VIII 



y4rchcohgical Techniques 



The archcologist must adopt and, if necessary, 

 invent the method of excavation best calculated to 

 produce the results he desires, given the conditions of 

 a particular site. The Marlborough site required 

 other techniques than those conventionally employed, 

 for instance, in excavating prehistoric American 

 Indian sites. Moreover, because the Marlborough 

 excavations constituted a linrited exploratory survey, 

 the grid system used customaiily in colonial-site 

 archeology was not appropriate here, and a different 

 system had to be substituted. It was decided in 1956 

 to begin, as in 1954, at obvious points of visible 

 evidence and to follow to their limits the footings of 

 walls and buildings as they were encountered, rather 

 than to remove all of the disturbed soil within a 

 limited area. By itself this was a simple process, but 

 to record accurately what was found by this method 

 and relate the features to each other required the use 

 mainly of an alidade and a stadia rod. Only to a 

 llmitccl extent were some exploratory trenches dug 



and careful observations made of the color and 

 density of soil, so as to detect features such as wooden 

 house foundations, postholes, and trash pits. Once 

 located, such evidence had to be approached meticu- 

 lously with a shaving or slicing technique, again 

 taking careful note of soil changes in profile. 



All this required the establishment of an accurate 

 baseline and a number of control points by means of 

 alidade and stadia-rod measurements. Then eight 

 points for triangulation purposes in the form of iron 

 pipes were established at intervals along the south 

 side of the highway, east of its turn at the clump of 

 trees, on the basis of which the accompanying nmps 

 were plotted. The full extent of the excavations is 

 not shown in detail on these maps, particularly in 

 connection with the walls and structures. The walls, 

 for example, were exposed in trenches 5 feet wide. 

 Similar trenches were dug around the house founda- 

 tions as evidence of them was revealed. 



70 



