In 17th-century Virginia and Maryland, most buildings were "post in the ground" or "earthfast" construction. The structure was framed around large posts set in holes in the ground. This made the buildings rather temporary, since the posts rotted or were eaten by termites in 10 to 20 years. But because the posts had to be set deeper into the ground than a plow goes, the post holes have endured very well. By contrast log or frame houses built more recently sometimes had very shallow brick or stone foundations that have been completely destroyed by plowing. So this temporary construction was archaeologically more permanent than techniques that made the house last longer. Above is the house at Basse's Choice on the James River, where I supervised the excavation in the late 1980s, before it disappeared into the river. The site dated to the 1620s.
What you are seeing here is largely an artifact of the archaeologists' work. The soil stains are visible if you know what you are looking for, but they don't show up well in photos, so to make them show up the holes are partially excavated. There are two stains for each post. The larger shape is the post hole, the hole dug to set the post in. The holes were generally roughly rectangular, 3 to 4 feet across (0.9 to 1.2 m). The holes were probably dug so large so the carpenters could get in them to adjust the depth -- sometimes you find thin rocks that must have been put under the posts as shims -- and move the posts back and forth to fit them to the main beams. Within the hole is a smaller, darker stain left by the post itself. Archaeologists call this the post mold. If the post rotted in place, the mold preserves its exact shape and size. If the post was removed, the cavity may have partially collapsed before it filled in with drifting topsoil, so the shape is only approximate. But you can see here than some posts were carefully squared and some had been left round, at least at the bottom. To make these photos possible, you dig the hole down a couple of inches and the mold a couple more, so the shadows define the edges. These holes were all completely excavated after the photos were taken and all were on the order of 2 feet deep (0.6 m). I think this photographic technique was introduced into Virginia by Ivor Noel Hume, my archaeological grandfather (i.e., he trained the people who trained me).
This is Jockey's Neck near Jamestown, if memory serves dating to the 1630s. This building received an addition, which you can see on the right side of the photograph. Of those close-spaced pairs of posts, the one on the left marks the end of the original structure, the one on the right the start of the addition. The two posts on the left probably held up the wooden chimney. Yes, the chimneys of these houses were wooden, lined with clay, with just a few bricks or stones to form the hearth. Yes, they often caught fire, and they were probably made so they could be easily pulled away from the rest of the house -- that was how the chimneys on later log houses were constructed. That oblong thing in the upper left was a shallow pit in or under the floor.
This is an unusual variant, an earthfast frame set in the bottom of a cellar, forming a "pit house." A half-underground house was cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, but of course it was wetter all the time. This is Boldrup in Newport News, dating to the 1640s.
These houses did not have basements, but sometimes storage pits were dug under the floor, called "root cellars." This is the house of Richard Bland I near Hopewell on the James River. Bland was a very prominent person, the founder of the prominent Bland family in Virginia and owner of thousands of acres of land. This house dates to around 1670. Still at that time most wealthy Virginians lived in these temporary houses, and fewer than 20 substantial brick houses had been built in the colony, most of them at Jamestown.
This is Causey's Care, a site that was in a gravel pit along the James River between Williamsburg and Richmond. The date of the site was disputed, but the house was probably abandoned in the 1660s. You can see that a large cellar with a tile floor was added along the side of the original house, probably with an addition above.
Barns and even small sheds were built this way. If you're wondering why these early English settlers did not build log structures, they didn't know how. Wood was expensive in England, so log building had disappeared long before 1607. English Americans had to learn that technology from Swedes or Finns, who came from the great forests of Scandinavia.
I decided to write about these structures because I dug about 20 of them between 1984 and 1991, and I used to be an expert of sorts. But it has been quite a while since I last dug one, and I wanted to post these old pictures before my memories of these sites faded any more. This is what I looked like back in 1985.
In 17th-century Virginia and Maryland, most buildings were "post in the ground" or "earthfast" construction. The structure was framed around large posts set in holes in the ground. This made the buildings rather temporary, since the posts rotted or were eaten by termites in 10 to 20 years. But because the posts had to be set deeper into the ground than a plow goes, the post holes have endured very well. By contrast log or frame houses built more recently sometimes had very shallow brick or stone foundations that have been completely destroyed by plowing. So this temporary construction was archaeologically more permanent than techniques that made the house last longer. Above is the house at Basse's Choice on the James River, where I supervised the excavation in the late 1980s, before it disappeared into the river. The site dated to the 1620s.
What you are seeing here is largely an artifact of the archaeologists' work. The soil stains are visible if you know what you are looking for, but they don't show up well in photos, so to make them show up the holes are partially excavated. There are two stains for each post. The larger shape is the post hole, the hole dug to set the post in. The holes were generally roughly rectangular, 3 to 4 feet across (0.9 to 1.2 m). The holes were probably dug so large so the carpenters could get in them to adjust the depth -- sometimes you find thin rocks that must have been put under the posts as shims -- and move the posts back and forth to fit them to the main beams. Within the hole is a smaller, darker stain left by the post itself. Archaeologists call this the post mold. If the post rotted in place, the mold preserves its exact shape and size. If the post was removed, the cavity may have partially collapsed before it filled in with drifting topsoil, so the shape is only approximate. But you can see here than some posts were carefully squared and some had been left round, at least at the bottom. To make these photos possible, you dig the hole down a couple of inches and the mold a couple more, so the shadows define the edges. These holes were all completely excavated after the photos were taken and all were on the order of 2 feet deep (0.6 m). I think this photographic technique was introduced into Virginia by Ivor Noel Hume, my archaeological grandfather (i.e., he trained the people who trained me).
This is Jockey's Neck near Jamestown, if memory serves dating to the 1630s. This building received an addition, which you can see on the right side of the photograph. Of those close-spaced pairs of posts, the one on the left marks the end of the original structure, the one on the right the start of the addition. The two posts on the left probably held up the wooden chimney. Yes, the chimneys of these houses were wooden, lined with clay, with just a few bricks or stones to form the hearth. Yes, they often caught fire, and they were probably made so they could be easily pulled away from the rest of the house -- that was how the chimneys on later log houses were constructed. That oblong thing in the upper left was a shallow pit in or under the floor.
This is an unusual variant, an earthfast frame set in the bottom of a cellar, forming a "pit house." A half-underground house was cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, but of course it was wetter all the time. This is Boldrup in Newport News, dating to the 1640s.
These houses did not have basements, but sometimes storage pits were dug under the floor, called "root cellars." This is the house of Richard Bland I near Hopewell on the James River. Bland was a very prominent person, the founder of the prominent Bland family in Virginia and owner of thousands of acres of land. This house dates to around 1670. Still at that time most wealthy Virginians lived in these temporary houses, and fewer than 20 substantial brick houses had been built in the colony, most of them at Jamestown.
This is Causey's Care, a site that was in a gravel pit along the James River between Williamsburg and Richmond. The date of the site was disputed, but the house was probably abandoned in the 1660s. You can see that a large cellar with a tile floor was added along the side of the original house, probably with an addition above.
Barns and even small sheds were built this way. If you're wondering why these early English settlers did not build log structures, they didn't know how. Wood was expensive in England, so log building had disappeared long before 1607. English Americans had to learn that technology from Swedes or Finns, who came from the great forests of Scandinavia.
I decided to write about these structures because I dug about 20 of them between 1984 and 1991, and I used to be an expert of sorts. But it has been quite a while since I last dug one, and I wanted to post these old pictures before my memories of these sites faded any more. This is what I looked like back in 1985.
2 comments:
I remember that guy. - Jamie
This is amazing! Awesome to realize where we have been in the past. I'd love to be able to do this myself!
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