Archaeology Dig Diary May 17, 2005

Archaeology Dig Diary - Tuesday, May 17

The first wave of the field team has safely arrived. It is similar to pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training. This group will act as sergeants for the rest of the team which will arrive in June. In all, there will be around 35 people excavating the site. The early arrivals will spend the month of May learning our excavation and recording systems. By the end of May they will be Ferry Farm veterans.

Archaeologists digging
Archaeologists,
Victoria Staufenberg,
Sara Leonard, and Lisa Guerre The excavation will run through September and we are focusing our efforts on uncovering the remains of two large structures. The first contains a substantial cellar of unknown proportions. The cellar foundation walls were formed with dry laid field sandstone that are found throughout the area. The second structure also contains a dry laid stone cellar that measures 10 by 25 feet. We hope to uncover the rest of this structure this summer and determine when it stood and what it was used for.

Today's concern is stabilizing the gravel fill of an abandoned ice house that intrudes one of the structures. Last summer the fill of this icehouse threatened to slide into our preliminary excavation of a cellar. Before we can continue our exploration of this cellar the icehouse gravel will have to be stabilized. We have decided to remove the top 7 feet of gravel and place a barrier between the icehouse and the cellar remains and then refill the icehouse with gravel. This will protect our excavators while keeping the ice house walls stable.