16 June 2016
Over the past few months, I've turned into a surface collector of animal bones. Animals are evolutionary and osteological wonders, and I'm enchanted with collecting as much as I can for my own curio cabinet. It just so happens that I remember the location of the grave of one of my most beloved childhood pets, Cassie.
Cassie was a beautiful calico shorthair cat, and she was a total sweetheart. I recall the day she got hit by a car on the road (I believe I was in the 3rd grade, maybe?), and one of my parents had to put her out of her misery. I was distraught for days. She was buried at the base of the old clothesline, in our back yard. So today, I decided to pay her a visit (and by "visit", I mean that I'm going to exhume her remains).
There were a few issues with my new quest. First of all, my mom planted an iris bush right at the base of where the clothesline was - which is right above the spot where Cassie was buried. I knew that if I tore up her plants, there would be hell to pay. Secondly, our house has been inhabited since the mid-to-late 1800s; I ran the risk of running into historic artifacts. Because of that, I decided to run the excavation of Cassie's burial archaeologically. I have my own field setup: an unfinished screen (which now needs to be fixed again), tent stakes, nylon string, line levels, trowels and shovels, datums, etc, etc.
I set up two one-meter-by-one-meter units, one on each side of the iris bush (TU A is on the north side of the bush; TU B is on the south side of the bush). However, I only excavated 3/4 of the unit. I knew that the cat was buried on the side closest to the plants, and I also didn't want to disturb too much of the yard. I mapped each unit, and also included the unexcavated portion. Each datum (I used two, one for each unit) was installed 10 cm above the ground surface. I excavated each unit in 10 cm levels.
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| TU A, which is also where I found Cassie. |
TU B was modified in such a way that could accommodate for digging between the plants, just in case Cassie was buried under them. In TU B, I found a posthole feature. That was exciting, until I remembered that there was a clothesline there - which was taken down circa 2011. I still mapped it in on the grid for TU B (which I will post later). I only dug down to 30 cm in this unit. I found some modern trash (plastic, mostly), in addition to a slew of possible historic artifacts: ceramic, glass, square nails, metal bottle caps, and non-feline bone (which may have actually been buried by our family dog, Zeke, long ago). But, no cat - so I began digging in TU A.
Excavation in TU A unearthed some modern trash: plastic and bits of flower pot. In the 20-30 cm level, however, I began to find historically diagnostic artifacts (glass with patina, square nails, etc.). I also found a cat fibula and a cat vertebra, too! Yay!
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| A large rim sherd, which was found in TU B - 20-30 cm below datum |
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| Various feline limb bones - found 40-50 cm below datum |
Theoretically, the deeper one digs, the older the artifacts become; those are just the rules of stratigraphy. I found historic artifacts
before finding the cat remains (which were buried only about ten years ago), indicating that the stratigraphy was disturbed and mixed together the day the cat was buried. There was also no soil change, until right before I found the rest of Cassie's remains (her skull, scapulae, vertebrae, etc., were found at 50 cm below datum). And aside from the clothesline feature in TU B, where were no features to be found.
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| The base of Cassie's skull is on the right; her scapula and some ribs are right below it, on the left. |
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| Beautiful. |
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| Vertebra and cat pelvis. |
Cassie's remains were cleaned, and she got a peroxide bath as well. Modern plastic and hunks of broken flower pot were scattered throughout the 0-10 cm level in each unit, as to be expected. As I continued to dig, however, bits of orange terra-cotta material and large hunks of charcoal were scattered throughout the 20-50 cm levels. One brick fragment was found in the southeast corner of TU A (at 49 cm bd), and mysterious cement/mortar material was found in the southwest corner of the same unit (35 cm bd). Otherwise, absolutely no evidence of a structure was found, suggesting that these building materials were dumped with the rest of the historic trash material. Additionally, melted glass was found throughout TU A (with the last piece being found in the south wall, at 59 cm bd). Some ceramic pieces were obviously burned, and small bits of clinker (spent coal) were found. The combination of burned artifacts, including the charcoal and melted glass, suggest that much of the artifacts were burned prior to burial.
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| Melted glass - south wall of TU A, 59 cm bd. |
I cannot make any concrete conclusions regarding the dates of the possibly historic artifacts (yes, I'm going to keep labeling them "possibly historic") until I do analyses of them first. I do know, however, that much of the window glass has patina on it - which is a definite indication of age. Additionally, I believe I may have found some stoneware, which could most certainly be of historic origin. Many of the nails, too, were square in shape, which also indicates age. I will focus more upon artifact analysis in another post.
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| Window glass; the iridescent film is heavy patina. |
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| Window glass (fogginess = patina), square nails, a hunk of metal, brick fragments, and Cassie's tail bone and toe...All found in the same level: 30-40 cm. |
Just to be clear, I did not begin excavation here because I wanted to find artifacts. This little project was conducted for the sole purpose of finding Cassie's remains. That being said, please don't let this inspire you to begin your own archaeological project - especially if you've only had minimal training. I have experience with field and lab work, and I went to great lengths to make sure that I observed and conducted this correctly. So please, don't touch that trowel unless you've undergone the proper training or if you have consulted with a professional.
I had every intention of keeping Cassie's remains for my own curio cabinet. However, I began to feel guilty for just keeping her on the shelf, only to get dusty. Jeff Sommer, Curator of Archaeology at the Castle Museum of Saginaw County History, occasionally accepts donations of animal remains for archaeological comparison (if unidentifiable animal remains show up in archaeological context, Jeff can figure out what species they belong to, based upon comparing them to another set of remains). I decided to donate Cassie to the Castle Museum's collections, as I believe that it would be a better way to honor her memory.
