feature/stain extending from the 510R500 and 515R500 5x5 m blocks. We are near the east edge of the feature and will try to excavate the 3 units directly to the east of Saturday’s units tomorrow – this should give us the edge of the feature. It is unclear what it is at this point – it has a very irregular shape.

I’ve included a picture of the decorated earthenware I recovered from unit 517R494 in the afternoon. Note the fragment of Green Edgeware in the upper left corner. This is the first piece that I’ve seen from our excavations (Art had picked up a couple fragments when he surface collected the site). This variety of earthenware occurs on sites up till about 1836 (a study of store records from Ontario indicates that it was last imported in 1836). Other earthenware in the photo includes Blue Edge, Polychrome Handpainted, and Old or Staffordshire Blue, Light Blue, Red, Purple, and Brown Transfer Print.

I’ve done a little more research, in addition to Dean’s, on the artillery button we found a couple weeks ago. The variety we found apparently dates to the late 1820’s to early 1840’s. The backmark, “• SCOVILLS • / WATERBURY”, mainly occurs in the 1840-1850 period though one reference I have notes that this backmark occurs on buttons from an 1837 order for the Army of Texas!

Tomorrow (9-13-03), we’ll plan on excavating at the site. I’d like to excavate the 3 units in the 515R495 5x5 m block to finish exposing the big (messy) feature – then we’ll start to finish the 515R500 5x5 m block. We’ll probably also be excavating at the site Wednesday evening – I finished the backlog of flotation samples last Wednesday!!!!!

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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