Online Activities: Archaeological Analysis

The Munsell site is a fictional historic site created by the ROM, and located in Toronto. Let's assume the original Munsell home is still standing. Historic research from primary sources, (records written when the Munsell family were still living on the site) show that the house was built in 1850. A carriage house, a garage-like building for the Munsell family's horses and carriage, and a large wooden barn with a stone foundation once stood on the property. Mr. Munsell was a miller. He would grind his neighbours' wheat and corn into flour.

Although the original Munsell homestead--including the mill property--was much larger than the property surrounding the house today, we are not able to dig around the mill. Our licence only includes the land within the modern day property lines. While we dig the site, we are hoping to find the remains of the old carriage house and barn. Since the house was constructed before indoor plumbing, we also hope to find the old privy pit--a small building sometimes called an outhouse. This is about the size of a washroom stall, and serves the same purpose.

Our exercise takes place in the lab after the digging is finished. It's your job to look at the artifacts found in the field and analyze them for information that will help to piece together or reconstruct the site puzzle. The head Archaeologist has left you a unit profile (a drawing of one of the walls inside the square the artifacts came from) to look at while you are doing your analysis. If you like, you can see the unit profile before you look at the artifacts.

After you have looked at the artifacts, you will be asked to figure out where the artifacts fit into the profile. You will also be asked to guess what activity helped to form the layer the artifacts came from.

There are five bags for you to choose from, each holding artifacts from the unit you are analyzing. It might be useful to keep a paper and pencil handy to keep notes as do real Archaeologists, as you go along.

Are you ready to begin? Click on a bag to look at the artifacts inside.