Units C15 and C16 are still too close to the water table to excavate, so we decided to open up another test square—Unit C21. It is located immediately adjacent to C20 in the vicinity of C17 and B11 where we suspect the early twentieth-century mineral springs cottages are located.
Although we have found at least a couple dozen nails in Unit C20, there had been no historic features, until the end of the day today, when Sydney and Brandon uncovered the remains of what may be a square historic post lined with limestone. As seen in the photo below, it appeared at first that there were only two limestone slabs lining this possible post, but once we cleaned up around the feature, it became apparent that it was surrounded by limestone on all sides.
We also found several pieces of bottle glass…
…and yet another probable horseshoe in C20, right where we expect the racetrack to be.
A few meters to the east, in Unit C17, there are no clearly discernable historic postholes, but there are a couple of secondary hearth remains including the cluster of burned limestone from Saturday and the concentration of burned earth and charcoal seen below. After staring at the outline of the feature for quite a while, Summer determined that it was bear shaped.
Meanwhile, in our lone unit in the western half of the field, Hannah, Daniel, and Maggie are working on their last level, which is proving to be quite the challenge to clean trowel.
And lastly, Brittany’s crew in Unit C18 have reached subsoil and are now working on drawing their unit profiles. Once they are done, it’s backfill time!
We were able to avoid most of the rain today. The forecast for tomorrow does not look good, but with any luck, we will be able to get at least some work done.