JUNE 5, 2004

From: Scott Beld
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2004
To: Oxbow Archaeologists
Subject: Ponton Site - June 5, 2004

Hi Oxbow Archaeologists,

We made it out to the Ponton site yesterday. It was a beautiful day and we had a full day excavating. John O., Marianne, Dave, and I made it out.

We began excavating Feature 4 – see the Ponton map in the photo gallery for the location of Feature 4 on the site (red rectangle) and Photo 1 for a view of the excavations at the end of the day. The feature is divided into six sections and we are excavating them in 5 cm levels. We worked on Sections 1 (northeast corner) and 3 (northwest corner). I excavated Levels 1-5 (20-45 cm below the surface) of Section 1 and John and Dave excavated Levels 1-3 (20-35 cm below the surface) of Section 3 – Marianne measured finds.

The top of the feature, roughly levels 1-3 (20-35 cm below the surface), has somewhat irregular edges (probably from slumping of the sides) with stains from rodent burrows entering and leaving the feature. The fill at these upper levels consists of patches of matrix (yellow sand or orange gravelly “silty” sand) and dark gray or brown fill. Charcoal and some burned soil is also scattered throughout the fill – see Photo 2 and Photo 3 in the photo gallery. Right now it looks like the feature was exposed for some time after its abandonment (i.e., slumping and rodent burrows) and these upper levels intentionally filled in.

At Level 4 (40 cm below the surface) the feature started to have more regular edges without the slumping and rodent burrows noted in levels 1-3 (see Photo 4). In Level 5 (40-45 cm below the surface), the edges were pretty much straight and the fill was more homogeneous – dark gray/brown organic stain mottled with some yellow and orange sand and charcoal. I noticed at least one spot of ash at this level (see Photo 5 in the photo gallery).

Section 3 is still in the upper zone of the feature. We took a core at the bottom of level 3 (35 cm below the surface). The core indicated that the feature extends another 20 cm with the bottom 11 cm a dark gray/brown fill. This corresponds well with cores I took last year in Sections 2 and 6.

So far we have recovered very few artifacts. There are a few brick fragments, nails, and flat glass fragments mainly near the top of the feature. We recovered a few very small fragments of Old Blue earthenware and Dave found a pin and small white clay pipe bowl fragment. It looks like most of this is material that was on the surface when the feature was filled in and just happened to be incorporated into the feature fill. We also noted a few fish bones and John found a medium-large mammal tooth (incisor). In the afternoon, I found a small fragment of a clay or stone pipe (I couldn’t tell which with the dirt) – either Late Woodland or Historic Chippewa. Three flat sides are preserved and it seems to resemble some of the stone pipe fragments we found at Cater and 20MD534 (I’ll try to get a picture of some of these things on Wednesday). I was also noticing several flakes that got incorporated into the fill in level 5.

It’s still unclear what this feature is, but next Saturday we should reach the bottom of the feature (there should only be about 5-10 cm more in Section 1 based on the cores) and we may be able to say more then.

On Wednesday, we’ll do lab work – probably sorting and washing. We brought several flotation samples back but these are very wet and need to be dried, so we probably won’t be able to work on them this Wednesday. Next Saturday, we’ll excavate at the site (weather permitting).

Hope to see you at the site.

Scott

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Scott G. Beld, Ph.D.
Research Associate II
The University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology
1109 Geddes Road
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1079
Phone: 734-764-0489 (UMMP Main Office)
734-763-9253 (My Office)
Fax: 734-936-1380
Email: sbeld@umich.edu
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