Saturday, May 16, 2009

Historic Ceramics Workshop

We had a ceramics workshop at Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum today, thanks to MAC lab director Tricia Samford who made available not only the conference room, but an excellent type collection to boot. There were fourteen in attendance, mostly CAT candidates and mostly folks planning on participating in the field session.

At lunch we walked down to part of the Smith site currently under investigation. While there I saw two very old friends...two of the original Lavish screens, now in service for about 21 years. Our new Lavish screens, which Dan Coates is building, will be online in time for the field session. I expect that we will get at least 21 years out of each and every one of them.

Jim

Friday, May 15, 2009

In the News

First, April returned safely to Ohio yesterday. She probably was curled up with a margarita before my post hit the ethernet.

Second, keen-eyed Elsie spotted a Washington Post article on archaeology volunteer opportunities in the Washington area: port tobacco is one of 6 sites mentioned
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/14/AR2009051401716.html

Port Tobacco joined five other sites/projects, probably more than one might find in most parts of the country.

The crew was in St. Mary's County today testing a Middle Archaic aboriginal site that we found during a survey. Most of the material was in the plowzone, but still interesting.

Jim

Thursday, May 14, 2009

April Leaves Town Under a Cloud!

April saddled her horse and headed west this morning and, with luck, should be riding into Tiffin, Ohio, as I write this posting. We got a lot of planning done and we are well on our way to completing preparations for the field session.

This afternoon, Dan Coates dropped off several recently completed screens. As April would say, they look marvelous. He also dropped off components for our field shower, including a propane fired water heater.

Early this morning, Belinda Urquiza sent me a spreadsheet with field session registrations to date. We have 39 people registered for the first day, 12 for the last day, and about 50 for everyday in between. We could use a crew cook, an events organizer, and a trained psychiatrist to counsel each of the PTAP team members.

Jim

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Preparing for Guests

April, Pete, Carol, Elsie, Anne, and Stephanie descended on Port Tobacco today, polishing up Burch House for the field session and reestablishing the grid. April broke a nail. Next week we start delivering equipment. Hopefully no more nails will be broken.

Pete, while working with the total station in the field, met Mr. Vincent Jamieson. Mr. Jamieson has given us permission to work in his fields, as has Mr. Calvin Compton, so we are going to have some great sites to work on.

This Saturday at J. Patterson Park & Museum in Calvert County we will hold a historic ceramics workshop in preparation for the field session. We'll be in the Conference Room of the MAC lab. Plan to attend and bring lunch. If the weather cooperates, we will visit our host, Dr. Tricia Samford, in the field. She'll be working on a site near the MAC lab.

Jim

Monday, May 11, 2009

CCAS Meeting

Just a reminder that the Charles County Chapter of the Archaeological Society of Maryland will hold their next meeting tomorrow night, Tuesday, May 12th @ 7:30pm in the Courthouse at Port Tobacco.

Ms. Sara Rivers Cofield, Curator of Federal Collections at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab, will give a lecture on the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory’s Diagnostic Artifacts in Maryland web site.

Also...April has returned to us (although only briefly) to help with the preparation for the upcoming ASM Field Session being held in Port Tobacco May 22 - June 1.

If you haven't already registered, go to the ASM website and do it soon...the beginning of another fun summer of excavation at Port Tobacco is right around the corner!!

- Peter