AMHERST – Using a trowel to remove layers of dirt and soil from a trench on the lawn of the Amherst History Museum Wednesday afternoon, Jill Zuckerman found the top of a pipe, along with bricks and rocks positioned around the metal pipe, about a foot below the ground.
A field technician and archaeologist for the University of Massachusetts Archaeological Services, Zuckerman said she is not sure the exact purpose this structure once served, but that water or human waste likely passed through the pipe sometime in the 1800s.
“Clearly this was done by humans,” Zuckerman said. “Our job now is to uncover it and find out what purpose it had.”
Nearby, senior field technician Jessica Jay and Erica Wolencheck, a UMass senior studying anthropology and classics, have located a shaft shown on a survey completed by a ground-penetrating radar last fall.
“I think we’ve found the possible shaft feature, but it’s not a privy and it’s not a well,” Jay said. “We haven’t found any artifacts to tell us what it is.”
These are among the intriguing discoveries on the property during a three-day excavation overseen by field director Tim Barker. The six-member team was commissioned to handle the work by the Amherst Historical Society as potential changes to the property are contemplated, which could come as the result of an expansion and renovation project at the neighboring Jones Library. They also m
Both the ground-penetrating radar and follow-up archeological dig are being paid for with $20,000 appropriated from the town’s Community Preservation Act account.
Barker said part of the work is find what he terms the “ground truth” as subsurface anomalies that were picked up by the radar are examined. Combining this survey with previous archaeological investigations on site, including a study done about 25 years ago when the adjacent Jones Library underwent an expansion, a historic landscape report completed in 2002 and previous test pits in 2011, allowed the team to select several areas on the grounds where so-called human interventions may have occurred, such as buried foundations and cellar holes.
The team then created a total of 18 test pits, some as small as 50 centimeters by 50 centimeters, to the largest at 1 meter by 1 meter. Each was done to a range of depths, mostly 20 to 40 centimeters.
Much of what has turned up is what Barker refers to as domestic refuse, such as shards from ceramic plates, fragments of clay pipe bowls and the tops of medicine bottles.
But each item is important to tell the story. “The artifacts in the landscape fill will help us date when landscape events occurred,” Barker said.
Jay explained that there are different dates associated with ceramic with blue transfer paint, salt-glazed stoneware and hand-painted whiteware.
Jay said one of the more interesting finds about 20 centimeters deep was a lead fishing weight, with eyelets on either end, probably dating to the second half of the 19th century. She speculates that might have once been used by someone to fish on the Connecticut River.
Everything collected on site will be brought to a lab at UMass for documentation and interpretation. “The artifacts will all be cleaned, analyzed and catalogued,” Barker said.
Some of these items may later be displayed at the museum.
Georgia “Gigi” Barnhill, president of the trustees, said she is intrigued by what has been found so far.
“They are small things, but it’s a telling story,” Barnhill said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
