With the incoming spring weather comes pleasant days in the field and great new finds for this archeology class. It has been a busy month, full of great discoveries and cool interactions with volunteers from the Honors College staff, including Provost Donna Arnett. 

Trench 1 has made some very cool finds after powering through their first levels of roots and mulch, being the first to uncover evidence of a mortar wall between their units B and C. Due to this find, this trench was expanded with a one-by-one unit placed 50cm away in order to hopefully uncover the end of the wall. After further exploration in Trench 1, they also uncovered a plaster flooring just outside the wall structure in unit C. Additional finds in their trench include the following: half of a ginger beer bottle, the bottom of a handmade wine bottle made of glass, and fragments of a plate. Many of these finds were made during our volunteer days, creating quite the learning opportunity for those who came to dig.

Trench 2 has also made a great deal of progress this month, digging about 30cm in all three of their units. While digging in their unit C, they believed they came down on a possible feature due to a sandy river around the northwest corner of the unit. After digging around 90cm deep, they discovered that the hole was lined with bricks, suggesting that it was dug to be a trash pit for previous demolition exploits. While digging, archeologists in this trench came down upon a thick brick layer across the entire trench, excluding the hole. They found a wide array of artifacts, including pieces of decorated ceramics, large amounts of animal bone, buttons, and nails. 

Trench 3 has overcome their layer of brick while making some changes to their trench this month. They decided to expand their units B and C half a meter north in order to see how much the brick layer expanded. In these expanded units, they came down on a plaster floor about 50cm down. After these expansions, they decided to pull up the brick. Further exploration will be done this week and we cannot wait to see what lies underneath!

After multiple weeks of undesirable weather, we finally had a beautiful day of digging this Wednesday and even had to break out the sunscreen. 

Trench 3 had quite an eventful day. We found an entire brick (along with lots of charcoal) and then started to uncover what we believe to be a continuation of the original President House’s water main pipe found the previous semester (you can find an image of this under the “Horseshoe Field Schools” tab). Lots of large nails and other metal objects were uncovered within 10 centimeters above the pipe which was about 60 centimeters below the surface. There will hopefully be an update on this next week if we don’t get thunderstorms on dig day. Other notable finds were part of a handle to a large ceramic jug or pitcher and a 20th century ceramic electrical wire insulator. The insulator created quite the buzz on whether it was part of a bottle, smoking pipe, etc. before the expert we consulted (Jim Legg) came back with the answer. 

Trench 2 also had some interesting finds, including a penny dating back to the 1920s. In addition, we also found the top of a glass bottle broken up into two parts and multiple unidentified lead weights. Hopefully, we will receive more input as to the identification of the lead weights from Jim Legg this week. At the end of the day, we finished off in level 3, or 48 cm down in all three units and cannot wait to continue our digging this week! 

In Trench 1, the first notable finds were several large bricks in the first unit alongside some large chunks of mortar. The rest of the artifacts in this trench were relatively small, including some pieces of glass, ceramic, and a small lead weight. Similarly to Trench 2, we are also hoping to have this uniquely shaped piece of lead identified by Jim Legg. Otherwise, our team is excited to dig even deeper, as large obstacles in this trench have been shallow mulch and root disturbances while digging. 

Despite some questionable weather, our class of archeologists made great progress on the three trenches they have been digging up for the Horseshoe 2025 project. While small groups working in the three established trenches uncovered new artifacts, some students worked on a shovel test in order to establish a good starting point for our fourth trench. Notable finds in each trench include pieces of decorated and patterned ceramics, nails, curved glass, and molded glass. Outside of digging, our class learned about cataloging the artifacts we found as well as worked on some public outreach incentives, including establishing public work days where members of the community can learn more about what we are doing while getting in on some of the action. Look out for our instagram (@uofscarchaeology) if you are interested in being a part of this process!