A change of plans and the summer dig

This lovely bed of day lilies was planted outside of our church here in Monticello by Hope, using plants donated by her Aunt Diane. As you can see, they have flourished, and present a lovely entrance to our church (until this year's drought gets to them...).

So, a few of you may be seeing the date of this blog posting, and wondering why I'm writing this today in Monticello, instead of being in Petrozavodsk, Russia, where I was supposed to be... The federal government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to drastically restrict foreign travel by its employees (including scientists going to scientific meetings), so my trip to Russia (originally approved months ago) got canceled on me about three weeks prior to departure. I was able to send my Russian colleagues a powerpoint presentation with a recorded narration to play in my place, so I guess I'm still contributing to this meeting...

So, this means I'll get a few extra days at this year's Arkansas Archeological Society and Arkansas Archeological Survey summer dig, held this year at Historic Washington State Park. You may remember that over spring break we volunteered at this site for a few days of digging. Well, we're back to Block 6 this summer. Here is a picture of the pre-dig order:

These are only part of the supplies that 80+ people use in the excavation of this area (about the size of a small city block). Historic Washington State Park is based on a historic settlement in Arkansas, originally settled in the 1820s and reaching its peak about the time of the Civil War (it actually was the capitol of Confederate Arkansas for the last few years of the war, after the Yankees captured Little Rock). The village declined quickly after the Civil War, especially after it was bypassed by the railroads. It has never been completely abandoned, as a couple hundred people still live there, but most of the town is now a state park. This site was important as a main stop before one entered Texas (originally, part of Mexico, then its own country, then part of the US). Historic Washington is close to the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains, as you can see of this reservoir near where we were camping at Crater of Diamonds State Park (about a half-hour away):

This first week was to be a family affair, with us camping at a nearby state park (Historic Washington State Park has no official campgrounds):

This is one of the easier places we have had to dig at--Block 6 is an open area kept mowed (and often used as a parking lot and spot for reenactors), so we didn't have to worry about bugs or briers or other challenges--just brutal heat. The first couple of days, I helped out on part of Block 6 that used to have stores located on it:

The unit I worked in had a pile of bricks and a large piece of charred wood in it:

I left this unit on Monday to help on a different part of the dig, and OF COURSE in a few hours of digging on Monday, they found this cool 1827 U.S. half-dollar silver coin in very good condition!

Sigh!!! Oh, well, we're finding good things, too... While I (and sometimes, Kenny) are digging, Hope takes the kids to do other activities. One thing they did (rather than dig for diamonds, which you can do at the state park we were camping at) was go dig for quartz crystals at a "mine" (really, a pile of dirt dumped in a field). Note the bright reddish-orange soil that the crystals are found in:

Here, Stephen shows off a very nicely formed crystal he found:

They have also been hunting for "wild" ice cream:

With trips to a beach or two mixed in:

It has brutally hot and humid this last week, with most days approaching if not exceeding 100 degrees, with high humidity but little to no rain. I moved to a different set of excavation units on Monday to help out in the basic excavation training course, which Kenny was taking part of:

Since Kenny needed to be directly supervised by an adult, I volunteered to help these beginners. It has been quite a bit of fun--they are all willing and eager, and have found some interesting historic artifacts. Hope and the kids visited us periodically--the picture below shows Beth with our archeologist friend (and new neighbor) Jessica Howe:

The picture below is of Dr. Jamie Brandon, a friend of ours and the lead archeologist on this particular excavation:

They also have horse-drawn carriage rides at this state park, which the kids enjoyed:

(Don't tell anyone, but they actually let Kenny take the reigns and drive the surrey around town a bit!):

The picture below is of Bragg Family South headed to a historic home at Washington. In years gone by, the yard of this home has been excavated extensively. The original owners were some of the primary merchants in the town:

The couple below are state park employees that reenact characters from this period (in this case, the grown son of the merchant and his wife, circa the beginning of the Civil War):

A number of interesting artifacts and features have been found on the block we are excavating, including this brick cistern:

Yes, the woman inside of it is digging it out--people dump all sorts of interesting things into cisterns, wells, and privies that they no longer use. This cistern was interesting in that you can see one of the channels that funneled into (in the background of the picture, with the measuring tape placed upon it). They had constructed a brick drain to allow the water in, complete with a charcoal filter:

Those black lumps are large chunks of charcoal. We've returned to Monticello for this weekend, and I'll be working at my office Monday and Tuesday before I return by myself for a few more days of digging (Hope and the kids will be busy doing stuff around town). Not as glamorous as going to Russia, but exciting nevertheless!