Midweek Update - Last week of the Field School
- Saturday we had our open house - many people came to the sites to see what we've been working on - friends, family, neighbors from around the Busseyville area, land owners, and professional archaeologists alike. We gave tours, showed off our artifacts and features, showed photos, and cooked a lot of food.

Dr. Jeske showing off one of our features at CBHC

Rick explaining the features at KCV

Excavations continued - pretty much everyone is working on features - At Crescent Bay we're also uncovering some old features to get a better idea of what is going on with two houses that we located in 2010. We're working on uncovering the east wall of a wigwam style house in the center of the site and the southern portion of a longhouse in the northern portion of the site

Postmolds at CBHC

Basined out Pit

Dark soil stains - most likely the remains of a pit 

And at KCV we're still working on taking down feature 12-06. After today we're almost to the bottom. The feature is getting more complicated as the different zones are overlapping.

Large Scapula (sholder blade) - likely from a deer

Antler

A layer of fish scale that covered almost the entire feature - then below that there was another layer of the same size

Week 4

Another productive and instructive week
- At the Crescent Bay Hunt Club, we're finally down into features. Several post molds are showing up in the northern units as well as some pits. We're also uncovering some features that we found in previous seasons.

Note the darker circular area in the southwest (bottom left) corner of the unit - This is likely a refuse pit - 

Here is a postmold

Here we have a series of post molds in a line - possibly part of a wall - we'll have to dig down to see for sure

- At the Koshkonong Creek Village we've finished up several more features including numerous post molds, a few shallow basins, and a very large cylindrical pit. We also started digging Feature 12-06, it is another large cylindrical basin.

Profile of F12-06

F12-01 is finally done here is the basin of the west half

We got a new supervisor at KCV this week - Tess 

We recovered Perrot Punctate this week - the Thunderbird motif can be seen here 

Here is another pottery design that we found

Here is a closeup of the profile of F12-06 - there are several zones of ash and at the base numerous layers of fish scales

Here is a rare midweek update!

Monday - After a short rain delay we got back out digging. - The CBHC crew is working on digging down to the base of the plow zone to see if any features are popping out and making good progress while the KCV crew is working through our features. F12-01 is still going down and F12-04 and F12-32 are ready for flotation.

(Bill and Margo Excavating CBHC Unit 12-08)

(Nelli Cleaning the walls of CBHC Unit 12-12)

(David and Dan Mapping F12-04 at KCV)

(A Layer of Fish Scales found in KCV F12-01)

(The Whole Group at the end of a long, successful day)

Tuesday -  Today we were able to excavate all the way down to the bottom of F12-01 at KCV - we're now about a meter below the ground surface. We also excavated a post mold and got a lot of mapping done and flotation samples taken for some of our other features.

At Crescent Bay they're almost down to the bottom of the plow zone. If they have any features they should be coming out soon.

Kerri, David, and Sarah in F12-01's Feature Trench... before we finished taking it down

Wednesday

During our first break of the day, the crews swapped sites so that they could get a look at what the other crews had been working on.

[After Seth declared his allegiance to Gryffindor the KCV crew(or at least the TA) decided to go the other way]

Today at KCV Team Voldemort got the wall of F12-01 cleaned up, started excavating F12-26, and in the process ended up finding another post mold [and another one came out on Thursday].

(impromptu shot of KCV's F12-01 profile - in total, about 1.2 meters below the ground surface

[Trailed pottery found in F12-26]

At Crescent Bay it looks like several features are starting to appear in several units including several post molds and what is looking like a large pit. - No pictures yet but they're coming

[As Seth likes to say Dig Dig Dig Dig]

Thursday

Toady at Crescent Bay almost all of the units finished getting down to the B-Horizon - several features were defined and photographed (will be posted later - check back at this post later this weekend)

The KCV crew made good progress - we photographed the profile of F12-01 and finished up the two new post molds and we bisected the shallow basin F12-26.

Overall very good progress by both groups

more pictures enroute

Monday - We spent the day mapping a few archaeological sites and walking more fields before we learned how to make 2m x 2m excavation units.


Tuesday - Today some of us went up to the Crescent Bay Hunt Club (CBHC) site to begin to clear brush for our excavations while others of us headed over to the Koshkonong Creek Village (KCV) site to continue excavating features that were started earlier this spring by volunteers.
     Ended early for voting.

(at KCV From Left to Right - Sarah, Kerri, and David cleaning floors)

Wednesday - More brush clearing at CBHC and then several 2m x 2m excavation units were set up. At KCV we finished clearing the floors of the 10m x 4m excavation block and photographed it. It looks like we have a structure and several pits.

(the 10m x 4m excavation block at KCV - finished being cleaned by Evan, Sarah, Kerri, Dan, and David)

(Amber and Ryan excavating at CBHC)



Thursday - More 2m x 2m units were set up at CBHC and excavations commenced at the north and southern portions of the site. KCV was mapped by hand and then excavations of Features 12-01 and 12-04 commenced. Pottery, a few lithics, and lots of animal remains were collected.

(KCV Feature 12-01 prior to excavation - Plow scars are visible on the right (east side) - Luckily they did not go very deep)

(The CBHC crew has to brave scary vampire-like spiders)

Friday. CBHC units are almost down through the A Horizon - several artifacts are showing up in the screens and good progress is being made. Next week we may be getting some features. At KCV excavations continue on the features. F12-01 appears to be very deep. 15cm down and it doesn't appear to be shrinking much - F12-02 was a shallow basin (actually it was two features including a shallow basin and an as of yet un-excavated feature) The TDS was also used to get a nice digital map of the excavations.

(KCV Feature 12-04 - excavated and seen in profile)

UWM Field School - 2012

Day 2: Showing the Students the progress of excavations of the Koshkonong Creek Village (KCV) Site

One area that we will be excavating soon

Students writing in their journal at the KCV site

Cleaning the floor of the 10m x 4m excavation unit at KCV

Day 4: Walkover Survey

Here we the students conducting a walkover survey of the field 

Flags were used to mark artifact finds