By Bee Candelaria, Kai Foster, Sean Goodman, and Ella Johnson
Introduction
The quarry was one of two major sites of archaeological interest for Archaeology in the Arb this year. This off-trail site was a chance find by Carleton’s Arb Director Nancy Braker. She introduced us to this site on our initial arb walk. Over the course of the class we opened two excavation trenches and cleaned the cliffside. We had two core questions about this site, what was the chronology of the site and how was it used? This page serves to investigate the excavated trenches of the quarry, the documentary record, human intervention and the overall geology of the area.
In sum, this project has left us with even more interesting questions about the uses of the Arb before and after Carleton’s interaction with it. Trench 1 displays strong evidence of the stones which may have been originally quarried. Trench 2 chronicles a long history of the site, from the early 20th century and on. Dr. Mary Savina assisted in explaining the geology of the site and pointed to geological evidence of quarrying and how these stones may have been being used at the time they were extracted. The documentary record exhibits some interesting leads based on these usages, as described and investigated by us.
