Liesl and Forest watching David's video during the shoot.

I have yet to start video recording my fieldwork. I should. I actually ‘think’ in still images rather than video, if that makes any sense. I really appreciate videos that others make of our excavations. Hamline’s marketing staff made a really nice video when I taught my Hamline History class in 2009. This year I have two students, KJ and Emily B., taking video. KJ has already produced a little ‘teaser’ from the beginning of class that I think is really fun. My colleague, Dave Davies, also made a quick video the day we were joined by Hancock Elementary students. David used his Ipad and some simple editing tools to produce his video in a couple hours. It’s pretty fascinating how Youtube, Ipads, and inexpensive video cameras are changing how we record our lives. It’s also impressive to me how much talent there is in the people around me. It sure makes life interesting.

KJ Filming

Neighborhood archaeology in action (from 2007)

Come dig with us. My students and I invite anyone interested in neighborhood history and archaeology to join our excavation at “Old Main” on Hamline University. You can come and watch, ask questions, or even help dig. We have opportunities for participants of all ages (including an art project). Children are particularly welcome, although we ask they be accompanied by an adult.

Deutsche Mark coin found at Old Main

Our dig at Old Main has uncovered a lot of building rubble and a few surprises. A coin turned up on the surface of the site during our Saturday open dig. While it’s not unusual to find loose coins just about anywhere in America, the particular coin we found was certainly unexpected. It’s from Germany. I don’t know anything about German currency, but I can google. From what I can tell the coin we found is a 2 Deutsche Mark minted in 1970 with with Konrad Adenauer (?) on the face. This currency apparently remained in circulation up through the introduction of the Euro in 2001.

To me, the real mystery is how this coin ended up in the dirt next to Old Main.  I can’t imagine that there have been that many German coins lost on Hamline campus. I’m willing to bet that the one we found may be the only one of its type anywhere on campus grounds. Could be that the person that lost it is still alive, maybe even still around. So if you know anyone that was on Hamline campus after traveling to Germany between 1970 and 2001, let them know that we may have found their lost memento.

Our other recent lost and found item is a bit older.

Toy car found during our Old Main dig.

My favorite find from our excavations last week is a small toy car. I think it’s made of pewter. I’m not sure what kind of car it is, but my guess is that this artifact was manufactured during the early 20th century just because the car looks like an early Model T or similarly old automobile. We found the car in a deposit that I think may be part of the upper rubble at Old Main. I had assumed that this rubble layer was a part of the construction/deconstruction activities of the 1880s. The car, however, forces me to reconsider my working hypothesis.

I am intrigued by the toy. It certainly doesn’t look like something a college student would have had. I wonder if it could have been lost by someone from the University community that had a young child on campus. The toy, no matter who once owned it, at least shows that the Old Main archaeological record includes random bits of Hamline history lost and now found.

Photo of the Hamline Fire Hall on the corner of Asbury and Taylor

Fires were a very big deal in the early history of the Hamline neighborhood. Two of our major excavation sites – the Hamline Methodist Church and University Hall – were both destroyed by fire. So having a fire department presence in the neighborhood would have been a very welcome addition to the community.

The Hamline Fire Station, Hook and Ladder Company No. 7 (later No. 23?), was built sometime around 1887. It was an impressive red brick building on the corner of Asbury and Taylor – where the Drew Fine Arts building now stands. According to the Sanborn Fire Insurance map of 1925, a horse barn was attached to the back (east) side of the building. The photo above was taken around 1900. A closer photo from the same time, shows additional details of the building front.

Hamline Fire Station (these two images are from the Minnesota Reflections Digital Library database)

I have been curious whether any remains of this building could be found. So I had some of my Excavating Hamline History students dig a couple of shovel tests near the northwest corner of Drew Fine Arts. The first shovel test produced a little clinker, ash, and coal and smattering of other artifacts. Not too exciting. The second test, however, produced a bunch of red brick fragments and other building debris. My guess is that these remains are from the fire station – a pretty cool find if correct. We found enough to justify more work here some time in the future.

First week of excavation at the Old Main site

Fieldwork has begun on the Hamline Village History Project for the 2011 season. This year we’re excavating at several sites. The main focus will be our dig at Old Main on Hamline campus. Our real interest in the Old Main site is not the building itself, but the possibility of finding remains of the original University Hall which was destroyed by fire in 1883. The University responded to this disaster by immediately rebuilding on the same footprint. The new University Hall, which we now call Old Main, was open for business a short 11 months after the fire. Old Main is now 127 years old and a focal point of our campus. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it’s Victorian Gothic style has a classic old campus charm.

It’s a great old building, but what about the first University Hall? Are there any remains of this structure buried in the ground adjacent to Old Main? The answer to this question is the goal of our excavations.

We have very little documentation of the original University Hall. The only image I have in my files is a black and white print. I need to find out more about this image from our University archivist, but the pine trees in the background suggest the artist hadn’t seen the actual building in it’s prairie setting. There were virtually no trees and certainly no stand of mature pines on campus grounds during the 1880s.

Print of University Hall as it would have looked around 1880-1883. The view is of the north (front) and west (side) walls. We are excavating along the west wall in the vicinity of the porte-cochère.

Our preliminary finds are promising – machine cut nails and creme bricks – consistent with an 1880s construction. We will be excavating a rubble layer that is just below the ground surface for the next couple of weeks. Below the rubble is a thick layer of sand and gravel and then undisturbed soil. There’s more building material laying on top of the undisturbed soil, which may actually be the 1880 ground surface. The question for me is whether we are finding stuff from the demolition of a burned out University Hall or the construction of Old Main? Evidence of fire would be obvious, but what about bricks, cut nails, and limestone? The same materials were used in both buildings. The condition of the limestone foundation after the fire is key. The material below the sand and gravel could be from the original construction if the builders of Old Main were able to use the foundation without needing to repair anything below ground.

We’re digging along the west side of the building where I’m hoping to find footings from the support posts of the carriage porch or porte-cochère. It would be an interesting bit of physical evidence reminding us of a time early in our campus history when horse carriages were a common mode of transportation.

Our other excavations this year include searching for the fire station on Taylor and Asbury, some backyard digs, and most exciting to me – excavation along Territorial Road. Watch this blog and my Flickr site for updates and photos.

The first field exercise of my class involves trying to find the site of Hamline's Science Hall (1887-1971) using historic photographs and maps. Dawn and Cassidy are measuring distances on the Sanborn fire insurance map from 1927 to help locate the building corners.

Kayla and Harrison shovel testing at Roosevelt Lake.

We wrapped up our Roosevelt Lake fieldwork on Friday. The two sites we found are very different from each other. One site is a single component lithic reduction site (a place where stone tools were made). The second is a multi-component camp site. This camp site was first occupied more than a thousand years ago – with people returning repeatedly even as recently as the 1800s. The lithic reduction site will be harder to date – but our best guess is that it is much older – perhaps occupied many thousands of years ago.

Jessica excavating Unit 1 at the lithic reduction site.

The lithic reduction site produced a very limited range of artifacts – mostly just flakes and other evidence of chipped stone tool production  We dug several shovel tests on this site – usually finding either nothing or just a flake or two. We placed a 1×1 m unit in the one area of the site that was relatively productive. I think the shovel test here had a whopping four flakes. The 1×1 proved to be well-located. We recovered some 50-75 flakes, a couple of core fragments, and a very crude biface.

Jessica and Kevin profiling Unit 1

What makes this lithic assemblage so interesting is that it appears to be all from a single flintknapping episode. All the artifacts are of Tongue River Silica and probably from just one original core. This assemblage offers the opportunity to study the behavior of an individual flintknapper. This kind of study is relatively rare amongst northern Minnesota sites – where most assemblages are often the result of many different occupations – and the chipped stone flakes produced by many different flintknappers.

Tongue River silica flakes from Unit 1, Level 2, NE quad

We don’t know how old this lithic reduction site is, but the lack of ceramics suggests it may be an Archaic tradition occupation. If it truly is ‘pre-ceramic’ and not ‘a-ceramic’ it could date anywhere between 3000 and 7000 years old.

Shovel Testing the Terrace Site

Our second site was located on a small, lake-side terrace. Our first shovel test on this terrace produced pottery from at least four different vessels, along with some flakes and FCR. Even more impressive than the number of vessels coming from this small test, is the diversity of pottery types. Most of the ceramic sherds came from vessels made in local styles, but some appear to be from vessel types most common in other areas of the state, including a “Oneota” like sherd that may have come from a southeastern Minnesota vessel. Although our ceramic identifications are tentative, this lake terrace site does support a hypothesis that Roosevelt Lake is part of a transportation corridor that provided a short cut between the Mississippi River and Leech Lake. The range of pottery types suggest people traveled along this corridor beginning at least 1200 years ago.

Sample of ceramic sherds recovered our Roosevelt Lake excavations.

This transportation corridor was important during the early historic period as well – when both Ojibway and Dakota peoples used this route. Our discovery of a musket ball and other metal artifacts may be evidence of this historic period travel.

I’m looking forward to getting a closer look at our finds in the lab. We should be able to provide better answers to our questions – and start posing new questions. One conclusion is clear, however. There’s a lot more work to be done in the Roosevelt Lake area. I’m already starting to think about future field seasons ‘up north’.

Students testing our first site

I’m ‘up north’, as we say in Minnesota. I’m leading my first Minnesota archaeology field school. We’ve been surveying the shoreline of Roosevelt Lake in Cass/Crow Wing Counties. I’m having a blast (and feeling really guilty that I’m not writing my Aniakchak report). We’ve found a couple of sites, had some fascinating exchanges with a group of Native American interns, and enjoyed being in the north woods.

Right now I’m sitting on the porch of a cabin near where we’re staying, listening to loons call and watching the mist move past the far shore.It’s pretty sweet.

My crew is great – a really fun bunch of students. They’re learning the ropes and working hard. We’re invited to dinner at a cabin across the lake, so I have to keep this short. Two more days of digging and then we’re off to our next project.

Hall of Science excavation class (2004)

This post is for Hamline students interested in registering for my fall class ANTH 3130: Excavating Hamline History.

This class is a unique opportunity to participate on an archaeological excavation as part of an interdisciplinary and collaborative project. It’s an interdisciplinary class because of the students. I ask each of you to contribute to the overall project goals based on either your major studies or other areas of interest and expertise that you have. Your contribution may be in a research area – where you apply your research skills to questions about the site, or the artifacts, or the historical background.

The first time I taught this course we excavated Hamline University’s original Hall of Science, a three story brick building constructed in 1887. I had a chemistry major that analyzed the chemical composition of the building’s bricks, a history major that collected oral history accounts from alumni and faculty, an economics major that analyzed 125 year-old bills and receipts from the building’s construction, and an archaeology student who analyzed the distribution of glass artifacts recovered in our excavations.

Other students contributed by presenting and interpreting our project in various media including designing a web site, filming a video, writing a play, printing posters, and putting together an exhibit. We also had an education major that brought over Hancock 6th graders so they could experience archaeology first hand. Our philosophy major examined the ethics of archaeology. And our environmental studies major looked at the intersection of environmental protection and cultural resource management laws.

The point is, you can pursue just about any idea you want. What you need is an ability to collaborate on other people’s projects and an enthusiasm for interdisciplinary archaeology. If this sounds interesting then write a brief comment to this post outlining what ways you could contribute to this fall’s class. Also tell me a little bit about yourself (including your major and year). Finally, I would like to know why you are interested in joining the class and what you hope to gain from your participation. You may want to look at posts tagged as “Hamline History” to get a better idea of what this class is all about. You can find these posts by clicking “Hamline History” under Categories on the right side of this blog. In particular, you may want to check out what students wrote the last time I offered the class.

If you take this class be prepared for a challenge, some fun, and a non-traditional educational experience.

Registration note: I recommend that everyone sign-up for a back-up class if your turn to register comes up before I have decided which of you to accept into this class.

Making Standard Bowls - Rachel and Alysia making all the bowls to a standard size and thickness. Rachel is using a round rock as a mold to insure all bowls are basically the same.

My Experimental Archaeology class ended the semester by designing and implementing their own experiments. I was very impressed with their results, especially given the limited time and facilities they had available. One group decided to explore the issue of temper in clay pots. They made four sets of bowls – one set tempered with sand, one with fiber (deer hair), one with shell, and one with grit. They fired their pots at Como Park, then brought them back to school to perform their experiments. They looked at differences in water absorption, thermal transference, and durability.

Bailey and Will organization the water absorption test. Theirs was a very simple experiment – they just filled up the bowls with an equal amount of water and timed how long until the water either evaporated or was absorbed into vessel walls. They did two trials – one with dry bowls, and one after the bowls had absorbed the first sample of water. It took between 13 and 45 minutes to complete the first trial, but over 5 hours to complete the second trial. I think the second trial was really important because it demonstrates that evaporation wasn’t a significant factor.

Bailey adding fiber temper to her clay. We used deer hair because I've seen Norton tradition pottery from Alaska tempered with caribou(?) hair. Bailey said it was hard to work the hair into the clay.

So what were their results?

The fiber tempered bowl was consistently the fastest absorber. The grit-tempered bowl was the slowest. The differences were fairly impressive. There was three hours difference between fiber and grit temper during the second trial. The sand and shell tempered bowls fell in the middle between the fiber and grit – with no substantial advantage between shell and sand.

Watching Water Evaporate: Bailey and Will undertaking the evaporation experiment. I believe watching water evaporate requires nerf guns for entertainment.

The second experiment evaluated the cooking performance capabilities of the different vessels. Alysia and Rachel used the stove top in their dorm kitchen (good thing there were no accidents) and timed how long it took to either bring water to a boil – or evaporate the water. The water in the sand tempered bowl was the quickest to heat up – with the water boiling after only 5 minutes and 35 seconds. The water in the other vessels never reached a rolling boil, but instead evaporated. The water lasted 6 minutes 30 seconds in the fiber tempered bowl, 10 minutes in the grit-tempered bowl, and 12 minutes in the shell tempered bowl.

For the final stage of their experiments on temper and vessel performance, the students decided to test for differences in durability. Nate used one set of bowls for this experiment and dropped them from different heights until they broke. The fiber tempered vessel was the most durable – although the differences were slight.

According to my students, if you wanted a clay vessel to store water, you’d temper it with grit (and definitely not hair). If you wanted a vessel that was efficient at bringing water to a boil when heated, you’d temper it with sand. And if you wanted a vessel that could best survive being dropped, you’d temper it with fiber. Intriguing results – especially for experiments that were conceived, designed, and implemented in just a few days.

I plan to write about some of the other experiments in my next post. Check out my Flickr site if you want to see more photographs.

Stove Top Experiments: Alysia and Rachel testing how well the vessels heat water. They reported that the hair tempered bowl smelled badly when heated.

Nate's Experiment - testing the durability of the bowls when dropped. We should have done this outdoors where the ground was a little more forgiving. Every vessel broke between 3 and 12 inches.

Nate's Results