Season Two Has Begun!

That's right, after ten months away, we've returned to the Fairbanks House for another season of excavation! This summer is sure to bring some interesting finds as we're targeting a number of features around the property, including the cobble-floored outbuilding and cellar discovered last year and a shed that once stood on the northern side of the house. Our first goal is to excavate the cobble-floored outbuilding completely to determine its size, function, and periods of use/disuse.

In order to fully explore the outbuilding, we will excavate a number of units next to one another, following the foundation and floor we uncovered last season. This method will allow us to locate the edges of the feature. Although we've only had a single full day and two half days of excavation thus far, the first unit has not disappointed. Much like the test pits from the '09 season, the unit contains a large deposit of soil that is chock full of 19th-century material, including ceramic sherds, nails, and glass. Also consistent with our previous excavations is the oddly high number of buttons recovered from the area. So far, approximately 15 buttons have been found in our single 2x2m unit -- brass gilt buttons, porcelain buttons, faceted glass buttons, and iron buttons.

Also of interest was a deposit of hundreds of thin brown glass fragments discovered today in one corner of our unit. The pieces come from a large number of glass bottles with thin circular necks and rounded, not flat, bottoms. Judging by the number of bottle necks found, the deposit contains at least 30 bottles, and maybe more. Over the course of the week, we will continue excavating this unit, hopefully reach the cobble-floor, and in the process, reveal more of the foundation line. Stay tuned for more!



Above: Alex removes topsoil from the first unit of the season

Below: A bottle neck peeks out from the dirt (left); China, Brittany, and Alex hard at work (right)

Final Update for the Season (a bit late...)

After six productive weeks in the field, we have come to the end. Granted, that end was about three weeks ago, but no matter.

Our final week in the field yielded some interesting finds. We spent the time excavating in the bottom of the cellar feature while also choosing to extend the northernmost unit by another 50cm. It was a fortunate decision because in the northern wall of the extended unit, we discovered what is almost certainly a portion of the northern wall of the stone-lined cellar. In addition, we've exposed a greater portion of the western wall (visible in the picture below on the left). Towards to bottom of the cellar, against both the western and northern walls, we found two caches of large fragments of earthenware vessels (butter pots, milk pans, etc). One of these deposits can be seen in the video clip below.

Above: left - Volunteer archaeologists Andrew Griffin and Cory Hodson excavating in the bottom of the cellar feature; right - video clip of an earthenware cache next to the northern wall

At this point, the future of the cellar feature is uncertain. As it is constricted to the east by a live gas line and the existing driveway and to the south by a water drain, we may have done all we can do with this feature. That said, we've recovered such a wealth of information, in terms of landscape use, building construction, and artifact use, that this isn't necessarily a problem. Without the necessity of re-excavating approximately 6 cubic meters of backfilled dirt, we will have more time in future seasons to devote to the other areas on the property, namely the outbuilding to the north of the house and the shed-like feature to the south of the house that we had initially planned to investigate this season.

With the field season completed, the processing begins. Artifacts will be cleaned, sorted, and cataloged. All of our paperwork will be typed up and all of our drawings will be digitized in Adobe Illustrator and other digital editing software. Research will begin into the artifacts and their relation to the property, all in preparation for the writing of an interim site report. This report will be placed on file with the Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) and the Fairbanks House library. Basically, although we're no longer digging, the real work has truly begun.

As a closing note, I would like to personally thank a number of people without whom this project would never have gotten off of the ground. Thanks very much to Dr. Mary Beaudry of Boston University for her close guidance throughout this project and into the present. Thanks to Richard Lowry for connecting me with the Fairbanks House. Thanks to Dr. Alex Service and the Fairbanks Board for their continued enthusiasm and support. Thanks to Ellen Berkland, city archaeologist of Boston, for her assistance both in the excavation and processing of artifacts. And lastly, a hearty thank you to my wonderful volunteers, especially Maggie Burr, Josh Howard, Alex Keim, and Adrien Smith, for their consistent service, interest, positive attitudes, and willingness to put up with me.

It was a fantastic summer and we look forward to future work at the Fairbanks House and beyond. Keep an eye on the blog for more updates about the archaeology of the country's oldest timber-framed house!

End of Week 3: The Times They Are A-Changin'

Although we faced rain-shortened days yesterday and today, progress continues. Because this is the official half-way point of the excavation, there have been a few changes made to our overall goals for the season.

Above: Updated dig map (red units are planned, green units are in progress, and blue units are finished)

For starters, we've decided to open up a unit in the western yard of the property to provide a 'control' unit of sorts. We're interested in what lies beneath the raised mound of sand next to driveway, but since we can't actually dig under it, we'll move west into the yard area. We've also opened up a unit between a finished driveway test pit and the planned yard unit. This pit straddles the base of the raised mound and the yard; we hope to document the transition between these two components of the property (see the photo below).

Above: In the foreground, volunteer archaeologists Maggie, Cory, and Andrew work on the test pit at straddling the base of the driveway mound. In the background, volunteer archaeologist Josh works on the last driveway test pit. (In case you can't tell, the Fairbanks House [c. 1641] is the one on the left and the curator's house [c. 1912] is on the right).

We also plan on expanding the subterranean feature two-fold by placing 3 1x1m units to the west of the existing units. Hopefully this will give us a clearer picture of the feature's characteristics.

Lastly, we will move to the area north of the Fairbanks House where our ground-penetrating radar survey revealed a possible buried living surface. We will place two units in this area with the purpose of exposing this potential feature and providing crucial information for planning the future stages of excavation at the Fairbanks House property.

As forecasts turn a bit drier and we introduce a new set of volunteer archaeologists, check back next week for more updates from the dig...

Left: volunteer archaeologist Alex excavates the third unit of our subterranean feature.

Before the fun begins...

As this is our inaugural post, I thought I'd offer some insight into what we've been working on this summer and what our plans are for the Fairbanks excavations.

The first component of the project was to acquire and assess the artifacts that were excavated from around the house foundation in the 1970s as part of two conservation projects. Many of these artifacts were still sitting in their original bags, which had grown old and dusty over the course of 30 years of neglect. Some of the bags contained finds that hadn't even been washed! For the past four weeks, I've been working in the lab with a number of intrepid undergraduate and graduate volunteers from BU and other Boston-area institutions to wash and catalog these archives. Although we made a sizable dent in the finds recovered in 1973-1974, there is still a lot of work to be done in the lab before the collections can be properly analyzed. Much of this additional work is planned to take place in the Fall.

In addition to the lab work required by the artifacts from previous excavations, we will soon have a fresh load of artifacts to be washed/cataloged/analyzed. Beginning next Monday, July 6, we will be heading out into the field for our first season at the Fairbanks House! Our excavations this summer will move away from the immediate area of the house to other spots on the Fairbanks House property. We have targeted three locations for excavation. First, we will excavate a number of small test-pits in the area just west of the existing driveway. Our purpose here is to investigate whether or not the space would be suitable for an expansion of the existing driveway. Our second target is roughly 15m north of the house. This location was determined by a 2003 geophysical survey that discovered a possible buried living surface (i.e., the floor of a small outbuilding) on that spot. Lastly, we will be placing some test-pits approximately 8m south of the eastern portion of the house. This area was chosen because, after examining some old photographs of the site, a small shed was seen that is no longer standing. Our hope is that we will find some evidence of its existence and original function.

Planned excavation map for 2009 season -- small red squares are test pits,
building circled in orange to the north is the Fairbanks House (c. 1641) and the
building circled in orange to the south is the curator's house (c. early 20th century)

This summer's excavations will be carried out by myself along with a collection of volunteers ranging from high school, college, and graduate students to retirees and everything in between. Without their help, this dig would not be the exciting project that it is!

With the record-setting rains of June, we hope that July and August will bring sunny skies and fertile archaeology! Check back for periodic updates from our first season of excavations at the Fairbanks House...