Pit 91: Level 3

Completed on March 19, 2014 by Jocelyn and DC Lock, and Odess and David Brinkman. Things got exciting fast as the feature turned into the same rectangular continuation of the feature from pit 89. The length also proved to be exactly 3 feet. On the west edge of this feature appeared a significant charcoal deposit which, with the trowel, quickly turned out to be a burned post feature. DC and I really slowed down things at this point and we carefully extracted the charcoal so that it can be carbon dated. As we continued, two more post holes appeared next to the burned post at 43cm. We continued to our standard 50cm. DC thought the rectangular feature could be a grave except for the post holes which could make it a privy. We decided to preserve what we had found and not dig further. A plastic sheet was placed on the bottom of the pit and the hole was filled. The final photo of level 3 revealed what may be a 4th and 5th posthole. The rounded feature that was near the south-east corner (which appeared at the bottom of level 2) may be a 6th post. After more thought and research on privy designs, it seems very possible that the rectangular feature could be a standard (19th century) privy hole (3 feet wide) and the posts could be the foundation posts of the privy building. So, what about the pits to the east of this feature? Unfortunately, the best continuation pit for this was pit 78 where only David was supervising a group of young people and he had to leave on an emergency at the start of pit 78's 3rd level. When he returned, the pit had been over dug and any bottom features were lost. He did note the dark feature in the west wall (the future pit 91) as a possible fire pit. Not all is lost however, the feature also spans to the east of pit 89 in a pit location we have not dug. We have picked this as pit 92. This pit may give us the other dimension of the rectangular feature. Again, we will plan a 3 day, 2 weekend, dig to make sure this is done correctly. Overall, pit 91 had 232 artifacts including 33 pieces of pottery, 46 pieces of glass, 14 nails, 5 Native American pieces, 14 iron pieces, and 110 charcoal pieces. In one day, in 1 level, we more than doubled the total features found in Granby. This makes pit 91 one of our best.

Pit 91: Level 3 produced: 9 pieces of pottery, 16 pieces of glass, 7 nails, 101 pieces of charcoal, and (at least) 4 features.






Below: The charcoal feature which turned out to be a burned post.



Below: The 3 obvious post holes and a few more possible ones.



Below: It's unlikely that the post holes are from a vertical post structure as these are very rare. It's more likely that the posts were foundation posts as shown in the privy design below.