Digging Wells

There are three wells on our archaeological site in Delaware, one in the newer (1820-1920) part and two in the older (1770-1820) part. Today we used a backhoe to complete the excavation of two, and widen the third so we can keep digging down by hand.

The first was our nearly sterile well, We dug this all the way down with the backhoe, and it was sterile all the way down. We tried to dig half and leave the profile intact, but of course once we got down into the wet levels the whole thing collapsed. Here I try to measure the depth without collapsing the hole -- the well was about 9 feet deep.

This is the most recent well, filled around 1920. We dug this one to the bottom with the backhoe, too, and it turned out to have an interesting structure. Toward the bottom some of the brick lining was preserved, as you can see here. This brick rested on a wooden ring about 4 inches thick. Behind it was a layer of wooden boards, as if these had been set up to hold the side up when the brick ring was built. Not much in the way of interesting artifacts, though.

The last well, the second one in the old part of the site, is producing all the good artifacts. We will keep digging down in this one by hand, but to make that safe we widened the hole using the backhoe. Here you can see the remains of the wooden lining emerging, about 6 feet below the old surface.

More artifacts from this well: above, a creamware camber pot, and below, large sherds from mug and a teapot made of pearlware.

This was an exhausting day for me, but a very productive one, so it is a good sort of tired.