As seems par for field school work, the most tantalizing discoveries are made the last week. The main Trench B anomaly (picture 1) has "grown" and takes up roughly 6x6 meters of the 8x8 meter trench. The center deposit is orange-red and contains no artifacts. It is ringed by brown soils that have some artifacts, primarily pottery. So far two of these pieces of pottery are marked with what may be black paint (picture 2). Several post holes are associated with the center anomaly. Of additional interest is a prehistoric trench that contains several posts holes. It is the clearly visible light line at the southern side of the orange-red deposit.
Trench A work continued. One project was to weigh each stone that was used to hold the enclosure posts in place. Of the ones measured, approximately 200 pounds of stone was used to secure each post. The students then calculated that about 25 tons of stone was used to hold the enclosure posts in place. Pictured in the weighing process are William Laib and Katie Rippl.
The last things done on site were to cover and secure Trench B and Trench C to have the ready for next year's work. Trench A will not be investigated further and will be refilled with dirt this week.
What happens next? First the students take a final exam. It is scheduled for today and we hope that everyone did well. Then the recovered artifacts will be cataloged and examined by more students in the fall during a lab course at Wright State. The soil and charcoal samples will be analyzed. Notes and maps will be reviewed. Sometime there after a report will be compiled and the material boxed for curation at The Ohio Historical Society.
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