In the lab

It was interesting spending a couple of days in the lab last week. I washed artifacts Wednesday afternoon and for a couple of hours on Saturday before I moved on to sorting baggies and writing up artifact tags. Washing and sorting bags from the pits and trench levels where I worked gave me another chance to examine in detail items that I had seen only briefly when screening. Unfortunately my subsequent review of the small folded metal piece with a a cross die cut was not as interesting as I thought (photo and discussion in a previous post). After washing, the piece looked more like a manufactured utilitarian part; both Dr. Miller and Mark concurred. Examining the nails was also interesting. I had done some research on nail history and hoped to date a couple of the ones we found in the trench. Because of the corrosion on the nails sides I was not able to determine if the nails were hand or machine cut; I think I'll spend some more time with them this week.