Curation of the Flotation
Hello, everyone! I write to you during the second week of the field school where we have been able to get into the site- without the river level to stop us. Earlier this week, the site was still a bit too muddy and we spent our time storing and preserving artifacts, also known as curating, from previously uncovered flotation samples. This process was very educational to me, as I learned a lot of new artifact material types from the staff that some others may not be entirely familiar with either. It encouraged me to research further and I thought it would be beneficial to share some information on what I found.
The flotation technique in archaeology, including at Fort St. Joseph, is used to recover small artifacts, such as botanicals and bone, and separate them from soil. The heavier fraction materials (abbreviated to “HF” on artifact documentation tags) will remain towards the bottom of the water tank, and lighter fraction materials (“LF”) will float to the top. Some examples of the LF artifacts we have sorted through included small pieces charcoal or shell, while the HF artifacts were rocks or larger bone pieces.
 |
| Sorting through samples |
Throughout the process, I came across pieces of heavy fraction material that I couldn’t identify, which I was informed are to be called “slag”, “clinker”, “daub”, and even “lead sprue” by staff members. Curiously, I asked questions about what these materials were made of, but inquired online in order to learn more in depth about the terminology I was less confident about.
Milligan describes “clinker” as rocks that have fused due to coal combustion, or burning nearby. This may be from human activities but also natural combustion underground, all of which can be made from siltstone, sandstone, etc. Interestingly, the author also mentioned that the word itself is based on the clinking sound that it makes when the rocks are struck (Milligan). When I first examined the clinker I sorted, the holes made the artifact look almost like coral. The class thought that the clinker found from Fort St. Jospeh may be from human manufacturing during the industrial time period, due to the large quantity; however, I now know it isn’t impossible that it could have formed all on its own.
Asmus describes that “slag” may come in different types, as they are the byproducts of metal smelting, and may typically be found on site as metalworking waste. This may help show us the extent of metal production at a site based on the amounts found in a particular area (Asmus). The slag that I looked at was from some sort of iron production or blacksmithing on site.
Jamestown Rediscovery confirms what I had learned in lab, as “daub” is in fact clay-like building material that binds structures together (Jamestown Rediscovery). The daub we looked at was powdery and had an orange color to it, and I had humorously thought the staff was calling it “Bob” at first. Other terms like “lead sprue” made perfect sense after I learned it was the extra metal cut off from a tool mold.
While we had already been familiar with curating and sorting artifacts, from the very first week, it was interesting to learn about these new artifact terms that I hadn’t heard of before. Hopefully, this post may not only help our public blog readers to learn a bit more about these artifact terms, but also further the teams’ understanding as we continue to learn new information all the time.
Thank you and I hope to talk soon as we dig!
- Ava Hall
Sources:
Asmus, B. (2021, January 27). Slag analysis - what slag may tell us. Archaeometallurgy. https://en.
Jamestown Rediscovery. (n.d.). Daub. Historic Jamestowne. https://
Milligan , M. (2023, November 16). GeoSights: Colorful coal “clinker” close to Castle Gate, Carbon County. Utah Geological Survey. https://geology.utah.
Comments
Post a Comment