Each morning, I usually arrive early enough to spend about 20 minutes exploring different parts of the 132-acre new state land acquisition at Castalian Springs. Scattered on the rocky uplands and along the springfed streams on the property are a number of chestnut oaks -- the one below has suffered a lightning strike sometime in the past, but still makes a grand picture against the early morning sky.
Scattered throughout the high grass in locations too rough or rocky to cut for hay, multitudes of milkweed plants like those shown below are getting ready to bloom. The plants are named for their thick white sap -- a broken stem or leaf leaks the milky looking fluid. Milkweed serve as the only host for the caterpillars of monarch butterflies. Monarchs lay their eggs on the plants. The eggs then hatch into caterpillars, which dine on the leaves of the host plant. The leaves are poisonous to many animals (including humans). While the caterpillars are immune to the toxins in the leaves, eating them makes the caterpillars and adult monarchs poisonous to most predators.
The dire predictions of rising temperature and humidity for today proved to be precisely on target. Even the local buzzards declined to circle over by late morning (the brief shade when they zoomed overhead would have been refreshing!). Because of the heat index, we make good use of our shelters (equipped with UV shielded tarps), and drink plenty of water on frequent breaks as we work slowly but consistently.
Bekah, Meagan, and Jesse completed removing the plowzone in the new unit next to our deep posthole/or pit -- exposing the top of yet another complex feature. As shown below, it does look as if the partially excavated pit once contained a large post (circled in yellow) -- along with a large scatter of burned clay. It now looks as if our first guesses several days back were both right and wrong -- we originally interpreted the "posthole" as a possible hearth. That was not quite on target, but it did lead us to investigate further to the east and expand on our information on this feature. A post of this size was probably the central support post for the roof of a building -- perhaps matched with the lines of small wall posts. The scattered of slightly plowed disturbed burned clay will probably prove to be either the remnants of collapsed walls of the structure -- or another "Possible Hearth." We've mapped and photographed the initial exposure of these features today -- and will work further to excavate them in the next day or two.
We also continued investigations of other features next to the "palisade trench." What we had originally interpreted as some rat burrows running off the side of the palisade trench turned out to be rat burrows (rodents love to burrow in and around walls and houses). Underneath those rodent burrows, though, was a real feature created by the ancient inhabitants of this town -- a narrow oblong trench parallel with the "palisade trench." The upper "rodent runs" are shown below in yellow, with the Native American feature outlined in blue.
While we're not quite certain of the function of this short trench today - it has yielded a number of pieces of mica, including the large fragment shown below. This shiny mirrorlike substance was imported to Castalian Springs from North Carolina -- usually this material was only accessible to higher status or wealthier individuals and was used for jewelry and adornments.
Far to the west, our intrepid crew of Tracy, Jennifer, and Lynne continued to tackle the beginnings of a short trench into the base of Mound 1. We are hoping to determine if the current rise is actually a "backdirt pile" from the 1890s excavations or the actual original location of this mound. While we anticipate few artifacts from these investigations, they are a critical part of figuring out how this town was arranged and laid out.
Our units back to the west that were soaked from the rain earlier this week were finally dry enough to continue work on "Feature 4" -- the large pit/structure. We completed excavating the upper half of the trash deposit filling this feature -- the photograph below shows the multitude of burned limestone fragments, pottery sherds, and animal bones.
In the edited photograph below, the current outline of this enormous pit is shown in yellow. We'll continue our excavation here on Thursday and Friday.
In the afternoon, we also began our practice of rotating two of our six student crews into the lab each day under the supervision of a crew chief. This practice not only transforms our artifacts from "lumps of dirty stuff" into clean and analyzable objects, but also gives 1/3 of the team an afternoon out of the heat to recoup.
More news on Thursday -- promises to be another scorcher.