cellar hole question

[Bell]

I just moved to NC and think I found a cellar hole in the woods near my house. Its about five foot deep and maybe 25 by 25 sqaure with a cut path leading out. What's troubling is 1. It doesn't appear to be lined with rocks unless they are covered with leaves, and 2. There is an open well in one corner of the bottom of it. Did they put wells in cellars? I'm baffled as to what it is.

 

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[Mackaydon]

Yes, for example.....:
http://www.preservationvirginia.org/rediscovery/page.php?page_id=444

 

[Bell]

Thanks. As usual you have good info. That may be more right on than you know, the well appears to be bare dirt as well, and not rock lined, so having been barrell lined makes sense. Now I just need a good freeze to put the snakes away. Has anyone seen this type of setup, is it common? Datable?

 

[Mackaydon]

Here's others: http://www.jriarchaeology.com/pages/king.htm

AND
last paragraph on page 148 here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...si-I2D&sig=AHIEtbSd_lomHLZaG6v61_YSVN0O-4IbbA

 

[Bramblefind]

I've been in a few houses that had open wells right inside them. But the description of the site in your post reminded me of an Archaeology class I took a couple years back and we discuss a building technique used in the south called "Earthfast" or "Post in Ground". Might explain the shallow cellar hole and absence of stone. I dug out one of my books "In Small Things Forgotten" (Deetz) and this is a part of his description:

"An entire building tradition in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake has vanished leaving hardly a trace; only two examples have survived the passage of time. Known as earthfast or post-in-ground construction, this tradition involved framing the house on posts buried directly in the earth. What has survived of houses of this type is little more than a faint pattern of soil stains, marking the location of the posts, to be seen only when the plowed earth has been removed, and then with difficulty. This building tradition was linked to a number of economic factors, to be discussed later, and was the commonest form of construction throughout the seventeenth century and in some places into the eighteenth...."

 

[Woodland Detectors]

Welcome to NC! Congratulations! You have stumbled onto a Cellar Hole.

 

[Bell]

Thats great news thanks! The best part is its on the land I'm leasing basicly in my back yard. Now just to start hitting it and see what's there!