Digging in Salt Lake City, July 2005!

This is an archive of the first week of the excavation blog.  Tim Scarlett, Chris Merritt, and guests will post their thoughts and images here as the dig moves ahead over the month of July.  We'll let you know what we think we've learned and "what it all means" as we dig deeper into the earth at the Petersen Pottery.  You can jump directly to the most recent entry by clicking here.  Enjoy!

Jump to archive for week 2.

Jump to week 3.

July 8th, 2005: Timothy Scarlett

My name is Timothy James Scarlett, and I'm an archaeologist in Michigan Technological University's Industrial Heritage and Archaeology program.  During July of 2005, I'm working in Salt Lake City with Christopher W. Merritt, one of our graduate students.  We're excavating at the site of Frederick Petersen's pottery in the Second Ward.  The landowner invited us to do some excavations on his property when he learned about the history of the site, before he undertook planned additions to his house.  We began planning in 2003, and because of the owner's respect for the history of his property, he held off his plans to renovate until we could arrange this summer's excavation around his house.  The landowner has asked that we keep his name anonymous, and we will respect his wishes throughout the month.

During 2004, I completed a survey and some preliminary shovel test probes (STPs) around the property to assess the site's archaeological potential.  The tests, particularly Shovel Test Pits #1 and #3, revealed deeply buried and stratified (layered) deposits. Over the winter, I plotted the shovel test pit locations onto an historic map of the Petersen property:

This plot shows the modern fence lines and property boundaries in bold black lines drawn on top of the historic map from the 1890s.  The historic map's colors represented different things: yellow indicated wood framing, red meant brick, and the brown used on the main house indicated adobe brick (unfired clay brick).  This plot indicated that the shovel test pits hit inside two structures, the kiln area and a working or storage area.

The plot assumes, however, that the current landowner's old brick home occupies the same footprint as the matching brick building on the fire insurance map.  While this seems to be the case, further research may prove this untrue.

A fire insurance company made that map just after Frederick Petersen's death.  About the same time, someone captured the property when they photographed a panorama of Salt Lake's southeast.  Here is a detail of that image:

The photo shows the "T-shaped" adobe structure that fronted on 3rd East.  Behind the main house, one can see the bright white reflection of the roof of a barn, and some smaller buildings.  Can you match the buildings and their footprints with the insurance map above?  Keep in mind that the photo and map were made about the same time, but structures may have been torn down or newly built, however, and appear in one but not the other.  Good luck!

This space will become a blog about the work.  We'll post updates in text, photos, and illustrations every few days during July.  We'll post our new entries on the top of this page each time. 

Check back and see what we've discovered- you can learn along with us as we continue digging.

To support these objectives and help keep both the site and the research active, click here.

July 9th, 2005: Timothy Scarlett

Chris Merritt and I finished gathering up the equipment loaned to us by the archaeologists at the Wasatch-Cache National Forest.  We spent yesterday afternoon at their research lab space at Weber State University and had the chance to meet the participants in Weber State's archaeological field school as they returned from Idaho.  We also picked up a few odds and ends loaned to us by the grounds and facilities staff at This Is The Place Heritage Park.  I met with the landowner again this morning.  We walked together around the property and made note of his plantings.  We'll try to avoid as much of his garden and landscaping as we can during the excavation.  Cameron Wilson will swoop in when we finish our digging.  He supervises the Farm and Facilities at This Is The Place Heritage Park.  He and his staff will help us backfill our excavation units and then repair the yard so that the landowner isn't left with a mounds of dirt around his property! 

Tomorrow is a day off before we begin long, hot days of earth moving and discovery. Stay tuned!

July 11th, 2005: Timothy Scarlett

Today Chris and I established four excavation units, each two meters square.  I walked with Chris around on the site on Monday and we talked about Frederick Petersen's life and his home and shop.  I showed him my drawings from last years testing and we stood over each former shovel test pit.  Based upon the 2004 test pit results and the old maps we'd been studying, we decided to establish a grid in the south western corner of the yard (around STP #1, see the entry for July 8).  These four units should allow us to see how the Petersen family used that space over time, including inside the wood-framed workshop building and in the yard in front of it.   We went through the standardized rituals that precede any archaeological excavation- measuring, drawing, plotting, mapping, photographing.  Anyone that's worked on a reputable dig will tell you that a great deal of your time on a project is spent doing paperwork!  Digging archaeological sites is much like studying a crime scene- every step of the process needs to be thoroughly documented because the researcher doesn't really know what information will later turn out to be critical to interpreting the dig's results.

We started digging by mid-day and by the day's end we'd made good progress removing the first layer in unit 0N0W and 2N0W.  The excavation unit's names refer to the coordinate grid system we drew over the landowner's property.  The grid is the first part of the archaeologist's control over the excavation.  Different professionals use variations on the Cartesian system, but they all work just about as well.  We established a point of origin around which we could make a map.  We started from the origin and drew lines to the north, south, east, and west.  Then we used long tape measures to mark off 1 meter intervals along those lines.  Then we could just draw boxes using those measurements and create square grids in which to excavate.  We named each grid after its southwestern corner, so the grid first grid in which we began work is called "0N0W" or "Zero North, Zero West."  The next 2 meter square to the north is called "2N0W" and the square just to the west is "0N2W."  Of course, we could have named the grids Juan, Kevin, or Latvia, the point is that we can now bag artifacts and identify the location of soil samples!  If you'd like to know more about the Cartesian Grid System, you can read about it at Wikipedia by clicking here.  (To anyone whose ever wondered why they needed to learn Pythagorean Theorem in geometry class, archaeologists use that formula to prove to ourselves that our grid units are actually square and not rhombuses, diamonds, or trapezoids ...)

The first sediment layer in the units was a highly mixed grayish silt.  It is filled with artifacts from all different time periods, including plastic energy bar wrappers, keys, marbles, and pennies from the 1950s and 1970s.  The level is mixed however, and also includes some brick and roof tile fragments from the destruction of the Petersen's house.  While we were working in the afternoon, Tom Flanigan came out to help us.  The landowners son and daughter also helped out with our digging and screening, despite the realization that archaeology is really very hard work- hard and hot work during a Utah July!

We finished the day by exposing the top of some buried rubble in 0N0W.  Chris decided that this rubble should be called Level 2 and be treated differently from the first level.  While the sediment looks pretty similar, the artifacts are starting to look like they are from the early twentieth and the late nineteenth century.  We won't be certain until we process them in the lab later this week, but Chris wanted to be cautious.  The surface of level 2 includes some bricks that appear like they may still be set in course and also some provocative artifacts, including the crock lid, medicine jar fragment, and electrical insulator in the photo below.  The insulator fragment has a fragment of a patent date that marked it as made in the twentieth century.  The crock lid and brick, on the other hand, may have been made in Salt Lake City during the nineteenth.

I think this is rubble from when the Petersen family tore down the wooden buildings in the backlot.  Chris agrees, but he thinks that the brick may have been put there on purpose and that as we remove level 2 we'll discover that they form a wall or walkway.  Stay tuned to find out!

July 12th, 2005: Timothy Scarlett

Chris and I worked all day removing the rest of level 1 in 0N0W.  We then moved on take out the first level in grids 0N2W, 2N0W, and 2N2W.  Our teenage assistants chipped in during the afternoon again, working hard for several hours.  Tom Flanigan surprised when he showed up to help in the late afternoon.  Based upon what we learned about the topsoil in 0N0W, Chris and I started to excavate using shovel scrapes.  We used flat-nosed shovels like giant trowels, scraping off one thin layer after another, and tossed each scoop of dirt directly into the screens.  Since we had the volunteer help, we increased our excavation speed this way because one shoveler works in tandem with two screeners. 

[Pic deleted]

Today we discovered that the current asphalt parking lot had been paved overtop of an older blacktop surface. We uncovered the edge of the older parking surface while removing layer 1.  Tomorrow we should finish cleaning up layer 1 in the other three units.  The second layer seems very hard and compacted in the western grid units- perhaps because vehicles have been parked there for nearly a century!  The newly exposed sediments also look very different among the four grids.  Once we get level 1 completely removed, we'll clean everything up with a fresh trowel scrape and decide how to proceed.

July 14th, 2005: Timothy Scarlett

Yesterday, Chris and I finished removing the first level in all four units.  The first level was disturbed several times over the last few decades, and since we are pressed for time and budget we removed all the disturbed soil as a single stratigraphic unit.  We quickly discovered that the entire level to be full of huge broken hunks of concrete mixed with late 20th century artifacts (like plastic candy wrappers and pop tops).  I mentioned before that we found the first asphalt concrete layer from when the parking area was paved.  While asphalt paving was first applied in the modern world in the 1820s, I think this pavement came much later- probably in the early 20th century.  While we did not chunk out the historic paving, the profile allows us to examine layers underneath the edge.  The parking/work area was full of layers of clinker, scale, ash, and other waste produced from burning coal in a boiler or stove.  That open area behind the main house-- between of the brick building (the current landowner's dwelling) and the wooden structure where we're digging this year-- seems to have been kept packed and free of grass or plants.

After we removed the topsoil and disturbed deposits yesterday, we began early this morning cleaning and preparing for photos and mapping.  I found Level 2 very distinct from the upper level.  Chris first encountered this very hard packed pale brown silty clay under level 1 in 0N0W.  We know now that it ran under the entire area, including the asphalt.  People may have packed the clay down to create a work area in the yard area in front of the wooden buildings in this area.  You can see the surface in the photo below:

Looking south in this picture, you can see the slivers of old black asphalt in the right hand corner- the paving is broken up and irregular, but runs all the way along the western edge of the unit (viewers right).  The hard packed clay underlay everything else, except for a big feature at the common corner of all four units.  During the 20th century, someone dug a huge hole that punched through level 2.  They filled the hole with fragments of asphalt, rubble, and huge chunks of concrete mixed within a dark topsoil.  We've recorded this hole as Feature 1.  Proving an archaeological dictum, 2004's STP #1 was right in the middle of that hole!  They clay layer was a complete surprise and we're not really sure what to expect in our dig's lower levels now.  We've left some hunks of concrete in Feature 1 for a visual reference while we continue work- you can see them above in the very center of the excavation with our blue-flagged corner pin and it's column of soil. 

After finishing our photos and drawings, as the day neared it's end, we began removing level 2.  We could already see a little bit underneath level 2 because of Feature 1.  The next layer (which will probably be level 3) appears to be a loosely-packed, dark grayish brown sediment under all of level 2.  We hope to find some artifacts that are good chronological indicators in that level.   Thus far, we've discovered no useful time markers within the hard packed clay to help us understand when people spread it out over the yard. 

Chris and I are also debating the origins of the concrete.  Looking over the fences onto surrounding properties, we can tell that the Petersen site's ground level sits at least a meter above the ground to the south.  The lot to the west used to belong to the Petersen family and included some of the workshop buildings. The ground there now includes concrete pads that roughly match the footprints of those wooden buildings.  Perhaps the workshops and barns were all given concrete floors at some point.  People later broke up the concrete in the landowners yard, left the fragments around on top of the clay surface, but soon buried them with fill dirt.  Another possibility is that one of the past landowners actually hauled in fill from another location and the fill included the concrete, asphalt, and brick rubble. 

We think this is an important question, because it will help us interpret the artifacts we've found mixed with the rubble in level 1.  We've found a bunch of marbles, for example.  We know that potters in Utah often had local children visiting them while at work.  I've read oral histories where people remembered visiting in their youth.  If the rubble came from tearing down the workshop buildings, then the marbles could have been left by visiting children.  If the rubble came from somewhere else and the Petersens hauled it in to level the property long after the workshop was torn down, then the marbles don't relate to the pottery site at all.  They might instead be from the Sumner School directly across the street if the fill came from there when that building was torn down.  Its a big question!

Perhaps what we learn from the excavation of levels 2 and 3 will let us resolve our debate on this point.  Perhaps Chris will also write soon.  Chris's digital camera, seems to be giving us fuzzy pictures, and we won't be able to develop slide film for a few days, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to post more images tomorrow or Saturday.  Right now we're relying exclusively on my camera's slide film- you can see Chris in the photo above using that camera while stretched cat-like atop of the treehouse to shoot our overview shots.  I'll do my best to resolve the camera problem.  Stay tuned- based upon the STP results from 2004, we hope to discover artifacts and features relating to the operation of the pottery very soon!

July 15th, 2005: Timothy Scarlett

Today was a good day.  We removed the rest of level 2 from all four units, exposing the surface of the next level.  We also resolved the problem with the digital camera.  Operator error, as usual, but we've got it squared away now.  Here's a detail of our work in progress which shows some of the layers I mentioned above:

This is looking west-southwest into the plan and profile of units 0N2W and 2N2W.  At the top of the image, you can see the oldest asphalt.  In the wall profile under that, you can see a the 20th century layers in level 1-- a clinker and ash lens on the viewer's left and a lens of unburned coal which underlies it to the right.  Beneath these, you can see some of the grayish brown earth that made up the bulk of layer 1.  The hard clay layer of level 2 appears unexcavated in the left half of the picture.  The darker and brownish layer underneath (probably layer 3 in these units) is soft and contains a tremendous quantity of coal clinker and boiler waste. 

We expect to clean up early in the morning and shoot our pictures of each unit.  Then, we'll be able to get started on level 3.  The next level we expect to be thick and the first layer related to the period of pottery operation.  We think that the Petersen family lay down the clay layer between 1895 and 1905, based upon the artifacts found upon and within it.  The coal fire waste underneath it may be one of the by-products of firing a kiln using coal.  The STP from 2004 hit this layer and it included several kiln waster fragments.  This level should be promising to begin answering our key research questions!

We expect to continue working through the weekend.  We've only two weeks remaining, and we'll continue every day until we run out of time!

July 16th, 2005: Timothy Scarlett

Today was hot, but good.  We've removed most of the layer of clinker and ash (level 3 in most of the grid units).  The digs today revealed some interesting things.  First, we've noticed that the artifact frequencies vary across the four units.  This layer of clinker underlies everything we've excavated thus far.  The northern portion of the excavation yielded a thicker deposit of clinker, but also a cleaner one.  While we screened bucket after bucket of coal waste, there were only a small  handful of artifacts- mostly burned bone.  As we moved south, the units have greater concentrations of artifacts of different types.  Terra cotta roof tiles, which Petersen made for his house, sit embedded into the final section of the layer in 0N0W.  We'll start by excavating that area in the morning.

The roof tiles rest in an area of the excavation that we think lay right inside the wood framed building on the lot's edge.  We're not certain yet, but most of the artifacts are concentrated there.  To add fire to the mystery, when we began excavating the clinkers, an alignment of rocks appeared along the edge of the excavation in 2N0W that roughly match rocks aligned in 0N0W.  Archaeologists use the term alignment to identify rocks that they think people placed into position without guessing as to the purpose of the rocks- as words like wall, berm, or foundation might.  Chris noted with some satisfaction that these rocks align roughly with the bricks and rocks he identified in layer 1 in 0N0W.  A  huge tree root separates the two alignments, and the soil underneath serves as one of our baulks- an intact column of soil left to preserve the stratigraphy in place.  We'll see what develops with the alignment as we remove the next layer underneath.  I've indicated the aligned rocks with black arrows in the photo below. 

If you are wondering about clinker, its the by-product of burning large amounts of coal.  Clinker is one term for the crud left behind in a boiler or furnace (or perhaps a coal fired pottery kiln?).  Clinkers look like a cross between lava rock and glass-- much like obsidian and pumice.  You can imagine how it looks, even if you didn't grow up with a coal stove in your kitchen.  The organic material in the coal burns off, just as it does in a wood fire.  All the non-organic stuff in wood becomes ash.  There's a whole lot more non-organic stuff in coal than wood.  The silicate and metals melt into hard, airy, often shiny lumps.  The process is not completely unlike how sand melts into glass.  Here's what one screen full of clinker looked like:

Exciting, huh?  Maybe not, but the clinker layer could be really important as a time marker.   Right now we think that all this clinker was pulled out of Frederick Petersen's kiln.  Most potters preferred wood over coal because the gases produced by a coal fire did funny, unpleasant things to their traditional glazes.  Yet all the factories of Europe and America had to switch to coal because wood simply became to expensive to burn by the chord.  We've found a few tell-tale fragments of firebrick mixed in with the clinker, a good sign that this stuff didn't come from some other building's steam-heat boiler, but it is much to early to draw any conclusions.

The picture above shows the top of the clinker layer just before we started removing it.  You can really see the bright layer of hard packed clay that overlie it in the profile.  The next layer under the clinker seems to be similar because it seems to run under all four excavation units.  Tomorrow I'll explain how we're keeping track of our stratigraphy.  In this text, I've just been using the common terms layer, level, lens, and deposit.  Our strata have been relatively simple, but now I'll need to start talking about Context Units and the Harris Matrix so all the readers can follow our analysis as things get more complicated while we move further back into the nineteenth century deposits.

One other interesting thing happened this week.  Kirk Henrichsen stopped by to look in on what we're doing.  Kirk is the leading expert on the lives of the Mormon potters in Utah.  I grounded all of my research in his 1988 article about the potters which he published in the Utah Historical Quarterly.  Kirk visited this site more than 10 years ago.  He was walking along Third East and he noticed that the resident at that time had dug a big hole in the back yard.  Kirk approached him and struck up a conversation.  This man, a Polynesian immigrant to Salt Lake, had just dug a pit to roast a pig for a family event.  He was happy to let Kirk pick through the dirt and his roasting pit, removing fragments of pottery and tile.  I used those fragments in my INAA analysis in 2001-2.  As it turns out, the big square hole in the center of our four units was that man's roasting pit!  After roasting his pig, he backfilled his hole with the big chunks of concrete he'd unearthed.  We're pretty confident of the interpretation right now, since my 2004 STP dug through Feature 1 into the next layer underneath the clinker layer.  As we continue to excavate and remove the 20th century fill from Feature 1, I'll let you know if we find any pig remains!

More updates coming on Sunday-- Chris and I realized today that we've not really told readers anything about Frederick Petersen, his pottery, the Petersen family, or Chris's research project.  We'll get to that as soon as we can!

Jump to archive for week 2.

Jump to week 3.

Contact Details:

Utah Pottery Project

Timothy James Scarlett, Director

Department of Social Sciences

Michigan Technological University

1400 Townsend Ave

Houghton, MI 49931

Phone: (906)487-2359

Fax: (906)487-2468

email: scarlett@mtu.edu

Announcements

Media resources and press releases will be available here.

Speakers are available to make presentations to your organization about this project.  Please contact Timothy Scarlett for more information.

Institutional Support:

Department of Social Sciences

Program in Industrial Heritage and Archaeology

This Is The Place

Heritage Park

Wasatch-Cache National Forest, USDA Forest Service