Another Arkansas Archeological Society Summer Dig is in the books! Kenny and I spent most of the last two weeks in De Queen, Arkansas (southwestern part of the state) assisting in an archeological excavation of a salt production area that had both prehistoric (Caddo Indian) and historic (antebellum to Civil War) components to it... The place we worked was on a privately owned cattle ranch near a small, salty spring called "Holman Springs", picture below (we are working behind the trees on the far side of the water):
If you recall, we also dug at this site last year, and it was because of what we found (the historic brick salt furnace) that we returned to De Queen this year. Below is what the site looked like just as we started getting ready to work:
Pictured below is our dig director, Dr. Carl Drexler of the Arkansas Archeological Survey (part of the state agency, within the University of Arkansas system). Carl is getting ready to use a laser surveying instrument called a "Total Station" to precisely map in where we were going to excavate and some of the items we found:
Before I get too much into the science behind the archeology, I want to share some of the rest of the adventure, which included the deceptively rustic AirBnB Kenny and I stayed in just outside of De Queen. Yes, it is in a sheet metal barn...
...but wonderfully remodeled and updated for a very comfortable stay! As you can see below, we had ample space, a full kitchen, 1.5 baths, two bedrooms, a living room, laundry facilities, air conditioning, and other amenities...
...including a couple friendly and inquisitive horses for neighbors!
We also had a small historical cemetery just up the road, with a number of really cool grave markers, including these wooden ones:
Our dig starts with getting an extensive area set up to process the materials as they come out of the ground, including this row of screens used to separate artifacts from the soil they are in:
We systematically dig into the ground in what are usually 4 inch (10 cm) deep "levels" used to help us get some kind of stratigraphic control over the materials as they are produced (typically--but not always--the deeper in the soil an artifact is found, the older it is). In the picture below, the 2 meter by 2 meter square excavation unit I worked in (with the yellow bucket) is surrounded by boards for us to protect the edges of our unit:
Note that Kenny is working in the picture above in the next unit over...that is him with the dark hair and red shirt. In the picture below (taken on a different day) you can see how we progressed into the soil (Kenny is wearing a blue shirt this day). Both the picture above and the picture below show us using hand trowels to dig--we often use shovels to do this, but when you are in a site with so many fragile artifacts, you don't use the more damaging shovel to move dirt:
Here is a picture (below) of the units we were working in--you can see it can get crowded at times!
We don't just dig in the dirt and pull out the artifacts--we also try to thoroughly document our excavation units to help current and future archeologists understand the context for the finds we make and the impacts of people on this site. Kenny is pictured below doing one aspect of this documentation--he's drawing a profile of the soils of his excavation unit walls, which can be extremely informative:
Kenny was also asked to help a basic excavation class with learning the basics of archeological fieldwork, and he took copious notes on what he found and saw during his time:
I would also like to note that the "Archeo-Bros" t-shirt he's wearing in the picture above was designed by his sister Beth!
The unit I ended up working in was predominantly prehistoric in its artifacts, and this included a HUGE number of broken pottery--sherds--from the Caddo salt making efforts (which probably ran from 1300 to before 1700 A.D.). The picture below is a fairly typical "haul" of these sherds from a half-filled 5 gallon bucket of excavated dirt:
It is hard to see the true nature of these sherds (and other artifacts) in the field, so we also have a lab aspect to the archeology work in which the artifacts are carefully cleaned of the dirt, dried, and then later analyzed. Below are just some of the many thousands of artifacts we recovered during the 2023 dig, washed and drying:
Sometimes we can see in the field how people in the past used their resources to live their lives--the circular disk in my hand below is actually the base of a large jar that had broken but was used to make salt with later:
As we dug deeper into the ground, a bigger picture started to come together--that is part of why we have all these excavation units located next to each other:
If you look towards the background of the picture below, you can see how doing these excavations in an orderly fashion helps to solve questions. This is part of a historical (pre-Civil War) salt furnace that was used to take briny (salty) water from the spring and boil it to concentrate the salt, eventually turning it into a crystalline form:
Pictured below is more of this historic salt making area, with a bunch of broken up, hand-made bricks (left side of photo) and the dark, burned wood area on the right:
Here is a different perspective on some of this--the broken brick is orange, and in these units sits on top of the dark (black) charred wood that was used to fuel the fires that boiled the brine:
You can see why good wall profiles is an important aspect! The different layers tell us about different periods of activity, although figuring out exactly what was being done is not always very easy!
In the picture below, Carl Drexler is explaining our work in this dig to the landowners--their cooperation and support is the only way such a dig was possible:
At the end of two weeks, ducking occasional rainshowers and enduring some pretty good heat, you can see we moved some dirt--and brick--in the picture below:
The summer dig is about much more than just digging holes and finding artifacts and features--it is also about being a part of a community of like-minded individuals who share a love for the past and helping to understand it! We have grown very close to many of the people pictured below, and every year make new friends with those that join us for the first time:
The Arkansas archeology community is a welcoming group that embraced us years ago and have been a big part of our lives since...they have watched our children grow and shared their lives with us as well!
Personally, I also love the time I get to spend outdoors in what are often very pretty areas of the state, enjoying the weather (for what it is; usually pretty warm and humid):
We get to see lots of wildlife...some more welcome than others! The great egret pictured below hunted the abundant frogs in the spring who serenaded us as we worked. We saw a lot of turtles and a number of snakes, including some cottonmouths...but no alligators this year...and mercifully few mosquitoes, ticks, and chiggers!
Probably the prettiest morning we had was the last one of the dig, which was good because it took quite a bit of work to pack the equipment into various vehicles and then fill in the holes we spent two weeks digging (thank goodness for the backhoe!):
While we hate to see another dig end, we are cheered by the reality that there will be another next year, and we look forward to that!
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