Hello folks.  I just managed to get into the mainframe across campus
again after several days, and I find my name is being taken "in vain".
Yes, indeed, I did, or at least my crew did, manage to excavate a pet
burial.  A lowly dog, buried behind a scruffy shed that I was hoping
wasthe remnants of a kitchen ell back of the 1830s Block family house in
Washington, Arkansas, (site 3HE236-19).  In fact, the kitchen had been
torn down in the 1950s as part of "restoration" of the house.  The shed
was built in its place sometime between about 1950 and 1965, and poor
dog was buried behind the shed somewhere in there.  Burial was extended,
tail neatly laid down parallel to the hind legs, with feet toward the
shed.  Head was therefore to the south, which is not the Christian
pattern but this orientation put the dog entirely in alignment with the
shed, the house, and the 1824 town plan.  We did eventually find
evidence of thekitchen along with a fine small cellar hole filled with
lots of British whiteware from the 1820s-30s, some of which was
"pearlware", some of which had "ironstone" stamped on the bottom, and
all of which fits into the magnificent variety of wares produced by the
hundreds of factories in Staffordshire and elsewhere.  Oh well, enough
about wares.  A concluding note about the dog--there was a chicken bone
in situ in the larynx.  Don't feed chicken bones to your dog!  Bye.
 
Leslie C. Stewart-Abernathy
Arkansas Archeological Survey
Arkansas Tech University
Russellville, AR