Bill D. (VA)
Silver Member
Well, after my buddy Stan and I got into a few early dated wine bottle seals at this site back in Dec he decided it was time for a return trip and gave me a call to join him on Sat. We decided to concentrate in the same area where the seals had popped up last time. I probed around where we had dug before and the whole area was loaded from a depth of about 1-4 feet. So after clearing the surface roots I started going down and soon started hitting the use layer. However, I quickly came to the conclusion that this new pit didn't have the quantity of glass like the last time so my hopes for multiple seals was dashed early on. It was tough digging with hard-packed brick and oyster shells being predominant (but was much easier than Stan's root-filled pit!), and I eventually started digging a few pipe stems, pottery shards, and wine bottle spouts and bases. No whole pipe bowls showed up this time either. My preferred method of pit digging is to first dig it out and eyeball what I can, then sift the dirt back into the hole. Stan prefers to sift as he takes the dirt out, then rake it back in the hole when he's done. Either way works just fine. Stan finally got things started with a partially broken 1719 seal just like several others he's dug here before. He finished up filling his hole right as I was just getting started sifting and left to go detect in the adjacent fields. I was finding very little of real interest in the sifter, but as I was just about to finish up I eyed another 1719 seal just like Stan had dug, and it was partially broken as well. That was fine with me, though, as I had been successful in finding what I looking for plus it had the full mongram and date. I wrapped up the pit and spent about an hour in the field but only came up with a couple buttons. Anyway, we had a great time and I'm looking forward to getting back there again for another day of backbreaking work. Thanks again Stan for the invite - I really appreciate it!
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