The Nate Harrison Historical Archaeology Project

Palomar Mountain - San Diego, California
The Official Site of the SDSU Historical Archaeology Field School

Analyses

Excavators recovered 6,162 artifacts during the Summer 2004 field season. These materials established that the site was occupied during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is important to note that these dates and the following artifact analyses are based mostly on the top 3” layer of the site. Thus, the insights presented here are entirely preliminary. Archaeological dimensions of time, space, and form guide the following discussion.

Time

Based on established use and production dates of various historical artifact types, the Nate Harrison site was occupied from approximately 1865-1916 (Figure 108). This minimal date range was formed on the basis of two lines of evidence. First, all artifact date ranges were aligned chronologically and the temporal spread was examined for normality. The artifacts did produce a highly normal distribution, with a few pre-1850 production start dates and a handful of post-1950 use end dates. Nonetheless, the bulk of the production and use dates were centered on the early 1900s. The inherent forward bias of time inevitably and expectantly leads the normal chronological spread toward the latter end of occupation. Second, a minimal date range occupation was constructed using the most temporally extreme artifacts. A starting point was determined by the artifact type with the earliest ending date of production. In this case, a shell button with a sunken panel, produced no later than 1865, served as a tentative date for the beginning of site occupation. Likewise, a 1916 Buffalo Nickel provided the ending date, as this coin was the artifact with the latest starting date of production. Of course, the site could have been occupied before 1865 and was undoubtedly occupied after 1916. Nevertheless, these parameters are valuable in initially establishing a most probable artifact-based occupation date range. In addition, an artifact mean date, based on established date ranges and artifact quantities, placed the center date of occupation at the site as 1900.
The headstamps on small arms cartridges were especially helpful in dating the site. Using an analytical technique that resembles Harrington’s tobacco pipe stem histograms, the relatively tight date ranges on these artifacts were used to construct an occupation-based histogram that revealed a natural temporal break in the data. Using the cartridge typology, date-range, and count information (Figure 109), histograms were constructed on the basis of how many times a specific decade of production was applicable to individual counts of cartridges (Figure 110). For example, the .32 caliber centerfire cartridge with a “WCF” headstamp was produced by the Remington Arms-Union Metallic Company from 1911-1922. Thus, it was made during two decades: the 1910s and the 1920s. Since the Nate Harrison artifact assemblage includes two of these particular cartridges, this tally counts towards a count of two for the 1910s and 1920s decades. When these counts were determined for the entire cartridge assemblage, the resultant histogram revealed a significant temporal break before 1860 and after 1930. The decades in between had over 50% of the total count (9 or more of the 17 total small arms cartridges), suggesting a histogram-based date-range occupation of 1860-1930 that corresponds well with established historical records and other site-based artifact measures of temporality.

Space

The three site areas—the patio, cabin interior, and north exterior—had different amounts of artifacts in their fill (Figure 111). Even when correcting for numbers of units and amount of dirt excavated, the patio contained a majority of the finds, the cabin interior included a moderate amount, and the north exterior had minimal materials. Preliminary spatial analysis of the artifacts emphasizes this pattern. Figure 111 lists the artifact totals for each unit, revealing the patio as the primary activity area outside of the cabin, which is shaded in grey. The artifact count totals are displayed in bold and the total quantities of each row of grid squares for both the north/south and east/west axes are displayed at the ends of the rows. The artifact counts for the interior units are not displayed in this figure. Overall, the artifact quantities reveal that the deposit is richer the further one ventures to the west from the cabin. This observation will also help to guide next season’s excavations.
Numerous single-vessel crossmends revealed the temporal continuity of nearly all of the site’s excavated layers. Ten ceramic and glass vessels had crossmends (Figure 112). The ironstone pitcher linked the lower interior layers (NH5D and 5E) with an adjacent exterior patio unit (NH11A). The first clear glass vessel also included a crossmend between a lower interior layer (NH5E) and the patio (NH4A). That particular patio unit (NH4A) was linked to another patio unit (14A) by the first aqua glass vessel. Patio unit NH14A united many other patio units with multiple crossmends to NH6A, 7A, 8A, and 18A. The first amber glass crossmend indicated that NH14A also had an important link with one of the interior’s upper layers (NH10C), thus uniting the western interior units both horizontally and vertically. Overall, these crossmends directly linked the following units: NH4A, 5C, 5D, 5E, 6A, 7A, 8A, 10C, 11A, 14A, and 18A. A second set of crossmends--the second aqua vessel and the second solarized amethyst vessel--brought together the units from the extreme northwest corner of the patio. They united units NH17A, 22A, and 23A. Further analyses will determine if there is any significant spatial/temporal gradient in the patio area running from east to west.

Form

The initial stage of classification for the Nate Harrison artifacts consisted of cataloging each of the finds into one of the seven following material categories: ceramic, fauna, flora, glass, metal, stone, and other. Nearly half of the entire assemblage is metal, and over a quarter of the artifacts are made of glass. These two material categories dominate the assemblage (Figure 113).
A complete list of the metal artifact forms is generated from the artifact catalog and then broken down by material type (Figure 114). The nails form six categories: unidentified nail fragments, horseshoe nails, machine cut nails, modern wire nails, hand wrought nails, and furniture nails.
Analysis of the glass fragments indicated that there were nearly three dozen vessels in the assemblage. Rim diagnostics suggested a minimum of 36 vessels; base diagnostics pinpointed at least 28. These vessels included a variety of alcohol, medicinal, and food storage bottles, some of which are spotlighted in the “Selected Artifacts” section of this report.
The assemblage likely contains fragments of six vessels, including one whiteware plate with flow blue decoration, two whiteware teacups, one undecorated whiteware plate, one ironstone pitcher, and one whiteware bowl.

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