DownNDirty
Bronze Member
After finding the stirrup and other goodies at my favorite colonial site last weekend I decided to take a day off work Tuesday and visit the site again. This time I took my probe with the hopes of finding more trash pits to dig. My first stop was a low area that is basically a mud bog, where a few weeks ago DirtStalker found some black glass bottle shards partially exposed. A quick probe revealed that there is a LOT of glass there, over a larger area than we thought. So much so that I believe this was the plantation's main trash pit, which I have named the Swamp Pit.
So I dug down about six inches with the shovel and heard the familiar crunch of stacked glass shards-but this time it was black glass. I was excavating black glass bottle necks, bases and broken side pieces steadily and the glass was thick down to about 18 inches. Here are just a few examples; this is only a fraction of what I dug:
I quickly figured out that the best way to work through the pile was to use a screwdriver and work it through the mud. I came across the base of an early onion bottle at the bottom of the pit that was in really good shape so I saved all of the glass that surrounded it with the hope that I might be able to reconstruct it. After I got home Tuesday evening and cleaned everything up I was able to match the neck and a piece from the side of the bottle. I glued them together and the result was an onion bottle that is about 75 percent complete. It's a smaller one and based on the shape it was made sometime between 1680 and the 1720s.
Back to the dig...
About halfway through the day I found a bottle seal that bears the initials "WH" and has a small sunburst at the bottom. I have wanted to find one of these for a long time and was pretty stoked when I did. From what I understand, "WH" would have been the bottle owners' initials; and owning sealed bottles was a sign of wealth.
I also found several types of pottery shards as well as pieces of other types of bottles. I have managed to start reconstructing some of them and hope to find other pieces that match in the future.
The pit has a lot of colonoware (slave pottery) shards in it and I saved all of the ones that I found.
No colonial trash pit would be complete without animal bone fragments and teeth and this one is no exception.
At the end of the day I did a little bit of detecting at the main site and scored this small decorative pewter bridle boss:
Here is a group shot of all of my finds for the day:
With all that I found, I only put a dent in the pit. I can see many more trips to the Swamp Pit in my future-starting tomorrow.
To be continued...
So I dug down about six inches with the shovel and heard the familiar crunch of stacked glass shards-but this time it was black glass. I was excavating black glass bottle necks, bases and broken side pieces steadily and the glass was thick down to about 18 inches. Here are just a few examples; this is only a fraction of what I dug:
I quickly figured out that the best way to work through the pile was to use a screwdriver and work it through the mud. I came across the base of an early onion bottle at the bottom of the pit that was in really good shape so I saved all of the glass that surrounded it with the hope that I might be able to reconstruct it. After I got home Tuesday evening and cleaned everything up I was able to match the neck and a piece from the side of the bottle. I glued them together and the result was an onion bottle that is about 75 percent complete. It's a smaller one and based on the shape it was made sometime between 1680 and the 1720s.
Back to the dig...
About halfway through the day I found a bottle seal that bears the initials "WH" and has a small sunburst at the bottom. I have wanted to find one of these for a long time and was pretty stoked when I did. From what I understand, "WH" would have been the bottle owners' initials; and owning sealed bottles was a sign of wealth.
I also found several types of pottery shards as well as pieces of other types of bottles. I have managed to start reconstructing some of them and hope to find other pieces that match in the future.
The pit has a lot of colonoware (slave pottery) shards in it and I saved all of the ones that I found.
No colonial trash pit would be complete without animal bone fragments and teeth and this one is no exception.
At the end of the day I did a little bit of detecting at the main site and scored this small decorative pewter bridle boss:
Here is a group shot of all of my finds for the day:
With all that I found, I only put a dent in the pit. I can see many more trips to the Swamp Pit in my future-starting tomorrow.
To be continued...
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