Day 1 – Arriving at “Heinlenville” site, 13 May 2009
Removing asphalt to expose historic ground surface.
Scraping the ground with backhoe, trowel, and hoe, to find features.
Backhoe in action, while archaeologists are watching for soil changes.
Shoveling as a team.
Archaeologists remove all the loose soil left behind from the backhoe to expose potential features.
Looking down a trench.
Following the backhoe as it opens up another area in former Heinlenville.
More shoveling.
Scraping the surface of the trench by hand.
Ceramic sherd found on the surface.
As the backhoe continues the trench in the background, an archaeologist monitors; loose soil is being removed by shovel and wheelbarrow; while earlier portions of the trench are scraped with trowels.
All loose soil around the trenches must be removed for site safety, and to keep it from falling back into the cleaned trenches.
Scraping the surface with trowels.
And more troweling . . .
Until finally surface features have been exposed, and is ready to be photographed. Archaeologists do all this troweling, not only to find features, but to get the clearest picture of what they are, or might be. This helps the archaeologists determine how to approach the excavation.
Field office and equipment storage.
Exposed features are numbered, labeled before they are excavated; Context 150.
After the first round of context identification, excavation begins. Setting up a section line is often the first step.
Graduate student excavating with the assistance of an experienced excavator.
Exposing a brick feature.
Mapping a brick feature.
Moving the shade canopy requires a group effort.
Shade canopy on the move . . .
Shade canopy is set up over the next set of features to be excavated.
Excavation of adjacent features under the canopy in progress.
Screeners (Erica and Naomi) at work. Archaeologists process the dirt through mesh screens of different sizes to “strain out” the dirt and collect the artifacts.
These screener (Thea, Mark, and Bryan) are bit luckier, they get to work in the shade.
Graduate student Kristin carefully excavating around the bowl.
Archaeologist and professor, Adrian Praetzellis, shows the bowl in previous slide to interested site visitors.
Thea and archaeologist Julia Costello mapping and recording an excavated feature.
Open House 2009: Historian and author Connie Young Yu explains some of the history of San Jose’s last Chinatown (Heinlenville) and her family’s connection to the site.
Connie Young Yu leading a tour during Open House 2009.
Historian Ralph Pearce giving a presentation on old Japantown; and the Filipino connection to the site, the old Filipino community center. .
Tours included stops at each archaeological exposure, where archaeologists explained what was known from the records and maps of the area, and what the archaeologists had found during the course of the excavation.
Another stop along the tour.
ASC Oral Historian Elaine-Maryse was on hand to record the memories of former residents of “Heinlenville.”
Archaeologist and ASC lab manager Erica Gibson showed visitors artifacts recovered from the site and artifacts recovered from other Chinatown excavations.
Visitors also got to handle some of the artifacts, and puzzle out what they might be, or how they relate to things we use today.
Crew shot at the end of Open House 2009.
Context 162 feature photograph before excavation.
Grad student Naomi excavating Context 162.
Context 162 section. Archaeologists often excavate one half of a feature at a time; this is called a section. They do this for many reasons: for example this enables the archaeologist to create a profile of how the feature was formed, and also record how different parts of the same feature may vary.
Small working spaces require creative approaches to excavating, as Karen ably demonstrates.
Flexibility and a sense of humor are often critical to success as an archaeologist.
Core and upper body strength should also be part of your archaeologist workout, which Michael demonstrates in this and the following photo.
See previous caption.
Archaeologist Julia Costello and local volunteer Zach excavating.
Zach holding up a couple of artifacts he helped to excavate.
Our site photographer Kate in action, while Mark finishes his excavation notes.
The last big push to get all the screening done before the end of the project. .
Bryan Mischke and Bryan Much used the Total Station [electronic transit and distance measuring device (EDM)] to map the site.
Trying to finish the last feature of this excavation project. Note that the canopy has already been removed from its frame, as the site is being closed down and equipment packed up.
End of the field excavation, 23 April 2009. The bags and boxes contain artifacts that will be taken back to the lab to be washed, sorted, and cataloged.
“Archaeology Gothic” (more archaeology humor).
