An abbreviated report for tonight, as several of our excavations are "in transition" and don't have much of visual interest.

Some new "fenceline news" though -- the excavations today did confirm that the second suspected gatepost on the churchyard fenceline matches the first shown in yesterday's report.

We also opened another excavation unit to the north to see if another fencepost showed up -- by the end of the day today, we had located a promising looking posthole in that excavation unit. The "gateposts" would have permitted a five-foot gate opening. The fenceposts are 7.5 feet from the gateposts. The following edited photograph shows what we postulate the fence and gate separating the church from the cemetery would have looked like.

We also continued investigations on the front of the church with excellent results. As we reported yesterday, we were sure we had another "pillar base" similar to that on the west side of the main church doors. That proved true today in our investigations (see photo below).

We were a bit confused by how this posthole appeared on the surface when we began our investigations today. The following photograph shows in yellow the outline of the feature as it initially appeared (the somewhat mushroom-shaped outline). However, as we excavated the feature, it became quickly apparent to me that the strange shape was due to a large rodent burrow heading from the bottom of the photo into the posthole. You might not suspect that animal burrow identification was a skill required by an archaeologist -- but over the past many years of archaeology, I've learned a great deal about what animal burrows look like "in the archaeological record." My best educated interpretation based on that experience is that a wandering groundhog (or similar sized burrowing animal) was looking for a new home sometime in the past -- it started a burrow, hit all of the brick rubble in the posthole, and said "to heck with this" and headed elsewhere to dig in less annoying rubble. After cleaning out the rodent burrow, we found the well defined posthole (outlined in blue) and the postmold. We should have this posthole excavated on Friday.

And, we have some bad news and some good news on the search for the southern corners of the church. The bad news is that our two large excavation units on the back corners found no foundation walls or builders trenches. The good news, however, is that archaeologists follow the scientific method -- negative evidence provides a chance to revise our hypotheses and look elsewhere. When we found nothing in those excavation units, we took a second look at our documentary information -- it said the church was 40x60 feet. We have the forty-wide exposed on the front wall -- so we asked ourselves, why wouldn't the corners be located where we were looking sixty-feet away from the front? We think the answer was probably apparent to the folks who had seen the church and described it in writing - but not to us reading their descriptions. The question that we should have asked was "sixty-feet-long" from WHAT? We assumed from the front foundation wall and were probably wrong -- we now believe they meant from the pillar posts described above. Our initial assumption put us about six feet outside the church foundation on the south side -- we opened three excavation units this afternoon based on sixty-feet from the front posts. We already had some information to support this new interpretation from one of our excavations two weeks ago -- but we hadn't "seen" it because we weren't looking for it there. We're all convinced that this new interpretation will finally produce the southern foundation and corners on Friday (weather permitting). This is a good opportunity to highlight why archaeology is important -- we start with hypotheses and then test them. If the original hypothesis doesn't appear supported, then we re-evaluate and change the hypothesis -- and then test that new hypothesis. The south foundation and corners weren't where we our first hypothesis thought they would be -- given what we learned from moving a LOT of dirt to find nothing, we constructed a second hypothesis. We think that Friday will find our "second hypothesis" better supported! Check back to see!

Finally, since several folks have asked us about what happens when we close up our excavations this coming week... Our "backdirt pile" (the place we put our excavated/sifted soil, rocks, and brick rubble) was fairly tiny on June 3 as the photograph below shows.

Today, it has grown into three fairly massive pyramids of soil, rock, and brick (see below).

When we beginning closing up on July 2, all of this stockpiled dirt, rock, and brick will go back to cover the excavation areas -- thanks to the generosity of the Parks and Recreation Department, we will have the assistance of some city tractors to move this back to cover our excavations. None of us were looking forward to hauling those giant piles back in wheelbarrows!

The reason we will cover the excavations -- including the foundations and other features -- is that those limestone blocks are just as vulnerable to the weather as are we. Covered by the soil, the foundation is protected from the elements -- exposed on the surface, the sun, rain, freezing, and thawing will fairly quickly affect those limestone blocks.

However, don't fear that this will be the last chance to see the foundations -- our photographs, drawings, and notes will provide a lasting record of them without risking them to the elements. A final report will be produced, interpretive signs will be developed, and on-site interpretations will be prepared over the coming months.

More on Friday.