For the second year in a row, Carol brought a large box full of (delicious) homemade muffins. They disappeared within minutes, but Kathryn was kind enough to save one for Dr. Eubanks to eat.

Our visitors picked a great time to stop by as we had just started troweling the historic surface/floor from yesterday. As it was cleaned for a second and third time, faint posthole-like stains appeared and then quickly disappeared, but the hard, compacted surface remained. Before the surface could be excavated, the nearby bottle had to be removed.

The glass is fairly thick and contains numerous bubbles, and, according to Dr. Smith, there is a good chance that it dates to the 1830s or 1840s.

Less than 10 meters (11 yards) to the south, Shonda, Valarie, and Matthew found another seemingly historic feature in the northern part of their 2 x 2 meter test unit. It contains several limestone cobbles and what may be the remains of a tin can.

Wedged between these two historic features is a prehistoric Mississippian midden deposit complete with animal bones, burned earth, shell-tempered pottery, and an arrow point. Here, Janice and Devin can be seen measuring the depth of one of their animal bones.

Tomorrow, we will be working a half day as Dr. Smith has kindly agreed to give the crew a tour of Bledsoe’s Station, an early pioneer fort located less than half a mile northwest of the mineral springs.