Pit 114: Level 3

Completed December 28, 2020 by Bill Benton, Jocelyn and DC Locke, Odess and David Brinkman. Level three produced a great set of artifacts covering Granby (expensive English imported pottery, window glass, and nails), Thomas Brown (pipe pieces, stoneware, green glass), and Native American pottery pieces. As we reached 50cm, we were still finding a significant number of artifacts, so we continued. Leveling the pit at 60 cm, we found what would prove to be a huge surprise. A hard object that felt like wood appeared. Very close to it was one of the largest brick fragments we have found and also a square nail. This was all on the west side of the pit and not in the disturbed east side (gas line trench.) At this point, we put DC in the hole to excavate around the wood object. At first, we thought it might be a tree stump, but this is in an easement area where no trees have grown since this neighborhood was created in 1960. And before that, this land had been continuously plowed for over 100 years. The depth at which it was found was about six inches below the level at which Granby artifacts are no longer found, leading us to believe this is the ground level of the Granby and Thomas Brown periods. After Granby died out is when this area began to be plowed. Could this have been a wood post for a Granby building or Thomas Brown's log cabin trading post? A six-inch plow depth (at the Granby level which is almost two-feet below today's surface), would explain the post being at the level we found it.

As the excavation continued, it became apparent that this was not a tree or stump because there was no sign of roots. When DC finally pulled it out, we began to realize this was a squared-off post with a diameter of about 22 inches and a length of about 21 inches. We would later discover that this post was exactly in line, perpendicular with the Congaree River, with a post hole (14 feet away) we found in pit 43 over seven years ago. The post position was also in line (90 degrees) with a post hole we found in the last pit, about six feet away.

Click here to view a video of the post excavation

One last mystery about the post is that it has termites in it. Not very many of them, but several can be observed on the surface. How could a piece of wood like this have lasted for over 275 years with termites eating it? One explanation may be that the corner of the pit where the post was found is next to the corners of two pits (pit 67 and pit 69) that we dug in 2014. Maybe those excavations opened an easy (uncompacted) path for termites to travel. As well as moving our Finding Granby project into the preservation of iron objects (electrolysis), now we have to figure out how to try and preserve a possibly 275-year-old piece of wood.

Pit 114 gave us 405 artifacts. Its power rating makes it the 16th best pit in the Granby dig.

Pit 114: Level 3 produced: 32 pieces of pottery, 17 glass, 14 nails, 11 iron, one iron button, one slate, 19 Native American pottery, one post, and charcoal.

Below: Photos of the post. Was this the bottom of a wood post at Thomas Brown's 1735-1747 trading post?