18 Fleet Street

On Wednesday we tried again to mitigate all the water pouring into the unit in front of 18 Fleet Street. We attached a large nylon "sock" to the end of the water pump hoping that it would filter out all of the sediment and leave clean water that could be disposed of in the storm drain. Unfortunately there was so much sediment that it clogged the "sock" almost immediately so we had to abandon that idea. Next we tried using a large settling tank. The idea was to pump the water into the tank and let the water sit so that all the sediment would settle to the bottom leaving clean water. We found that the unit was filling up with water so fast that we didn't have time to pump the water out and then let it settle.

Yesterday we decided that given these water mitigation issues and the time restraints we're working under that we aren't going to be able to excavate this unit further. We're all a little disappointed that we won't find out if the log road extends up Fleet Street but the project managers will recommend that the City excavate further in this area. Depending on how deep they plan to bury the utility lines on Fleet Street it is possible that the log road we found won't be disturbed considering it was 4 and 1/2 feet below the current sidewalk level.

We filled in the 18 Fleet Street unit yesterday and will replace the sidewalk early next week. Guess I can say goodbye to the Wellies for a while!

More water!

We had a frustrating week trying to excavate in front of 18 Fleet Street. On Wednesday we removed the brick sidewalk we uncovered the previous week. Directly below this we found what was most likely another fill layer that contained a variety of small artifacts. We excavated only a few inches through this layer and then we were completely overwhelmed by water. We seem to have hit a spring about 2 feet below the current sidewalk level. Water was pouring into the unit as quickly as we could pump the water out. The surface of the excavation was completely saturated with a few inches of water on top making it impossible to excavate by stratigraphic level. We decided to dig a hole about a foot and a half deep in the corner of the unit to create a place for the water to drain. We still had to pump out the unit continually but it did help to dry out the top layer of the excavation a bit.

We were pumping out around 15 to 20 gallons of water per hour from the unit. With all of this water comes a lot of sediment which cannot be dumped into a storm drain. In addition, Annapolis has very little permeable surface meaning that most of the ground in Annapolis is covered in materials like concrete or brick which do no absorb water. Unfortunately, there was no way for us to dispose of all the water coming out of the unit and we were unable to continue excavating. Our project supervisors are working with the Department of Public Works to come up with an acceptable way to dispose of the water. This project was suppose to end yesterday but it looks like we will be extending the project a couple days. Hopefully we will be able to open this unit again on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Check back for updates!

History Repeats Itself

We had an exciting find on Saturday... here it is...

After digging down through about a foot and a half of bedding sand and fill we came upon an earlier sidewalk level that resembles many of the current Annapolis sidewalks. You can see the distinct Herringbone pattern just like the sidewalk we removed a week ago. It's amazing that it is so well preserved!

This sidewalk though, dates to around the first quarter of the 19th century. We know that the granite curbstones seen at the very bottom of the picture were put in in the 1830s so we think this sidewalk is associated with the original placement of the curbs. In the other unit further down on Fleet street we also found a sidewalk layer that dated to the early 1800s. That sidewalk was not as well preserved, but the two are almost certainly contemporaneous. In the first unit we also found evidence that these curbstones were moved in and bumped up to the current sidewalk level.

We also know that the townhouse that we are digging in front of, 18 Fleet Street, was built in 1902 and so the sidewalk was not associated with this house. There was most likely another house which predated this one. It's pretty neat to think that we've stood on a sidewalk that hasn't been used in around 150 years!

Rain, rain go away!

I feel like I’ve been doing underwater archaeology the last few days. There’s been more than eight inches of rain in the last week in Annapolis which has really affected the progress of the Fleet-Cornhill excavations. Because we are digging only a couple of hundred feet from the city dock the water table is already really high. In the unit where we found the wood planks we hit water around three feet down. We are only about one foot down and we’re already completely flooded. Here’s a picture of what the unit looks like each morning:

We use a hand pump and buckets to take out around 20 gallons of water at the start of each day. Then we have to continually pump water out of the unit throughout the day so we can see the soil as we dig. Working with saturated earth makes excavating really difficult because it's harder to identify changes in soil color and texture. Needless to say by the end of the day everyone is covered in mud!

When it's raining like this we can't excavate so we weren't able to make it out to the field every day this week. On our rain days we stayed in the lab to process artifacts and to look over our field notes. We also spent a day at the Maryland State Archives to do some historical research on the area where we're excavating. It's definitely not the romanticized version of archaeology you see in the movies!

Water, water everywhere

Given the large volume of rain Annapolis has received over the past week, I thought I would do a post on a museum featuring a type of archaeology I had never heard of until 3 years ago - underwater archaeology. After this week, I am sure that the AIA archaeologists working at Fleet and Cornhill Streets are beginning to feel as though they are underwater archaeologists.

I know that there are people who go out searching for ship wrecks, but I never made the connection between these searches and archaeology until one of my friends decided to pursue underwater archaeology professionally. Underwater archaeology as defined by the Museum of Underwater Archaeology (MUA) is "a way to study the past by examining a collection of artifacts that are found at the bottom of rivers, lakes, oceans, or other bodies of water. Although many of these sites are shipwrecks, they can also be airplanes, piers, or even sunken settlements."

The MUA is entirely online and looks at projects going on all over the world. This museum is devoted to bringing the field of underwater archaeology to the general public by allowing experts to present online exhibits and project journals discussing their research and findings. My underwater archaeology friend, Michelle Damian, is the Exhibits Editor there and has a fascinating set posts on work she performed involving Japanese Woodblock prints while working on her masters thesis in Japan.

If you are wondering how you can enter this field, I can share Michelle's story. Michelle's interest in Underwater Archaeology came after she earned her scuba diving certification. She combined her interests in diving, Japan, museums and historical things and determined she wanted to enter the field of Underwater Archaeology. She has since earned a masters degree in the field and is working on her doctorate.

I encourage you to explore the Museum of Underwater Archaeology's website. There are some fascinating projects to learn about.

Stay dry!

Fleet Street excavation

We have two weeks left on the archaeology project that’s taking place on Fleet and Cornhill Streets in Historic Annapolis. So far our most exciting find has been a series of logs which were discovered about 4 and a half feet below the current sidewalk level at the bottom of Fleet Street near the City Dock. These logs date to the late 17^th or early 18^th century and could be evidence of an earlier road surface or possibly part of a ramp or dock that helped people to navigate what would have been a marshy area. We have started digging in a new area that is about 30 feet from the unit where the logs were discovered. We are hoping to get some idea of how far the logs extend so we can better understand what this surface would have been used for. Because this is such an exciting find I plan to post frequent updates on the progress of the excavation.
Here is a photo of the bottom of Fleet Street taken from the area of the new excavation. We have filled in, and replaced the sidewalk in the area where the logs were found. That unit was located between the telephone pole in the foreground and the potted shrub on the left of the photo. Looking down Fleet Street the building straight ahead is the Market House and just beyond that is City Dock.
Here is a photo of the new unit we just opened. As archaeologists we excavate by level. So every time the soil changes we call that a new layer. The idea is that each of these layers represents a distinct event or point in time. The period of time associated with each of these layers can vary greatly from a single event such as a layer of ash left from a fire to a longer “event” such as a thick layer of silty soil left from years of runoff being deposited in the same place. As you can see in the photo we took out an area of the brick sidewalk and went through a layer of hard gravely material. Now we have a level of sand that is probably a bedding layer that was put down to level out the ground before the sidewalk was put in. Hopefully the rain will let up so we can keep digging tomorrow.

Everyone is invited to come watch the excavations and to ask questions. We will be there for the next two weeks Tuesday through Saturday. Be sure to check back here for frequent updates.

Seeking Liberty on NPR!

Seeking Liberty's Guest Curator Mark Leone was interviewed on May 4, 2008, by NPR's Andrea Seabrook for All Things Considered. In the interview, Dr. Leone talked about the religious practices of slaves and the fact that as much as slave masters tried to stop them, slaves held fast to their religious practices. The interview also touches on evidence of African Americans on Fleet and Cornhill Streets in Annapolis based on findings at the ongoing dig in that area.

Click here to be directed to NPR's website where you can listen to the interview.

Upcoming Seeking Liberty Event

Alexandra Jones, Director of Archaeology in the Community, will visit the Banneker-Douglass Museum on May 22, 2008 to present African American Religious Practices in Maryland from the 1600's to 1800's: An Archaeological Perspective.

Come learn about the connections between African and African American religious practices and the objects uncovered during archaeological digs at sites including the Brice House and the Charles Carroll House.

Event Details:
May 22, 2008, 7:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
Banneker-Douglass Museum
84 Franklin St.
Annapolis, MD 21401
Free, Registration encouraged.
To register email BDMPrograms@mdp.state.md.us or call 410.216.6186