2004 is the second year that we have convened a laboratory methods course so that students can participate directly in Stanford’s research on the Market Street Chinatown collection. During our first week, we discussed the importance of laboratory studies in archaeological research and the history of the Market Street Chinatown collection. A Friday laboratory orientation introduced students to the cataloging procedures.

Now that we have been working with the Market Street Chinatown collection for a year, we have started to identify clear priorities for cataloging and research. This winter, we are going to focus our efforts on three features from the Market Street Chinatown: Feature 86-36:5, Feature 85-31:18, and Feature 85-31:20. We selected these features for two reasons. First, they are among the largest assemblages in the collection, and thus contain an abundant number of artifacts. This will eventually facilitate statistical analyses that could not be done on smaller segments of the collection. Second, we have found relatively strong excavation records for these three features, which will also support analysis and interpretation of the materials.

Featured Artifact

On Friday, we used these two ceramic drinking bowls to teach the class participants how to use the project catalog system. Both are imported Chinese porcelains decorated with the “Four Flowers” motif. This beautiful decorative style uses multi-colored enamel to depict flowers representing each season. The larger drinking bowl (#85-31:2-10) would have probably been used to serve tea or broth. The smaller bowl (#86-36:5-602), which holds only about one tablespoon of liquid, was often used in drinking Ng-Ga-Py, a potent rice liquor.

It’s good to be back in lab after a long summer away. We have been wrapping up things from last year as well as preparing for another archaeological lab methodology class this coming winter. We finished the project progress report for 2002-2003, which is an overview of the current condition of the collections as well as preleminary research results. The report can be downloaded from this site in .pdf form here.

 

This year, two new research assistants join Professor Voss on the project: Stanford archaeology graduate students Liz Clevenger and Bryn Williams. Last month, boxes from 86-36 (a different area of the site from 85-31) were transferred from History San Jose to the lab at Stanford. We are now in the process of sorting the boxes by material type and preparing the collection for analysis during the lab methods class. Earlier this fall, we also returned some 85-31 artifacts to history San Jose for use in a display.

 

Featured Artifact

As was the case last year with 85-31, there are a number of artifacts in the 86-36 collection that have us totally mystified! One of them is pictured at right (86-36/17-161 and 86-36/5-567). We found these pieces of ceramic already bagged together as we were sorting through the new collection, although they come from two different features in the site (feature 5 and feature 17)! Our guesses as to the nature of this artifact ranged from soap dish to food steamer, but as of now we don’t have a positive identification. Stay tuned to find out if we figure out what exactly this artifact is during the coming year.

We are now beginning our final month of work with this collection for this year. Currently, we are concentrating on finishing the catalog of Asian stoneware vessels, commonly referred to as brownwares. These vessels were used in diverse ways, including storing and dispensing sauces and other food items. These utilitarian vessels are rather different to work with from the more decorated tablewares! The tablewares are often decorated in colorful patterns or exhibit a greater range of morphological types. However, these more utilitarian vessels were very important at the site, both in terms of their function and also in terms of quantity.

At this point we are also performing substantive quality control checks on our database, as well as reevaluating our typologies and the nomenclature we have used. This review was greatly aided by the visit of two of us with Mary Maniery of Public Archaeological Research in Sacramento. She kindly shared with us her reference library as well as showed us part of the collection excavated from a Chinatown in Folsom. Already we are able to begin to assess the Market Street Chinatown collection’s similarity and difference with other collections. This is exciting, as it underscores the research value of this collection.

Featured Artifact

Once again, we have encountered artifacts which stumped us! Pictured here is artifact 85-31/27-48, which we were unable to identify. It is hollow, but the cavity is quite shallow. During our visit to PAR in Sacramento, Mary Maniery identified this artifact for us as an apothecary jar, of a type found at nineteenth century sites. It has been very important for us to be able to draw on the knowledge of the California archaeological community in cataloging this collection, and we want to take this opportunity to thank all of the archaeologists who have generously taken time to visit the collection and who have invited us to view collections and resources that they have. This cooperation has been a valuable addition to this project, which has its roots in collaborative work among diverse interested groups. This will be the last regular update of the website for a while. The next posting will include a link to the end of the year report on this project. Please check back to view this link – it should be up sometime this summer! Thanks for stopping by!