Phase II and Phase III Archaeological Database and Inventory
18HO203 Schultz Farm #1
Diagnostic Artifact Data
Features
Summary
Schultz Farm #1 (18HO203) is a multi-component short-term resource procurement site and transitory campsite dating from the Early to Middle Holocene (10,000 to 3,000 yrs BP) in Howard County, Maryland. The site is located on the floodplain, and low terraces adjacent to a tributary of Deep Run. The site was within a fallow horse pasture prior to the implementation of a wetland mitigation project in the mid 1990s. It is situated within the Beltsville-Chillum-Sassafras soil association.
The site was first identified during a 1992 Phase IB survey undertaken by the Maryland State Highway Administration for the (then) proposed extension of MD Route 100. As part of the road extension project, wetland mitigation was being conducted which would impact the site through subsurface grading, construction of access roads, and soil wasting. A total of 90 shovel tests were excavated at 20 m intervals on the Schultz Farm property. Of the 49 shovel tests that fell within the boundaries of the area proposed for wetlands mitigation, 33 shovel tests produced prehistoric artifacts. The site boundaries were found to extend outside of the areas of potential effect for the project. These extensions included a mixed prehistoric/historic plowzone deposit on a terrace southeast of the project area, and an additional concentration of lithic material in potentially buried contexts to the west.
Prehistoric artifacts collected from the site during Phase I work consisted primarily of quartz debitage (166 decortication flakes, 121 interior flakes, 8 shatter fragments, and 5 chunks). In addition, a biface identified as a Piscataway point, 3 quartz bifaces, 6 quartz cores, 4 rhyolite flakes, 7 quartzite hammerstones, a gneiss hammerstone, a possible groundstone tool fragment of gneiss, and 16 fire-cracked rock fragments were also recovered. The low percentage of tools (5.60%) and the high percentage of decortications flakes (55.33%) in the assemblage from the site indicated extensive quarry-related activity. Three concentrations of sub-plowzone lithic material were identified during the Phase IB survey: on the floodplain of the tributary stream leading to Deep Run, on the toeslope of the terrace, and on top of the terrace in the southeastern corner of the project area. These occupational layers were deeply buried in two of the cases.
Shovel test data from the Phase IB survey guided initial placement of the Phase II test units. A total of 32 1 X 1 m test units were excavated within the site. The extreme depth of the cultural deposits necessitated that larger excavation units be employed; therefore, most 1 X 1 m test units were combined to form 1 X 2 m and 2 X 2 m sample blocks. Test units were excavated by hand within natural strata. Initially, plowzone deposits were removed as a unit and screened. As this clearly visible plowzone was found to overlay a thick historic deposit, in subsequent units the plowzone was removed and discarded. Plow scars were also removed with the plowzone. Sub-plowzone deposits were excavated by controlled 10 cm levels within natural strata. Test units were excavated to a minimum depth of 60 cm, or 30 cm into sterile soil. For safety reasons, a maximum depth of 1.50 m was placed on the excavation. A 50 X 50 cm shovel test was excavated in the base of each unit in order to test for buried cultural strata. Soils were screened through hardware cloth.
Approximately one liter volumetric samples were removed from the sub-plowzone soil column in the southwest corner of each test unit. Soil samples removed from the buried A horizon and from other discrete occupational deposits were floated. Soil samples from the remaining sub-plowzone strata were water screened through fine mesh. Samples of charcoal and wood were collected from the sub-plowzone strata for floral and radiocarbon analyses.
As noted above, three concentrations of sub-plowzone lithic material were identified during the Phase IB survey. One 2 X 2 m, three 1 X 2 m, and three 1 X 1 m excavations units and blocks were placed in the floodplain area. Prehistoric activity focused on the gravel bars along the former stream bed. A large amount of the prehistoric activity in this locus consisted of primary or secondary reduction of quartzite cobbles. In addition, several flaked tools were identified. The presence of these tools suggests that other activities, such as butchering or maintenance tasks, may have taken place on the gravel bars. The condition of the lithic artifacts from these gravel bar contexts suggests that there was little redeposition of material; only 8-18% of the flakes show significant abrasion or post-depositional wear. Prehistoric activity in the floodplain, but outside of the gravel bars is more difficult to interpret. These areas appear to be in secondary contexts resulting from post-depositional erosion and scouring. Most of the in-situ prehistoric artifacts were recovered from a layer of sandy gravel between 70 and 150 cm below the surface. Alluvial soils above this contained a mixture of historic and prehistoric artifacts. Radiocarbon assays would suggest a date for these gravel deposits no later than the end of the Early Holocene (ca. 7,000 BP), and probably older (ca. 10,000 years BP). Two uncalibrated C-14 dates from a log within this stratigraphic layer date to 10,430±80 years BP and 10,160±80 years BP respectively. The two dates are essentially coterminous and represent a very accurate date for that piece of wood. However, a sample of wood and bark removed by flotation from a sample of the peat layer directly beneath the sandy gravel layer returned an uncalibrated date of 6,920±60 years BP. It is possible, yet unlikely, that the log was redeposited from another anaerobic deposit where it had been preserved since the Early Holocene. It is more likely, given potential contamination in the flotation process that this date from the peat sample is not accurate.
A total of 3 biface fragments, 2 burin/gravers, 47 cores, 23 utilized/retouched flakes, 2,591 pieces of debitage, 2 hammerstones, and an abrader were recovered from test units placed on the floodplain. Quartzite dominated this artifact assemblage, accounting for 99.9% of the debitage by weight. All three of the biface fragments were small, amorphous bifacially worked pieces which were detached from the larger biface early in the thinning process. Thus, none were diagnostic or useful for dating. However, some steeply retouched flakes recovered from within the gravel layers are comparable to similar tools recovered from Early Holocene sites in the Mid-Atlantic.
One 1 X 1 m and eight 1 X 2 m excavation units were placed on the slope between the terrace and floodplain. A buried A horizon (Ab) was identified in nearly all of these test units. This Ab horizon was encountered at depth ranging from 30 cmbs to 100 cmbs; it varied in thickness from 15 to 25 cm. Colluvial sediments were located above this Ab, interlaced with lenses of alluvium deposited during historic times. Below the Ab were poorly sorted late Pleistocene – Early Holocene gravels. All test units were excavated to at least 100 cmbs; three 1 X 2 m units were stopped at 150 cmbs. The majority of the lithic material recovered from the terrace slope was excavated from the Ab horizon. The horizon escaped historic plowing on the slope where it was buried beneath 30 – 100 cm of alluvial and colluvial deposits related to historic mass wasting. The Ab is not continuous between the slope and the floodplain and the two Ab horizons may not relate to the same period of stability in the landscape; therefore, a geomorphological disconformity is assumed, probably at the toeslope of the terrace. There was no opportunity to conduct radiometric or other dating to help clear up the diachronic relationship between the buried horizon here and in the floodplain. The horizontal distribution of prehistoric artifacts in the slope units was uneven. These data suggest that discrete clusters of lithic debris are present, representing individual reduction episodes. Differences between the floodplain and slope lithic assemblages indicate that these portions of the site were utilized during the multiple occupations of the site.
The density of prehistoric artifacts recovered from test units placed on the slope was relatively less than in those units excavated into the floodplain gravel bars. A total of 5 cores, 1 retouched flake, 271 pieces of debitage, 2 hammerstones, and 1 smoothed cobble were recovered. Quartzite is the dominant raw material, both in the debitage (98.9% by count, 99.6% by weight) and in the other lithic artifacts (100 %). Over half of the prehistoric material recovered from test units on the slope was from the Ab horizon.
Two 1 X 1 m excavation units were placed on top of the terrace, and a single 1 X 2 m unit was placed at the terrace edge. The stratigraphic sequence atop the terrace was simple; the landform had experienced little soil deposition since the late Pleistocene/ Early Holocene. The modern plowzone appears to have incorporated nearly all of the prehistoric occupational horizon in this portion of the site. Nearly all of the prehistoric material from this portion of the site was recovered from the plowzone, although the Ab remnant produced small amounts of lithic debitage. A high ratio of primary to non-cortex flakes, the presence of several cores, and the limited presence of tools indicates that quarry-related reduction of local quartzite cobbles was the primary activity on the terrace. In addition, later stages of biface manufacture are represented. It is probable that occupation of this area was roughly contemporaneous with that identified on the terrace slope. Those units with remnant Ab horizons below the plowzone contain a greater percentage of artifacts in and below these Ab horizons. This portion of the site generally retains very limited integrity. In addition, activities in these areas appear to be duplicated elsewhere within the site.
A total of 2 cores, 118 pieces of debitage, 2 hammerstones, 2 pieces of steatite, and 1 utilized flake were recovered from test units placed on the terrace. Quartzite dominated the assemblage, accounting for 99% of the debitage which was approximately half primary cortex and half non-cortex. Nearly half of the prehistoric materials recovered from the terrace were from the Ap horizon.
A total of 15 liters of cultural fill was selected for flotation processing from 18HO203. This processing yielded 121.74 grams of carbonized plant material, equal to an average density of 8.1 grams of charcoal per liter of fill. Wood, nutshell, small starchy seeds, a single leguminous seed (possibly wild bean), monocot stem, a maize/corn cupule, a fungal fruiting body, and numerous amorphous carbonized fragments comprised the botanical assemblage from the flotation samples. Carbonized plant material was scarce in the gravel bar deposit. A sample from the peat horizon contained a large amount of botanical remains, including wood, seeds, and nut fragments. The sample that yielded the corn, leguminous seed, and monocot stem derived from historic alluvium on the floodplain. In addition to the flotation samples, five hand-recovered botanical samples were collected from four units at 18HO203. A total of 1,240.75 grams of vegetative material was retained for analysis. Most came from the gravel bar deposit. Coniferous species dominated, but severe waterlogging of the vegetative material has modified the minute structure of most of the specimens, hindering species identification. No ethnobotanical profile was prepared for 18HO203, as no species-level identifications were provided for much of the botanical material and counts (of seeds, etc.) are not provided in the full site report.
Historic artifacts and a possible domestic structure were also encountered at the site, but are not discussed in detail in the full site report. They are not considered archeologically significant.
Site 18HO203 represents a short-term resource extraction site and possible campsite with one intact component dating from the Early Holocene and a second intact component dating from sometime between the Early Holocene and the late prehistoric/early historic period. The site may be divided into three areas, based on topography and geomorphological context: the floodplain, the terrace slope, and the Pleistocene terrace. Radiocarbon dated wood buried deeply within the floodplain indicates that prehistoric artifacts in the gravel bar deposit are from the Early Holocene. Unifacial tools recovered from this deposit are similar to those recovered from Early Holocene sites elsewhere in the region. Although portions of the prehistoric occupations at Site 18HO203 appear to retain vertical and horizontal integrity, they lack sufficient quantities and classes of cultural material to contribute significantly to our knowledge of the past. No temporally diagnostic artifacts were recovered during Phase II investigations and re-examination of the diagnostic projectile point recovered during Phase IB investigation (Piscataway point) indicated that this biface may not be a finished diagnostic point. Efforts to date the occupation of the gravel bar deposit surface suggest that it may date from shortly after 10,000 years BP; however, the cultural deposit has not been dated directly and efforts to date a peat deposit below the gravel bar produced a mid-Holocene date. For these and other reasons, Site 18HO203 does not appear to have significant research potential and was subsequently flooded and altered by construction of a wetlands mitigation facility at the site.
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