Today was one of very hard work by all of the project staff and crew -- and the hottest to date. With only a few days left in our project, we have to keep up the pace of work despite the rising heat and humidity. As is always the case, the last few days are the most exhausting and tiring as we strive to complete the project goals within our alloted time -- we have politely requested a few clouds and a nice breeze for the rest of the week! Despite the thrill of discovery, we were all more excited when 4:30 rolled around this afternoon.

Three of our five crews are now working on the back two corners of the church -- both are deeply buried beneath landscaping fill that seems (from the artifacts in it) to have been placed sometime in the last forty or fifty years. Despite the heat and humidity, we managed to excavate and screen almost 110 cubic feet of soil from these two large units today. Hopefully by Thursday afternoon, we will have good news on finding those two corners.

Most of our "exciting discoveries" to report today are not particularly visually stimulating -- they are all postholes. And to be honest, they aren't super-stimulating features to find and excavate even for the archaeologist. How they look (round) or what they have in them in terms of artifacts (usually not much) is definitely NOT what makes them important -- their importance derives from what they add to our understanding of the appearance of the church and the churchyard. People rarely write detailed descriptions of fences and posts -- the documents do not tell us about where these things were or how they looked. These seemingly mundane features are exciting because they allow us to create a fuller and better picture of the church -- as people saw it in 1820.

One of the crews continued investigations on the front of the church. The photo below from June 19 shows the remnant of the brick pathway or patio feature.

Because of two apparent (and potentially critical) postholes that extended beneath the brick pathway, we decided to remove the pathway -- after carefully drawing, recording, and photographing it. The crew removed most of the feature this afternoon -- revealing at least four likely postholes beneath it (see the photo below with labels a-d). In addition, dismantling of the brick pathway revealed that two of the brick portions used to construct the feature are much more recent that the bricks used to construct the church. As we had suspected, the pathway appears to date well after the initial construction of the church -- and probably well after the destruction of the church.

Beneath the east side of the brick pathway remnant, we discovered three probable postholes -- two small (a and b); and one large (c). The photo below shows these outlined -- they show up much better in person! While we will need to excavate these to confirm what they are, they have a solid appearance as postholes.

Perhaps more importantly, under the west side of the brick pathway remnant, we exposed another very large probable posthole (d in the photo below).

This feature is very similar in size and appearance on the surface to the postulated "pillar base" excavated yesterday (see the photo below for a reminder). In addition, it is located precisely in the corresponding spot on the east side of the main entrance to the church.

Our last crew continued work testing our hypothesis about the churchyard fence and possible "gate" leading into the Presbyterian church graveyard. The photo below from yesterday shows the two postulated fenceline posts (one being considered as a gatepost).

We opened another excavation unit to the north on the same line -- labeled (e) in the photograph below. The two highlighted circles show the two postholes from yesterday.

At the location marked (e) we found a another cluster of brick that appears to be a large posthole similar to the other "gatepost" feature investigated yesterday. This possible posthole is shown in the photo below.

Again, we'll need to excavate this feature to make sure it is a similarly large posthole -- but the surface indications are quite good.

To close for the day -- yes, Virginia, archaeological research is painstaking and tedious, sometimes wet and stormy, sometimes hot and steamy, and you learn more than you wanted to know about every kind of bug that lives around here. But, the rewards are when you find a new piece to the puzzle -- whether it be a foundation wall or even "just a posthole." Archaeology is often like working a jigsaw puzzle -- but you have to find the pieces first and then figure out what they mean without the box-top.

The most exciting thing for this project director/teacher has already happened with the students that comprise our crew -- they have made a critical transition over the past few weeks. They've shifted from just being interested in the artifacts found to being interested in the "big picture" of the project goals. When the questions change from "what are going to find?" to "what piece of the puzzle are we looking for?" -- we have truly become a "team" working towards common goals.

Over the past few weeks, this team has found a lot of exciting things and we'll find a few more in the next few days. Check back with us again!