GOODBYE VIRGINIA CITY

my archaeological chronicles have come to an end. i am in utah now. but i woke up to a beautiful rainstorm this morning. it's very nice.

ok last day of class i spent 6 hours screening backdirt. as the other students finished their stuff (stratigraphy profiles and paperwork) they joined me. we did not finish it all. there was also filling in the units and trenches. first 2009 quarters, then plastic, then large rocks, then screened dirt. the supervisors had set up a total station on their datum to map in the site. using a gps a point can be anywhere within 3-7 meters. not useful for units only a meter wide. so the total station stays in one place and another person moves around with a pole that has a reflector. the lazer from the total station shoots out and reflects back and it catalogs the distance. so even though the total station uses gps for its location, the whole site moves around in that 3-7 meters instead of every point within it moving like they would with just a gps. the total station is one of those tripod things that the guys use on the road for surveying and such. anyway i got to help a bit with that. yesterday was a day of questions. i asked questions all day long. i was screening dirt and bored. so i entertained myself with questions. we stayed late trying to finish everything but we didn't make it. there was still a trench to fill, backdirt to screen, a unit to profile, and my unit that was waiting to be excavated. the wood and metal were still sitting there, waiting. the supervisors went back again yesterday to finish up. i hope they managed it. it was just the 3 of them, and maybe the 2 supervisors from Barbary.

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sorry for lack of post yesterday. i had no internet connection. anyway yesterday my partner and i finished level 6 (10 cm down from level 5). the goal with these 10 cm levels is to get the measurements all the same. so we started level 7 at 75 cm in all corners and center. we did not find much. wood, metal, nails, bottle glass. but we uncovered something very interesting. on the E side from the N we found many large pieces of wood. i think we found this 2 days ago? i mentioned the B72 stuff we brushed on to harden it. anyway yesterday revealed more wood. much more. my partner was sent to help with another unit while i continued excavation by myself.

today i worked alone. i began with excavating the wood and metal but was told to stop and excavate the rest of the unit. this is because we are fast running out of time and the wood and metal need time. so i worked on the rest of it for the morning. after lunch i filled out whatever paperwork i had for the level as well as Feature 15 which we never really finished 'til then. i then spent the rest of the day screening. the supervisors will finish the unit on friday after we are all gone. anyway before we arrived the supervisors had dug 2 trenches with a backhoe to get a good look at the stratigraphy and maybe find some foundation. so all the dirt from that was piled up as been slowly screened throughout the course of the fieldschool by volunteers mostly as well as the supervisors and some students. one trench has been done but the other is only half done and needs to be done by the time we finish tomorrow. so that was what i was screening. and will be screening tomorrow.

i finished the day by filling in one of the units. first we put a 2009 quarter in a ziploc bag in the bottom of the unit. (this is the first unit i worked on by the way) the 2009 quarter dates the excavation in case anyone digs it up. then we put black plasic in followed by a large number of large rocks. this is an indicator to future archaeologists that this is where we stopped digging. then we filled the unit with screened dirt so if someone digs there again they will find no artifacts.

after class we took a tour of the cemetaries. there are several within one. most of miners had come from the british isles and the eastern u.s. and they spent over $3000 on irrigating the cemetaries in the 1800s. today i think she said it would cost more than $3 million. so the cemetaries were lush and green. grass, flowers, trees, etc. all this stuff that the comstockers were used to. the cemetary was actively used until about 10 years ago. i saw a headstone that was dated 1990. anyway the place isn't irrigated anymore so it looks like the rest of nevada. a desert. the graves were set apart in boxes. they had either rock or wood walls around the individual sites. many of them were even fenced in and had little gats on them. one grave was a 3 year old boy whose father had built an aviary around his grave. in the 1960s (well throughout time but mostly the 60s) it became popular to sell headstones as souvenirs. so many of the comstockers stole the headstones and other bits of the graveyard. like small statues and gates and fences and such. well the lady who gave the tour got possession of the cemetaries as a historical landmark and put a big iron fence around them all. which is about 30 acres of land. she said the robberies reduced by 87% by putting in that fence. way in the back of the site is the catholic cemetary and it is the most intact with the majority of it's headstones and stuff because thieves are lazy. near the catholic cemetary used to be where the gravekeeper lived with his family. the house is gone now but it is a site ripe for the archaeological picking. i'm very tempted.

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today we went to town on level 6. ok ok ok so first off we excavated Feature 15. that metal hoop. it was not easy because the metal was very fragile. i got it out with small tools. an icepick and a small trowel. i dared not use the regular sized trowels. the hoop broke in many pieces as i excavated it, but i was able to several good sized ones and one big one. underneath the dirt in the middle were several bits of wood. the metal and the wood were taken directly to the lab so they would not be destroyed further. i took the dirt within the circle of the hoop down 10 cm and stopped there for now. we will later take it down further to make sure there isn't anything else associated with it. ok so my partner took the south end down 10 cm to see how many artifacts to expect in level 6. he did not find much. but we took down most of the rest of the level and found lots and lots of milled wood, a big ol' bone (cow elbow), and a large flat piece of metal with wood underneath (attached?) we left most of the wood and the metal thing because it was the end of the day and painted on with a small paintbrush some B-72 liquid stuff (i do not know exactly what it is) this stuff helps strengthen the wood and metal so it will not fall apart so much when we excavate it. we are working faster than what is ideal because we are running out of time. we only have tomorrow left to excavate.

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today i finished level 5 dirt. after three days of it, it is finally down 10 cm from level 4. we are now about 65 cm down from our datum (NW corner nail). we found very very little today. we found some milled wood and a couple of nails and bits of glass and a big ol' bone (cow). we left our feature 15 metal hoop as we were excavating the dirt around it to get to the level it was in. we will likely take it and the bottle botom sitting in it tomorrow. it's hard dirty work and i thoroughly enjoy it. we had a lot of tourists today. one young girl (10 yrs old?) decided to help us out and did some screening and lab work. she seemed to really like it. her mother liked it well enough but felt really dirty. one of the sub-supervisors told me of a really cool trick for teaching kids how to excavate. i wanna try it some time. it involves pudding. lots and lots of pudding. mmmm...

we went up to the Barbary Coast today to see the progress being made there. the unit i was working on is mush deeper and they pulled 16 bells and there was at least one more in the wall. further down they found a child's shoe. they extended the unit another 25 cm to the north of the foundation i had found, to see how wide it was. it looks as though it was just what i had exposed, but they are not deep enough to be certain. the other unit has found a wooden floor! it looks really cool! the wood is very fragile so they have decided to leave it and close the unit. there is a debate as to whether is is the barber shop floor (1890 property map) or from a later building (stable). as far as we know no other building has been there...

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today was cloudy, windy, rainy and cold. we continued our excavation of level 5. we found some porcelain, nails, and bottle bottoms. and a lot of rocks. i finished cleaning up my walls today so they are looking beautiful now. my partner said they looked like they could have been cut by a lazer. anyway the soil is really hard and tough to excavate. so the slow process continues to be slow. our unit is deep enough that we were given permission to climb in it to excavate. that has made things a thousand times easier. and it was warmer in the hole because it was out of the wind. the attorney general of nevada came to volunteer today. she did some screening and lab work. she plans to come back tomorrow too. we found Feature 15 this afternoon. it consists of a metal hoop (from barrel? or bucket?) and everything inside it. it looks pretty cool.

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today i was switched back to Maguire's Opera House. i am excavating the same unit that i was working on before moving up to Barbary Coast. So we finished paperwork and such for level 4 and began level 5. the dirt here is tough and hard packed. it took us 5 hours of excavation to go down 5 cm. of course this was partially due to the fact that the side wall were an absolute mess and most of my concentration and muscle was concentrated on that. we found a whole bottle today. it was pretty cool. we also found several bottle fragments. tomorrow we will attempt to finish level 5.

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today we finished paperwork for level 2 and began excavation of level 3. we found the usual glass, brick, wood, nails, other metal etc. but here's the cool thing we found today. we found sleigh bells! they were with a leather strap which is having a hard time staying together. the bells are green from being in the dirt all these years. the stable was there about 1920. we just keep finding more and more bells. some fell out loose so we wrapped them up in tissue paper and put them in a ziplock bag. and guess what else?! one of the bells still jingles!! i was stoked. this is the most exciting thing i've found this summer. never mind the fact i'm looking for the older barber shop and not the stable.

after lunch i had to do lab work. sorting and labeling artifacts. it's part of the education. it was tedious work. i much prefer digging in the dirt. i really wanted to get all the bells out but i was in the boring lab. feh. at least i got to excavate for the last half hour.

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we went to town on our unit today. in the 1st 15 mins we had excavated 2 or 3 buckets of dirt. ok ok ok so it was mostly hay and roots and stuff. but the dirt was nice and loose and ready to come out. under the hay layer in the NE corner we found feature 4. 6 bricks laid N-S and 4 bricks across laid E-W. together they measure about 70 cm along the N wall and 40 cm along the E wall. we came up with several possibilities. hearth, step, foundation, etc. beyond and below the bricks in the NW corner there are several large rocks packed in. this has possibilities. we also found a layer of dirt that was peppered with coal. this lay at the level at the bottom of the bricks. because there was so much coal we collected the biggest pieces (but only so many of them or that would be too much) as a representative sample. the rest we tossed aside. (except those i kept (and yes i got permission to do so) for a certain nephew of mine who is always asking for coal). we also found an old safty pin and a couple of bottons. the cool thing we collected today was a part of what we believe to be a horse harness. leather and all. cool, eh? we finished level 1 (10 cm below surface) and all but paperwork for level 2 (20cm below surface). i can't wait to get back tomorrow and find more stuff. my only complaint is i can't seem to get away from rocks. they make excavating difficult. and there are quite a few rocks and bricks that had been tossed there that no one cared about where they landed. the site we are now excavating is where a barbershop and a saloon sat right next to each other in 1890. in 1920 the owner of the land had a stable there. hence the hay and harness.