Closer and closer to the 18th century

Excavations continuing in Area E.

The Pensacola Colonial Frontiers field school continues to make solid progress, and in many excavation units is just beginning to push through the 19th-century sawmill deposits and into the underlying mission deposits predating 1761.  The last days of Week 2 were sporadically interrupted or cut short by rain, and today, the first of Week 3, was cooler under cloudy skies and threat of rain, but we've been pleased with the results of our students' work, and have begun to make finds from Mission Escambe.

Most of the artifacts found so far date to the 19th or 20th centuries, including nails, railroad spikes, glass, and brick fragments associated with the Molino Mills era, but most of our units are already producing evidence for the Apalachee Indian residents of Mission Escambe, including plain, brushed and incised pottery.  More importantly, excavations in Area E are beginning to show evidence for the yellow clay that we have come to associate with mission-era structural remains at the site.  The next few days should be very revealing as we proceed downward into the 1760s.

Block 4 in Area E filled with rainwater.

Bailing water from one of the units in Area C.

Lunch around the open units (prepared to cover if it rains).

 

Fragments of sawmill-era sheet metal in the shovel test below the bluff.

Another pair of 20th-century bottle rims (one inside another) from Area B.

A post-mission bottle rim from Area C.

An incised potsherd from the mission period.

Another denizen of the mission, a turtle laying eggs.

Michelle and Dr. Bratten positions an iron object on the X-ray table.

Dr. Bratten and Michelle examine the digital X-ray image on a computer screen.

X-ray of a sawmill-era cut nail.

X-ray of a large rectangle of solid iron from Area E.

X-ray of a metal strap, possibly a barrel band.

Colonial Frontiers students touring the Wentworth Museum on our rain day.

Wall panel describing Mission Escambe in the revised Wentworth Museum exhibit.

A group shot, including a couple of guests (Edmund Patch and a strangely quiet fisherman).