_Archeological Techniques_
The archeologist must adopt and, if necessary, invent the method of
excavation best calculated to produce the results he desires, given the
conditions of a particular site. The Marlborough site required other
techniques than those conventionally employed, for instance, in
excavating prehistoric American Indian sites. Moreover, because the
Marlborough excavations constituted a limited exploratory survey, the
grid system used customarily in colonial-site archeology was not
appropriate here, and a different system had to be substituted. It was
decided in 1956 to begin, as in 1954, at obvious points of visible
evidence and to follow to their limits the footings of walls and
buildings as they were encountered, rather than to remove all of the
disturbed soil within a limited area. By itself this was a simple
process, but to record accurately what was found by this method and
relate the features to each other required the use mainly of an alidade
and a stadia rod. Only to a limited extent were some exploratory
trenches dug and careful observations made of the color and density of
soil, so as to detect features such as wooden house foundations,
postholes, and trash pits. Once located, such evidence had to be
approached meticulously with a shaving or slicing technique, again
taking careful note of soil changes in profile.
All this required the establishment of an accurate baseline and a number
of control points by means of alidade and stadia-rod measurements. Then
eight points for triangulation purposes in the form of iron pipes were
established at intervals along the south side of the highway, east of
its turn at the clump of trees, on the basis of which the accompanying
maps were plotted. The full extent of the excavations is not shown in
detail on these maps, particularly in connection with the walls and
structures. The walls, for example, were exposed in trenches 5 feet
wide. Similar trenches were dug around the house foundations as evidence
of them was revealed.