[The following comes to us from Joe Harl of the Archaeological Research Center
of St. Louis, who is the principal investigator at the ongoing archaeological
excations at the original St. Ferdinand Church Complex site in Florissant,
Missouri. Many thanks to Joe for taking the time to keep us informed. -- Greg]

The main goal of the current archaeological investigations is to expose as much
as possible one of the buildings identified during the initial testing conducted
in 2004. It is suspected that this is the presbytery, where the priest lived,
based on the number of domestic artifacts (e.g., fragments of dinnerwares, wine
bottles, smoking pipes, and animal bones) recovered. During the first week, a
nearly 10 meter (ca. 33 feet) long section of the southern limestone foundation
was exposed suggesting that the building was constructed in the poteaux sur sole
style, in which a horizontal sill log was placed atop a stone foundation and
vertical logs were then attached to the sill log. The foundation further
indicated that the building was not oriented to the street grid, but at nearly a
45 degree angle, so that it was more aligned with true north. This may have
allowed the building to face the church, which was probably situated near the
corner of Rue St. Ferdinand and Rue St. Louis to the south. The western end of
the foundation had been cut to a depth just over 1 meter (ca. 3 feet) by a
backhoe trench in the early 1960s. The trench contains historic artifacts
associated with the church complex, but also newspapers, beer cans, and a Ritz
soda bottle left on top of the remaining foundation stones.

Near the central portion of the foundation a complete Hardin Barbed projectile
point was recovered beneath one of the stones. This spear point does NOT suggest
that the building was once attacked by Native Americans. The alternately beveled
edges on the left side of the point and fine flaking suggests it was produced
during the Early Archaic Period, which dates many years before the arrival of
the French Colonial setters, between 7900 – 6000 B.C. The spear point could
indicate that the site was first occupied during the Early Archaic Period, with
the point becoming displaced into the foundation during the building
construction. It could also represent an item collected by the French or their
Native American allies as a curiosity, and then inadvertently lost, perhaps
dropped through the puncheon floor eventually ending up on top of the
foundation.

Two storage pits were found inside the building. Their walls were partially
collapsed prior to being filled, but both pits were probably originally
rectangular shaped measuring around 2 meters (ca. 6.5 feet) long, 1.5 meters
(ca. 5 feet) wide, and 40 cm (ca. 1.3 feet) deep. One storage pit (Feature 24)
was placed adjacent to the foundation wall. It contained plain, coarse
earthenwares of French origins having a salmon to buff colored paste and covered
with a lead glaze, two creamware sherds, and forged nails suggesting that the
storage pit was used and filled in shortly after the building was constructed.
possibly in the 1790s. The bottom of the pit contained ash about 2 cm thick,
probably discarded from the chimney. The second storage pit (Feature 29) was
placed about 2 meters north of the foundation. It contained mostly pieces of
daub used to fill the gaps between the logs. Two small (<2 cm long) sherds were
recovered, one possibly a creamware and the other possibly a whiteware
suggesting this pit was used later than the first, perhaps in the 1820s or
1830s.

The excavation is open from 9am to 5pm, Wednesdays through Sundays, through June
12th. We invite you and your family to stop by anytime the site is open to
observe an actual archaeological excavation in progress, meet and talk to
professional and volunteer archaeologists, and view the latest discoveries.
Everyone is welcome.

Images of some of the artifacts and activities mentioned in this message will be
uploaded shortly to the Mound City Archaeological Society's web site at
http://moundcity.missouriarchaeology.org/ .

For more information about this project, please contact Greg Paulus at
bgpaulus@... or (314) 704-3507 or Gretchen Crank at
gdcrank@... or (314) 838-5085.

Stay tuned for a summary of the second week of excavations...