Pit 14: Level 1-3

Completed August 27,29, 2012 by Art Coogler, Dean Hunt, David and Odess Brinkman, and new dig team member, Debra Carlsen. Debra and Dean arrived as the sky cleared and we finished our best pit (#13). I was not expecting to do another pit on a Monday evening but everyone else was excited so I went along with it. Because we were going into an adjacent pit (and we had very little daylight left) we decided to do a single 47cm deep level. Debra quickly became known as the nail lady and pit 14 broke what I thought would be a long-standing record of pit 13. 24 nails! It wasn't until days later that I also realized that pit 14 shattered the record for pottery count at 45. The most amazing thing, however, about pit 14 was the pipe count. Just as it was getting too dark to see anything, we decided to stop at about 80% of the pit complete. As Odess and Debra finished the last bit of sifting, Odess found out best pipe piece... it was the base of the pipe (just under the bowl) with the foot. Again, the pipe hole dates it to 1720-1750. This would be one of 7 pipe pieces found in pit 14! We were all excited and dirty but still enjoyed some good beer and dinner made by Odess. A few hours later, I was hit with the curse of pit #13. I suffered all day Tuesday and finally went to an Ophthalmologist on Wednesday to have a 200 year old artifact of pit 13 removed from my eye. That evening, despite all the rain and injury, Odess and I returned to Granby to finish pit 14 in what was the muddiest mess I've ever been in. In the end, pit 13 hung on as the best pit with pit 14 in second. This should make us all excited because it means we may not have seen the best yet. You can follow which pits are the best on the Artifact count page.

Pit 14: Level 1 produced:45 pieces of pottery (a record), 56 pieces of glass, 24 nails (a record), 7 pipe pieces (a record), and 4 unknown pieces of iron.