Brooklyn's Eighteenth-Century Lott House: Field Notes 1999


Field Notes 1999	"Brooklyn's Eighteenth-Century Lott House" November 24, 1999

Project Update
We have finally completed the most tedious part of lab work, washing and labeling the artifacts. This part of the project has gone remarkably quickly since our students have been dedicated, coming to the lab regularly and keeping up with their assigned tasks. Over two years, we've handled maybe 60,000 artifacts.

From every piece of coal, shell, and window glass to the arrowhead, dog tag, and forked mystery object, each artifact got a number. Now we have begun to combine like artifacts so we can mend broken ceramics and glass and compare similar objects. We're also trying to define specific time frames for each unit. Once this is done we will use Access and Excel data bases to compare artifacts.

We will create charts and graphs to show us, for example, when artifacts were made and used, where they were used (clusters of artifacts suggest activity areas), or where they were discarded.

Next, we'll move on to analyze the stratigraphy of the site by creating 3D site maps that will show us the lay of the land at each stage in the history of the property.

From there we will photograph, scan, and draw representative artifacts of rare types or styles. These may be used for publication purposes or museum displays. They will also be added to the data bases so that anyone will be able to access the images and the information in the future.

The final step will be to the take the information that has been entered into these various data bases and apply them to the research questions posed in the beginning of the project. Stay tuned.

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