Steltzriede Farmstead Part Deux

Tuesday Mandy K. from MSU assisted me with taking some more high resolution readings at the Steltzriede site in Saginaw. Jeff got some help from Travis C. from CMU, Beau K. from WSU and Sam B on the ground-truthing.

The ms2 results are fairly interesting, suggesting anomalies between (and likely under) the driveways. Some of the clusters are large enough to be features or scatters. The large amount of metal said to be in the yard fill certainly creates some background noise, though I look forward to what is found in the ground-truthing.


 IDW Interpolation Results
 

Close-up of anomaly #1

  10m

Close-up of anomaly #2

  10m

Overview

  20m

Overview (IDW)

  20m

Overview

  20m

Chesaning Backyard Ms2 Survey

Laid out a grid saturday with CMU alumni, Travis Corey and even dug a mini-unit (50x50cm shovel test). Interesting data results, some bordering on abstract art that would definitely have sold well in the 60s and 70s.

 

9m

 

 

 

 

 

 

9m

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The southern most brown spot in the northern "cluster" was excavated by a 50x50cm shovel test, resulting in the discovery of over a dozen and a half nails, saw cut bone, whiteware, slag, a possible flake, and fire-altered rock.

9m

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. Charles MS2 work

The Ms2 uncovered some interesting signatures out at a site in the St. Charles area on a branch of the Bad River. According to oral histories, this was the site of several farm related buildings. The data near the standing barn is so dramatically high that I had to classify the data twice, once with all of the points included, and another time with the outliers removed. I made the "outlier removed set" translucent and set it over the original layout so we can still see the high reading cluster near the barn.

As soon as we began laying out the grid, we stumbled upon a cluster of glass and metal, some which is pictured below. This area had been obscured from the sun by a semi trailer for many years, preventing grass from covering the space. One of the very high readings did indeed come from this location.

    20 m

    20 m

 

    20 m

 

Interpolation from Swan Creek Site

Here are the results from the swan creek surveys. All maps are oriented north.

50 meters

Classic inverse distance weighting interpolation.

50 meters

This is using a triangular interpolation calculation on the same data.

 

50 meters

50 meters

Anyone else see the viking longship? No? Joking aside, those look like some pretty consistent signatures. I might have some suggestions regarding where the Castle museum should dig this fall/next spring.

Interpolated data from last week's surveys;

Hello everyone,

After entering data and playing around with Quantum GIS throughout the week, we have some "treasure maps!" All maps are oriented north.

At the Saginaw Cabin site we cross-sectioned a few high-reading anomalies, which is why there are 5m intervals cut through by some 1m intervals. In my humble opinion "clouds of readings" are more promising for detecting features, where isolated high spots surrounded by low readings will more likely be a metal artifact or natural metal-rich mineral.

50 meters

50 meters

 

50 meters

I am very interested in doing so more high resolution testing across some of these "anomalies." The cluster on the bottom center is the result of a metal weather vane, and most likely some buried metal from the house (located where the points terminate in the South east corner).  According to documents and oral history, the cabin is supposed to be much further north, closer to the other clusters.