Lecture at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, February 24th, 2011

The Utah Pottery Project: Historical and Industrial Archaeology of a Pioneer Industry

Sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and Program in Archaeology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Location: 209A Davenport Hall, Thurs., February 24, 3:00 pm

Presented by Dr. Timothy Scarlett

Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies

Industrial Heritage and Archaeology

Department of Social Sciences

Michigan Technological University

The Utah Pottery Project began as a study of the social business of potting in nineteenth-century Utah, one of the “folk hearths” of the United States. In establishing the project, I sought to design a study that capitalized upon archaeology’s interdisciplinary potential in the broadest sense of that term, intertwining the sciences, arts, and humanities in a single intellectual effort. Now that we have demonstrated the power of this approach, the study is evolving in two directions. First, my collaborators and I continue expanding archaeometric and historical analyses of trade and exchange, tracing routes of social interaction and weighing their significances. At the same time, we have begun detailed, ecobiographic studies of individual potters, shops, and potting groups. Immigrant potters had backgrounds that varied from industrial workers and managers to artisanal apprentices in many different social and technological contexts. The colonization of Utah provides an opportunity to study individuals engaged in social processes which otherwise appear as anonymous in the archaeological record, of particular interest are technological creativity, technology transfer, adaptation, and landscape learning.

Lab photo update

The students are working on their projects and Jessica is making progress on cataloging the collection from the Davenport Pottery site dig.

Max and Allison are cataloging their pottery frags and getting ready to start their cross-mending study.


Frank is studying the charcoal we recovered from our flotation of sediment samples. He hopes to describe the Davenport family's choices for fuel use when firing their kiln. He's examining little chunks of charcoal with an optical microscope.


This week I also taught the students the basics of archaeological drawing, drafting, and illustration. We learned by drawing two random objects from the stuff that I keep around the lab for activities just like this. This year we drew a mini-terra cotta warrior, lent to us by Pat Martin, and a model of someone's thumb.

Jeremy was doing a measured drawing using drafting tools.

After working with measured drawings, we also used digital photographs as tools to produce our drawings, but still working free-hand. I taught them stippling, a standard technique for technical illustration. Alison is drawing the thumb in these photos.

This photo and drawing are of the same thumb, but don't show the same view. You'll notice that the light falls from the left in the photo and the right in the drawing. This drawing was by Jessica Beck and was her first attempt to anything like this!

The students didn't finish any drawings, since these objects were just for exercises. If anyone ends up drawing objects in their project, we'll post the final drawings here. Over the summer, we also did technical drawings of the pottery in the Utah State Parks collection. Perhaps we will post some of those drawings as well.

Bleeding for my craft

Hi All,

A brief update from the lab. Today I taught the students how to make stone tools, often called "flint knapping." Several of the students were really looking forward to this activity. They were pretty excited to try working the obsidian nodules into biface tools.

I'm afraid there weren't any budding Homo erectus the group, but they could have passed for Homo habilus.

All in all, however, they did better than Jessica and me. The total injury count (requiring band-aids):

Professor: 2

TA: 2

Class: 1 (and there are five of them!)
Next week, we are going to talk about glassmaking and archaeological analysis of glass, but we will also pull out the lithic fragments from the Davenport site and apply some of the practical skills everyone learned, using the new vocabulary to say, "This is the proximal and medial segment of a secondary reduction flake, complete with hackle lines and an eraillure scar indicating the striking platform above the bulb of percussion."

Mobile blog post

Backfilling and the Future

Today we will backfill all our units.

The research now transitions into the lab and the library. The blog won't end here. Over the summer, we'll make more entries about the other excavation units. Perhaps some of the students will finally write for the blog and post photographs. Jessica and I will keep updating the blog all next year during the analysis and write up, as we complete artifact analyses, lab tests, and experiments.

These are some of the overall site pictures that we took before sunrise yesterday, when the City of Parowan lent us a cherry-picker bucket truck.

This picture shows the relationship between the kiln, the cellar, and the northern workshop building.

Here is a detail shot of the kiln, showing the fully excavated firebox, flue, and outline:

Another overall shot that shows the relationship between the opening of the trench that leads to the firebox and the opening of the workshop basement door:

A great picture of this great crew on the last day, just before we broke up for our final jobs:

More Press

I just mentioned the nice piece written by Nur Kausar for the Cedar City Daily News (TheSpectrum.com). A second story was in today's papers. Mark Havnes wrote a story for the Salt Lake Tribune. You can read the story here.

Mark's piece is interesting, but what draws my attention is the discussion and commentary that follows the article. These comments refer to the recent arrests, suicides, and protests in Blanding, Utah, following the indictment of about 20 people for looting archaeological sites on federal land. The arrests and deaths continue to make national news. In my opinion, the entire mess is unfortunate.

From the very first comment on Mr. Havnes's article, Tribune readers make assumptions about my interest in the Davenports and their pottery shop. One implies that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which I'm not. The Tribune's readers comments, like the thousands of vitriolic comments written after the main articles about the arrests, show how high emotions have risen over the events in Blanding. The entire event has become a scene where people can act out the Mormon/Anti-Mormon/non-Mormon, inside/outside, majority/minority social politics of the state.

I hope people reading about my research will discover it on their own terms, instead of the stage as set in Blanding. I find so much potential in what we are going here. With this project, I have tried to show the exciting opportunities for community-based, public archaeology in Utah. There are about 45 sites in almost 30 different cities and towns where we could continue joining communities to study the potters and clay workers of the nineteenth century. Such research is powerful because it creates empathy in society. If the e-commentary and the blogosphere are any indication of the role of archaeology and preservation in Utah's cultures and communities, then the people in this state need to draw upon all the empathy they can muster.

Math problem, Part 2

Several people sent me comments about my math word problem.  In the original post, I asked people how to calculate the diameter of a circle when I only had a chord.  I set up the word problem with this diagram of the kiln wall:

We thought about the problem a bit, but couldn't recall any formulas for a circle that didn't require one to know the radius, diameter, or circumference as terms of the equation.  I did remember that the solution involved making two right triangles along the arc.  While eating my peanut butter sandwich, I decided that I could use the two right triangles to get a quick and dirty solution.  I knew I could draw the two triangles at scale and cut them out.  Then I could use a set of circles drawn at the same scale and slide the triangles over the concentric circles until I found the best fit.  This sort of the way we calculate the rim diameters of ceramic fragments.

We all knew that our math friends would remember the equations, however.

Pete and Mark Dice phoned in an answer.  Pete promised to send me his figures by email.

C. Crosse commented on the blog.  She said, "Given that c is a straight line between two points on the circumference of a circle--X and Z--which is called the cord, the curved line would be called arc XZ. Assuming you know c (not XZ) and m--the height of the arc created by the chord--then the formula would be:

r = (m² + ¼c²)/2m

Pete Foss made a comment on the project Facebook page:

"I found a circle calculator here: 

http://www.1728.com/circsect.htm 

that says your kiln was 1.88 meters in radius. 12 feet in diameter."

He added, "Hooray for Google!"  

Indeed.  The page that Pete sent includes a useful illustration:

I'd still like to hear from one of my friends that are math teachers! We have marked out a circle of 12 feet on the ground surface. As we excavate more of the kiln, we will be able to get more accurate measurements.  Family oral history said that the kilns were "about 14 feet across" and that there may be three or four of them all in the back yard.  We'll see what we find out. 

May 28, 2009- update.

I have heard from my friend Kristin Z. Cook, who teaches math at a high school in Milwaukee. She ran the numbers and said: "I am assuming the perpendicular segment you drew bisects the 1.8-meter segment.  If that is the case, then I calculated the radius to be approximately 1.8759 m, the diameter to be 3.7517 m, and the circumference to be 11.7864 m."  She promised to scan and email me her a page that showed her work.  She is a math teacher, after all!

My colleague Steve Walton also worked up a solution, but not to be outdone by others, he formatted a diagram and included it in his email:

So there is pretty wide agreement that the kiln is between 12 and 12.5 feet in diameter.  Pretty close to the 14 feet diameter recorded in oral histories and given the inaccuracies of our measurements, we need to leave a little wiggle room in our conclusions.

If you are curious, here is how I figured out my estimate.  I drew copies of sets of right triangles using a scale.  The right triangles split the chord evenly in half.  I new that I could make a second set of overlapping triangles on a second overlapping chord, then line up both sets on a scale drawing.  If I projected their short side as in the drawing below, I knew they would intersect in the middle of the circle and allow me to measure the radius!  I always liked geometry proofs more than algebraic ones....

Kiln pics

We have dug about as far as we can on the kiln. Before we go any further, we must open up another unit to expose more foundation surface.

In these photos, you are seeing the kiln floor. Beneath the floor, on which pottery sat during firing, there is a system of arched or vaulted flues moving hot air as well as fire boxes where the Davenports could add wood or coal.

We will see.

I promise to write more about the other units soon.











Mobile blog post

Preservation and Stimulus

Today is our last work day before the students and team members get a three day holiday break to do their wash, rest from our hard work, and explore some more of beautiful southern Utah.  I will post a summary of the week's discoveries later today.

Someone emailed me today with some questions about preservation, archaeology, and economic development.  I have been talking to many people about how public archaeology can be an ally of economic development.  Here in Utah and most western states, archaeology and cultural resource management are often seen as obstructions to development.  While I don't expect that archaeologists and developers will agree on everything all the time, I believe  strongly that archaeology can be a key ally to economic development.  I've written about this before.

Today, the Society for Historical Archaeology and other similar organizations are making the case for historic preservation as part of economic stimulus funds. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation has posted a set of articles that show the benefits that preservation have for economic development and growth.  You can find the links to these studies here.  The National Trust for Historic Preservation is collating information from many professional societies and organizations.  You can find it all organized here.

Topsoil and Plowzone

Today is our second day excavating at the Davenport Pottery Site in Parowan, Utah.  Guided by the magnetometer survey and a surface survey, we have begun a two meter wide excavation trench across what we believe to be the kiln area.  We are excavating the trench in two meter squares.  You can see a picture of them here:

My field assistant Jessica Montcalm is the person leaning out of the picture (so she thought!)

Mike and Frank are working in the western-most unit, on the edge of the plowed field and have the first indication of architectural rubble.
Two meters east are Renée and Samantha.  They are working through the center of the hotspot in the magnetometry map.

We set up datum points by each excavation unit, so they can compare the depth at which soil, features, and artifacts appear in all the different units.  The sediment levels in the field seem to be very level.

We are already starting to find clues about production.    This little ceramic sphere seems to be a little bit of kiln furniture.  It was flattened just a bit on the top and bottom and the glaze ran onto one end during the firing.

Many people from town have come and see us at the site, but nobody is as happy as the robins that live in the trees and bushes next door.  They are thrilled that we're digging and mixing up the leaf and grass mulch dumped in the field.  As each team leaves their unit to go to the screens and process their dirt, the robins swoop in and eat all the grubs and worms they can find in the dig unit!  Then they fly away and wait for more digging to reveal more goodies.  You can just see one in the picture below.  I'll try to get a better picture with the digital camera.

This afternoon we broke early and packed up from the site.  We went down to Cedar City to the Iron Mission State Park Museum, where Todd Prince spoke to us about Utah prehistory.  Todd is the Park Manager at the Iron Mission State Park and an archaeologist with years of experience studying Utah's prehistory.  After talking with Todd and seeing the replica wiki ups on the museum grounds, we drove out to study the famous petroglyphs at the Parowan Gap.  You can see some photos and read a discussion about the archaeoastronomy at the site here:

http://www.parowan.org/city/pgap/

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!

Press Release

Michigan Technological University's media relations office has put a story out over the wires about the Utah Pottery Project. It is brief, but will perhaps point people to this blog where they can learn more about our research and discoveries!

This is the story:

http://www.admin.mtu.edu/urel/news/media_relations/845/

Besides the intellectual interests shared by researchers in the Utah Pottery Project (studying the works and lives of the nineteenth century potters), I am also trying to develop a community-based approach to archaeological scholarship. I want to link research, and the support for research, with local concerns and needs ranging from education to development. The Venn diagram below illustrates the point. Community-based archaeology has always been an important part of historical archaeology in the United States, where local research at local historical sites met local needs and interests. Recently many more archaeologists are coming around to this research style, which they call "socially-engaged" or "action archaeology."

If this is your first visit to the Utah Pottery Project Blog, you can read a bit about the research collaboration in these posts:

The first blog post is here

A Slideshow about what we hope to learn

The Davenports in England, 3/25 update

Small Grant

Good news arrived today!  Michigan Technological University awarded me a Faculty Scholarship Grant.  While the committee could only fund part of my request, the funds will be enough to ensure that we can take at least one field vehicle to Utah.  More fundraising and support needs for the project are still out there, but this grant will make a big difference!

More from the Society for Historical Archaeology meeting

While at the conference, I had several long conversations with my colleague Benjamin Pykles.  Ben is an assistant professor at SUNY Potsdam, and he leads a fascinating archaeological study of the Latter-day Saints' settlement Iosepa in Skull Valley, Utah.

Iosepa was settled by a group of Polynesian immigrants in the 1880s.  The Latter-day Saints had been very successful missionaries throughout Polynesia, particularly in Hawaii.  Many came to Utah and settled into this Skull Valley community where they undertook drylands farming and mineral prospecting.  Many families lived there for three decades.

Like most archaeological sites, Iosepa's remains serve as a touchstone for current social controversy.  The site is a sacred and powerful place to many of those who are descended from the settlers, and the landscape itself reminds people of past struggles for equality, faith, and social justice.

Ben's study is a multi-year project, starting with survey and limited testing.  Ben's collaborators are working with ground penetrating radar and he hopes to do some multi-spectral aerial photography in the future.  Both types of survey will help him map the imprint of peoples' activities at Iosepa.

I admire Ben for his earnest efforts to bring disparate stakeholder groups together and include them in his research work.  

For more information and some photos, click on these links:

Archaeology Magazine:

http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/letter.html

The Bonniville Mariner Blogger worked with Ben and his team during last year's dig:

http://bonnevillemariner.wordpress.com/category/iosepa

Gearing up for 2009!

Greetings!

This is the new official blog for the Utah Pottery Project's archaeological researchers.  My name is Timothy Scarlett and I am the project director.  I'm an Associate Professor in the Industrial Heritage and Archaeology program in the Department of Social Sciences at Michigan Technological University.  

The Utah Pottery Project is an informal confederation of scholars and researchers interested in the lives, works, and histories of Utah's 19th-century immigrant potters.  The pottery makers, including master potters and clay workers, mostly came to Utah as part of the immigration stream organized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often nicknamed "LDS" or "the Mormons"). I maintain a web site dedicated to the research project here:

http://www.ss.mtu.edu/faculty/scarlett/research/upp/upphome.htm

My colleagues, students, and I are preparing for a major archaeological excavation this summer.  We'll be digging at the site of the Davenport family pottery shop in Parowan, Utah.  Once the dig is underway, we'll be making daily posts about our discoveries, trials, and tribulations.  During the lead up to the excavation and associated public programing, I'll post details here as our plans evolve.  There is already some information online at the website above and on Facebook, where you can 'friend' if you search for "Utah PotteryProject".

During the summer of 2005, Christopher Merritt and I did a small dig at the site of the Frederick Petersen Pottery in Salt Lake City, Utah.  You can read the archive of that excavation blog here:

http://www.ss.mtu.edu/faculty/Scarlett/Research/UPP/Digging2005.htm

I am thrilled to have this blog up and running.  I'm also very excited for this summer's research and the discoveries we'll make!

Best regards,

Timothy James Scarlett