Our thanks for the beautiful day for excavation today -- slightly cloudy and cool works for us!

We made a lot of progress in "moving dirt" today, but our search has left more questions than answers at this point. In the search for the south foundation of the church (and the south corners), we have moved almost 230 cubic feet of dirt in the past couple of days. Unfortunately, even that volume hasn't revealed enough to give us a confident answer on where the south foundation was located.

As noted several times previously, the topsoil and rubble deposits on the south side are very thick -- about half a meter. And, the southern portion of the church has some very complex depositional history (that's "archaeologese" meaning that lots of activities since 1860 have disturbed, moved around, and complicated what is left for us to interpret back there).

In one excavation unit (see photo below), we have what might be the remnants of a builders trench and a few pieces of limstone still in place -- but it also might not be. Only a few feet away, we didn't find a similar remnant on the same line -- and on the far side on the same line, we didn't find a similar remnant either.

We opened another two excavation units to see if we could hit the south foundation -- in one of those (see photo below), we did hit what appears to be limestone coursework. However, instead of running east-west as the south foundation should, it appears to be running north-south -- it might be an interior foundation wall instead of the exterior south foundation wall.

In the time we have remaining, we may not be able to answer with certainty where the south wall of the church once stood -- but we at least have the north, east, and west walls confidently defined. We'll continue our work on Monday trying to find an undisturbed section of the south wall -- but the possibility exists that we won't be able to find enough to be certain. While we will be a little disappointed if we close the project without finding the south wall, we have still learned a great deal about where the south wall isn't -- and where future researchers should look and shouldn't look if they are trying to find it. If we knew exactly where it was -- then we wouldn't need to do archaeology! And, it very clearly isn't where the documents say it should be.

On the north wall "yard area," we continued investigations -- this area includes a complex set of features. We expect this sort of complexity in the front of such a prominent building -- the front yard is an important place for "making a show."

Our final interpretation of this set of features will require work in the lab and more research. However, as the photo below demonstrates, archaeology can find plenty of patterns to examine and research. Our postulated second pillar base is clearly identical to the first. Another feature is a shallow oval pit -- possibly a planting hole for a decorative shrub in front of the church. Adjacent to it are two more postholes. In later excavations today adjacent to the other "pillar base," we found a similar set of postholes -- symmetry is great in archaeology because we like patterns. The final interpretation will take a little more time and research.

So, our time in the field is drawing to a close. We leave many unanswered questions about the church -- but we have also provided a remarkable amount of well-documented information that will answer several questions. We have found more than enough to support our assertion that this archaeological site deserves listing on the National Register of Historic Places -- for archaeological sites, the critical factor is that the site can yield new information through future archaeological research. What we have discovered to date clearly demonstrates to us that the site holds the clues to answer many questions -- and what we haven't been able to find clearly demonstrates that the site holds clues to many other questions.

What I hope you will carry with you from what we have (and haven't) found is an appreciation that archaeology has some important things to contribute. Our historical documents do not record everything about the past -- there are things that are so "unimportant" that we don't record them (where fences and gates were), there are things that we "fib" a little bit about, there are things that we "dress up" a bit in our records, and there are things that we record as "truth" that are really what we "wish they were." Archaeology gives us a chance to find and touch the physical remains -- sometimes they challenge what we write down and pass to future generations.