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Writer's pictureCatherine Losier
Jul 306 min read

Last-Minute Discoveries, Extra Fun… Farewell Turpin’s Island, See You Next Year

Week Four of Memorial University's 2024 Field School on Turpin’s Island, Little St. Lawrence


Fig. 1 The fantastic 2024 Memorial Archaeology field school crew... last day on site...


Our final week in the field started off with a lovely hike on the Chambers cove trail and birthday celebrations for Leah (see week three post for pictures). Not only were there planned group festivities, but a special surprise from our neighbour across the street. The group was offered a bowl of whelks to enjoy. There were mixed reviews, as none of us had tasted them before. Overall, the whelks were enjoyed, and the group was so grateful for the adventurous offer.

 

Back to the field for the majority of the group on Monday! The pressure is on as we wind down the project. Several of the test pits had been completed but there were five test pits still open that had to be finished by the end of the week. Students that had finished their work in the field went to the lab to keep working on cleaning and photographing the artifacts that had already been found. In the field, Joey continued excavating a very interesting chimney feature in test pit # 31. At the moment we hypothesize that the chimney and building it belongs to are probably associated with the occupation of the site by Newman & Co. between 1784 and 1810). Charlotte continued excavating the mystery wall in test pit # 32 (this feature still kind of puzzles us and needs further investigation! Possible work for next year???), Leah finished documenting a trench dating from the French occupation of the site in test pit # 38 and Skyler just kept digging deeper and deeper in test pit # 36.


Fig. 2 Leah, Charlotte, Joey, Skyler and Mars working on the last test pits of the season

 

On Wednesday, the crew had a special visit from Patrick Butler from CBC Canada. He toured the site and got some lovely pictures of the group at work and interviewed with Dr. Catherine Losier, and TAs Valentin de Filippo and Kassandra Drake to learn more about our work and progress on site. Back at the lab he saw the process of cleaning and sorting artefacts and spoke with our TA Kayla Low and to Alyson Tulk to hear more about lab work. We are so happy for the opportunity to meet with Patrick and share our experience with a wide audience!



Fig. 3 Visit of Patrick Butler from CBC/Radio-Canada

 

Our day was not over as the group hosted a community night at the Little St. Lawrence community center. At the event, people from the community were able to look at a selection of artefacts found by the crew over the past three and half weeks and ask many questions to students about the site, artefacts and the overall project. Catherine then delivered a presentation about what we knew about the site going into the project and what we had discovered. A big “bon travail!!” for Catherine as everyone in attendance was very interested and excited! Thanks a million to Little St. Lawrence for hosting the event (the yummy turkey soup will be in our mind for a long time)!


Fig. 4 Community night of July 17th, 2024 at the Little St. Lawrence community center


As the week wound down, backfilling began. Keelan, Dami, and Mars (the backfellows 😊) worked on filling the completed test pits so our intervention leave as few traces in Turpin’s Island landscape as possible.


Fig. 5 Keelan, Mars and Dami backfilling the site


Joey, Charlotte, and Skyler wrapped up the final few test pits. Joey and Dami worked on drawing the chimney identified in test pit # 29 and even got to experiment with LiDAR scans, which resulted in some super cool 3D imagery.


Fig. 6 A 3D model of the building (feature 4) wall and chimney dicovered in test pit # 29


A special shoutout to Skyler’s in test pit # 36 which held a shocking and exciting discovery… a layer full of cod bones (in which French stoneware and the base of a onion bottle was found)… 82 centimetres below the surface! The association between the cod bones and the artefacts suggests this layer was deposited in the 17th century. The entire layer was removed by Catherine and Skyler and will be processed when the whole crew is back in St. John’s. By the end of all his very very hard work at an awkward, somewhat upside down angle, test pit # 36 was over a meter deep and counting! AMAZING! It is the only test pit in which the natural soil was not reached, and artefacts (Basque tile, smoking pipe and sherds of case bottle) were still found at a depth below the surface of 110 centimetres… we will need to come up with a plan to better investigate this sector next field season!


Fig. 7 Cod bone layer in test pit # 36 during excavation; Skyler toward the end of the excavations and remember, the anthropic accumulation was continuing below 110 centimeters... we need a solid plan for next year; a sample of the cod bones found in test pit # 36; Skyler and Mars holding Normandy Stoneware and the base of a onion bottle found during the excavation of the cod bone layer. This is an indication that the cod bone layer was deposited during the 17th century.

 

In true archaeological fashion, a big discovery was uncovered on our final days in the field as Charlotte and TA Kassandra Drake feverishly continued excavating test pit # 29, which had been started by Blair Temple from the Provincial Archaeology Office in week two. A layer FULL of artefacts was excavated and… a second wall was found!!! This was not entirely expected but was an extremely exciting discovery! It brought on more questions but also some possible answers about the mystery feature that Charlotte had been excavating over in test pit # 32. Test pit # 29 and # 32 are located in the same feature that was difficult to understand. After excavating the layer full of artifacts and discovering a wall, Catherine believes the test pits revealed a possible 18th and 19th century drain that was contained by two walls on either side. This feature is most probably associated with the Newman & Co. occupation of the site. Again, possible investigation for next year???


Fig. 8 Shows a drain located in test pit # 29, surrounded by two stone walls and the artefacts discovered in the drain


On Friday, our last day in St. Lawrence, the group cleaned the huge haul of artifacts found in text pit # 29. Many of the students then got the afternoon off as the last bit of test pit # 29 was completed. A big, good job! to Catherine, Kassandra, and Joey for completing the excavation and drawings of the test pit before the day was up! At the end of the day, the whole group gathered on the site to take pictures and say their final bittersweet goodbye to the site they had spent the last four weeks getting to know.


Fig. 9 Drone footage of our very last minutes documenting the site with Joey and Catherine finishing the last stratigraphic profile

 

Fig. 10 The crew hugging Turpin's Island goodbye


The evening didn’t hold all bittersweet goodbyes! After taking pictures and finishing their last bit of packing, everyone enjoyed one final AMAZING BBQ dinner and some fun together to celebrate all their hard work. On Saturday, July 20th, all our belongings were meticulously shoved, squooshed, and squeezed into the cars and the group made their final goodbyes. After many hugs, and some tears, everyone took off back to St. John’s.


Fig. 11 Last official picture of the crew on Turpin's Island


Fig. 12 Turpin's Island -- Where friendship bracelets are the ultimate status symbol!


After over 300 granola bars and too many Vienna Sausage cans eaten (the latter has some VERY mixed reviews), one birthday, 42 test pits, one act of piracy, countless beach visits and BBQ dinners, an undisclosed amount of… fun… beverages, and probably a gallon of collective sunscreen and bug spray, our work at Turpin’s Island is complete for the season. One more HUGE thank you to the communities of Little St. Lawrence and St. Lawrence for being so welcoming and excited about our work, we truly did it for you and could not have done it without your support. Thank you to the Provincial Archaeology Office, SSHRC, and Memorial University Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences for making this work possible. THANK YOU to the whole crew for being so so SO wonderful. Without all the fun, smiles, and laughs these past few weeks would not have been the same. Thank you everyone, tune in next season.

 

From,

Memorial Archaeology Field School, 2024


Bonus: Read here a paper in Memorial Gazette about Turpin's Island field school.


Reference:

Archaeology Office 2023, Archaeology Review, Vol. 22, p. 95-109


Authors: Charlotte Cameron, Dami Olaniran and Keelan Wells


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