Pit 76: Level 3

Completed January 18, 2015 by Tim Ritter, Ron Vaughn, Jocelyn and DC Locke, Dean Hunt, and Teresa Mitchell, David and Odess Brinkman. Tim Ritter joined us for the first time today and made the interesting find of a seed pod below the plow zone. Shortly into the level, a circular post hole pattern appeared in the center of the hole but did not become obvious like the post holes found in pits 72 and 75. It was gone in about 1 centimeter. Good thing we were careful or this would have been missed. Odess found a brass colonial period button and DC found a .26 caliber musket ball shot. We also found an unusual (for Granby) amount of soft clay and a high number of nails and iron pieces including a possible gun part. After the surprise of Native American Pottery in level 1 and none in level 2, we had 7 pieces in level 3. As we approached the 50cm level (our normal stopping point) obvious wall like features started to appear. A metal detector scan showed there were more metal artifacts to find so we continued. To our surprise, many more pottery pieces were found and a larger number of window glass pieces. The wall like features continued until 60cm and one, possibly another post hole in the corner, continued until we stopped at about 75cm. An interesting soft clay piece was found in this last feature. When the stats were completed on pit 76, the large numbers of architecture items (brick, nails, and window glass) and structure features told us this was likely the north east wall/corner of the house. Overall, Pit 76 had finds in every category although we did not count the 1994 penny so we missed the coin category. It took 2 full dig days to complete pit 76 but it was worth it and it comes in ranked #5 among the 76 Granby pits. It was a great start to the new year. All 3 levels gave us 35 pieces of pottery, 90 pieces of glass, 28 nails, 24 iron pieces, a brass button, 7 pieces of charcoal, 2 pipe stems and 4 pipe bowl pieces, a musket ball shot, 11 NAtive American pieces, 1 (maybe 2) post holes and wall like structure features.

Pit 76: Level 3 produced: 16 pieces of pottery, 41 pieces of glass, 14 nails, 13 iron pieces, 7 pieces of charcoal, a musket ball shot, 1 pipe bowl piece, and 7 Native American pieces.





Below two photos: A celt-preform or just a rock? A metal detector gives a strong iron reading on this but Geologist Heather Hanna (who helped us do the SCDOT and New South Associates Granby-to-Saxa Gotha archaeological dig the weekend before) thought this was probably natual (fine-grained intrusive igneous rock. Probably a granodiorite).




Below: This was the first possible post hole sighting.



Below: At 50cm, these features showed including a re-appearance of the post hole. Could this be the wood framing of the house's north-east corner?



Below: At 70cm, we still have a strong feature in the north-west corner of the hole. The light object in the feature turned out to be a large piece of clay.