City of Emeryville - South Bayfront Project

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1999 Excavation in Progress

[ Historic Photographs ] [ Artifact Highlights: Top 10 lists ] [ Photos of 1999 Excavation ] [ Complete Artifact Photo Inventory ]

Archaeologists were called in to assess the integrity of the site. Here, archaeologist clean the wall of the water retention basin to determine if the layers of the site are still intact.

After the excavated face had been cleaned, ash and charcoal lenses indicative cooking areas, and discarded animal bone and shell were visible in an exposure of the east profile of the stormwater retention basin.

Shown here is an ash lens. Deposits like this one are formed when the remains of a cooking fire or hearth are covered up over time.

The soil matrix is removed from the excavated materials by shaking or washing the soil through a fine screen. The material that remains in the screen is sent to the sorting table where archaeologists collect the artifacts, shells, and other evidence of cultural activity.

Archaeologists excavating a series of units, using the tools of the trade -- trowels and buckets.

Archaeologist and Native Americans carefully observed any work done by machine, to ensure that human remains and important cultural features were identified and recorded.

The top layers of the site had been distributed by past construction. Not the lumber and bricks in the sidewall.

A backhoe was used to excavate trenches through the deposit. Examination of the exposed layers provided information about how the deposit was formed and how it had subsequently been distributed.

Facilities for the excavation included an on-site laboratory and office (trailer in background) as well as a wet screening station (in foreground) and a mechanical screen (to the left of the trailer).