QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
The First Season of Archaeology at Indiana - Part 1

This season marks the first year of a multi-year archaeological and historical research project investigating the community of Indiana - once a bustling 19th century mill village and now a ghost town. Between May 3 and June 11 a team of twenty-one Wilfrid Laurier University students under the direction of Professor John Triggs and 3 Teaching Assistants excavated over 50 square metres, sifting about 5,000 buckets full of sediment, on the former townsite. Excavation centred on three separate areas: The East Field (#1 on town plan) - the area between the highway and Hill House; The West Field (#2 on town plan) - the area between the river and Mill Lane; and The Grist Mill (#3 on town plan) - located on the property of the Gingerbread House Restaurant. Some of the highlights of the first season of excavation are discussed below.

Plan of the Town of Indiana, 1844 [Image 1]

As with most field projects of this nature, where teaching and research are combined, the project seemed a blur and it is only now, sitting at a comfortable desk in front of my computer as opposed to an overturned bucket and dirt-stained notebook, that I finally have a chance to begin contemplating the season’s findings. Leaving the field work behind, the next phase of the project will focus on analyzing the thousands of finds and the hundreds of pages of notes and photographs generated by the recording process in an effort to distill the results into a meaningful picture of what life was like for people at this small village more than a century and a half ago.

This out-of-the-field work can be both tedious and at the same time rewarding as the mundane work gives way to the occasional epiphany. Indeed, it will be months before answers to some of the questions posed at the outset of the project can be answered. Also, if this project is like most other archaeological excavations, it is very likely that more questions will be raised as work in the lab proceeds. Bearing this in mind, it may seem premature to present the results of the excavation before any of the analysis has even begun; however, in light of the interest shown by many who witnessed the work being carried out, and since it is true that some of the things found require little explanation, some of the more ground-breaking highlights of the dig are presented below.

Preliminary Work: This project represents an outgrowth of documentary research conducted by myself and students at Wilfrid Laurier in an industrial archaeology course taught during 2002 and 2004. As with any archaeological project of this nature the preliminary step to field work is historical background research designed to provide as much information about the site prior to actually putting shovel to dirt. My own research involved an analysis of decadal censuses from the 1860s through to the 1890s as well as other archival sources. Census information in particular was useful for constructing ‘snapshots’ of the population every ten years and examining changes in such things as working age, ethnicity, religion, marital status, family size, population density, housing, transience and permanence. Students were directly involved in transcribing over 200 pieces of correspondence from the Thompson family archives as well as conducting research on various industries known to have once been operative in the town. Together this information was useful for framing research questions to be answered with a field investigation and also to provide some context for the findings, helping us to understand the developments occurring in the town during the 19th century as well as providing insight into the people who once lived there.

The Test Pitting Survey - East Field [Image 2]

The Test Pitting Survey [Image 2]: During the first week of the field school students and Teaching Assistants conducted an exploratory test survey of the portion of Indiana owned by Ruthven Park. Testing in this sense involved excavating about 200 pits (about 40 centimetre diameter) on a controlled grid. The location of each pit was mapped, given a specific designation and then excavated to undisturbed subsoil. Sediment from each pit was carefully screened and all artifacts larger than 1/4" in size were recovered, bagged, and sent to the lab to be washed & catalogued and entered into a computerized database.

While this was being done, another task during the first week of work was to re-establish the former town street system as shown on an 1844 plan of the town [Image 1]. Three streets (Merritt Street, Markland Street and Mill Lane) and 10 town lots, located within the property boundaries of Ruthven Park, were marked on the ground with stakes. Re-surveying the town lots in this way provided context for the 200+ test pits in that each pit could now be related directly to a particular town lot or in more meaningful terms, to particular structures and their associated households. In this way comparisons of the different artifact collections could be made between the social units, or families, who once lived here. Analysis of this spatial data (thousands of artifacts were recovered including ceramics, container glass, smoking pipes, architectural items, food bone, native artifacts, etc.) at the close of the first week guided decisions for the next phase in the investigation; i.e., laying out regular 1 x 1 metre or 1 x 2 metre units on a measured grid established over the entire site.

The West Field: Several units were laid out in this area centred on several ‘hotspots’ or areas of high artifact concentration. The intent was to recover as large a sample of artifacts from each of the four lots in the field for the purpose of conducting a comparative analysis of the households/buildings. One of the more interesting finds in this area was a brick and timber structure located towards the rear of one of the lots fronting on Mill Lane. The function of the structure is still unknown, although the brick debris suggests a mid-century outbuilding constructed in a shallow pit excavated into the clay subsoil. The amount of architectural items (window glass, nails, 2 very different types of brick, and hardware) far outnumber the few domestic household items (e.g., ceramics, container glass, food bone) and these may provide some clue as to the function of the structure during the post-excavation analysis this fall.

The enigmatic feature - a shallow, wood-lined pit later filled with refuse [Image 3]

Another puzzling feature was found near the bluff overlooking the river. Here, a shallow pit had been purposely excavated into the clay subsoil for a depth of only a few inches [Image 3] and then lined with a wooden frame measuring about 2' x 4'. The original purpose of this is unclear although at a later date the pit and frame were infilled with a considerable quantity of artifacts. Acomplete stamped tea cup typical of the 1840/1850s, an 1852 Bank of Upper Canada one penny token, a carved and polished bone spoon, other varieties of ceramics, container glass, smoking pipes and several pieces of hardware identify this as a midden dating from the 1860s - a period when the population of Indiana peaked at around 300-350 people.

Remains of the wooden walkway constructed ca. 1860 [Image 4]

In another unit, situated close to Mill Lane, evidence of a plank walkway was revealed only a few inches below the ground surface [Image 4]. Interestingly, the dimensions and construction style of the walkway matched with an 1862 description of the feature by the ‘Indiana Sidewalk Committee’ of which David Thompson II was Chair. Artifacts found on the walkway included several smoking pipes marked ‘Murray/Glasgow’, a company in business between 1833 and 1861.

Finally, evidence of precontact aboriginal occupation was found in several excavation units located towards the bluff overlooking the river. Pieces of chert debitage - debris from the manufacture of stone tools - were found in many units along with the only tool, a chipped stone drill-point. At present the context of the finds is unknown although several small post holes were found in three separate units suggesting some type of settlement feature.

Continued