Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Geophysics and Family History

Here are the results of today's magnetometry survey!  

In 2000, I interviewed Mrs. Carol Wright in Parowan.  Mrs. Wright is Thomas and Sarah Davenport's granddaughter.  She was born in 1908, which means she is 100 years old this year. Thomas Davenport died in 1888, twenty years before she was born.  Her father had worked in the pottery as a youngster, however, and she remembered the general description of the property even though the old adobe home and workshop buildings had been torn down before she was born.  

Below you can make a side-by-side comparison between the sketch I made with Mrs. Wright and the map of magnetic anomalies.  



I marked areas of interest to our excavation on the magnetic image below:


Based upon the magnetic anomalies, we think the basic description of the kilns' location and sizes are pretty accurate.  Family histories say that they were "about fourteen feet across."  There were several, perhaps three or four lined up in the back.  We are going to locate our excavation trench to expose one side of the kilns.  We'll leave the other side for future archaeologists, since they will certainly be better scientists than we are today.

We have begun surface collections of the site, grid by grid.  I expect we will start excavations on Friday.

Stay tuned!

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