Week 6
My name is Jessica Montcalm, and I am an incoming graduate student in the Industrial Archeology Program at Michigan Tech. This has been my first field school experience, and a great way to get myself back into the swing of school things after being out of the academic world for a few years. The experience has been one that will remain etched in my mind, not only for the amount of work that we accomplished over our six weeks here, but also for the friendly community and sense of working for a project that so many in the community have come to appreciate. But more on that later!
As you readers may have gathered, we have reached the end of our season here in the scenic Hudson Valley, and we are in the process of wrapping up our work. If you were to walk out to the main excavation areas in the Foundry area, you would be serenaded by the sounds of the gently gurgling Foundry Brook (formerly Margaret’s Brook) cascading down through the valley. The West Point Military Academy’s artillery training echoes in booms across the Hudson River, and the ring of shovels biting into the back-dirt piles and the not so subtle muttering of those people wielding wheelbarrows, buckets, and more shovels percolates through the site.
What is a back-dirt pile, you might ask? The back-dirt pile is part of the oft-overlooked and not so very glamorous segment of an archeological excavation where all of the dirt removed from the various excavation units is collected until the end of the season. When the main goals of the season have been accomplished (ie: what the directors wanted to see uncovered has been, or those excavating have reached the end of their ability to excavate due to perhaps a large iron concretion or the water table) it comes time to clean up the site and fill in the holes. And this is where the back-dirt comes into the picture.
The end of the field season is devoted to the back-dirt pile. All of the dirt that has come out of the excavation units has to be returned wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, bucket by bucket, and shovel by shovel to the holes. In some cases this year, there were items that had been put aside, and not collected during the actual excavations and these “re-bury” items (we strive for unmistakable and concise names for items here in the field) were deposited into the excavation units before the filling commenced. Once the re-bury items made it into their appropriate holes, the back-filling began in earnest. The back-filling process was three days of intense dirt hauling, dirt shoveling, and dirt packing. The team (which included our volunteer Thomas Conte for the last few days of the back-filling) took turns shoveling dirt from the back-dirt pile into wheelbarrows, moving wheelbarrows over the rubble- and brick-strewn pathways, and turning out the wheelbarrows into gaping excavation units. From there, the dirt was moved around in the units to cover all of the nooks and crannies. The final stages included stamping down and packing in the dirt in order to minimize the amount of settling that will take place as time passes, and if needed, more dirt was hauled in and the process repeated again. It may seem like a grand lesson in futility to some, but we prefer to look at it as coming full circle.
We have explored what we set out to do; we may have developed more questions than we have answered, but such the nature of our work. There can always be more done, more uncovered, more interpreted, but the time-constraints naturally limit the amount of work that can be finished. Now, however, the tools are being loaded into the vehicles, along with the artifact boxes, cameras, survey equipment, and computer. We are cleaning out the bunk house and getting ready to make the trek back to Houghton. As we wrap up and pack in all of our equipment, there is talk of what can be done next time, new projects are in the making, and plans are being hatched for the next field season.
The West Point Foundry and the Village of Cold Spring have treated us well. I know that I will miss the folks that we see every day and who have come to expect us just as we do them: the dog-walkers that we greet every morning when we pull in at eight-o-clock, and then say good-bye to when we leave the site for the day; the grandparents who take their grandchildren out for afternoon walks to check in on us and see what has been dug out today; the business owners who know us when we stop in to pick up coffee or mid-afternoon snacks. They have become as much a part of the field school experience as the Foundry itself, and they do well to reinforce the idea that what we are working on matters not just to us, but also to the community in which we are working. So, here it is: thanks to everyone in the village, your kindness has been appreciated! We look forward to working with you and for you in the future!
