Day XX

This Thursday is the twentieth and last dig day. Everyone is busy finishing up their units, writing their paper work, and the weather was great. My unit, # 201, is about seventy centimeters deep now. I've found a countless amount of artifacts since hacking away the large grey chalk piece (that was the bane of my existence for about a week) that revealed a sealed layer of French and British era material. These finds include: green lead-glaze ceramic, reddish orange Choctaw earthenware (as well as charred pieces), charcoal, A LOT of bone (and burnt bone), blue on white faience, creamware, German salt-glazde ceramic, at least twenty nails and larger stakes (some of them perfectly preserved), copper wire, brass hardware, glass, brick, mortar, and multiple chalk pieces with quarry marks.

 From what I've found in my unit as well as the units to the south, we can speculate that as the Spanish took over the old Fort Tombecbe they most likely burned the barracks structure, or what as left of it, while salvaging what they could to use as a foundation for Fort Confederation's earthwork-walls. In addition to the artifacts and chalk pieces, river gravel, peculiar fossils, and an orange-brown clay was discovered. This leads us to hypothesize that while the Spanish we're definitley salvaging what was left of the old fort for their own purposes, they were probably bringing in fill material from farther south (possibly from near present day Mobile) as well.

This month has been a blast, and my first field experience is one I'll never forget. Dr. D (aka Diesel) has been saying the whole month that the last few days hold the best artifacts and, while the Shroud was an awesome find, me and Diesel came across an epic piece of a white ceramic dish while troweling through the southern end of my unit. The pictures from today are endless but here is my favorite.

White ceramic dish.

- Lee Light Horse Reissig