Returning to artifact analysis, this post will focus on a cluster of whole artifacts found during the 2024 Evanston Chinatown excavation and how maker’s marks on Euroamerican ceramics, in conjunction with historical maps, can help us date archaeological deposits.
In 2024, Dr. Dudley Gardner and I had a small field crew of volunteers who assisted with excavations for two weeks. The focus was on continuing to investigate an area believed to be a laundry, as many clothing and washing-related artifacts had been found in previous field seasons, including a wringer.
After removing sterile soil that had been used to protect the basement of a laundry that still needed to be excavated, we set up the grid with long tapes so we could carefully record everything we found. Soon after we resumed excavating the laundry, we hit a cluster of four artifacts that appeared to have been left sitting on a shelf-like area and buried over time.
First, an intact white bowl turned upside down was uncovered (below, left). To its left, at a slightly lower depth, the outlines of a porcelain rice bowl with dirt inside appeared, along with a fragment of a whiteware plate, and an olive-green bottle lying on its side. As brushing continued (below, right), we removed the bowl and more fragments of the plate were revealed.
We carefully pedestaled each artifact (removed dirt around the sherds) so we could map them in place and gently remove them from the soil matrix instead of yanking them like a loose tooth. After removal, we carefully examined each artifact for any designs, logos, and words, and found maker’s marks on the base of the two Euroamerican tablewares. This was exciting, because marker’s marks can often be dated to a specific period of time, which can help us date the stratigraphic layer in this laundry area.
The bowl’s base had two marks: one green and one yellow. The green mark in the center of the base reads “U.P.W.” and underneath is a profile of an eagle head with a ‘S’ in its beak. On the bottom left, in yellow, you can make out these words within the outline of an urn-shaped banner:
UNION
PORCELAIN
WORKS
GREENPOINT
N.Y.
Illegible numbers are written below the banner. Not pictured is an interior view of the bowl which has the words “Pacific Hotel Co.” in red cursive, which matches an archaeologically recovered plate fragment on display at the Uinta County Museum’s reconstructed Chinese temple (referred to as a Joss House in the 19th century by non-Chinese).
The manufacturer of the bowl was Union Porcelain Works (U.P.W.) and we know that the earliest possible year that the bowl was made is 1877 because the company applied for a patent for the “eagle head with ‘S’ in its beak” logo that year. The U.P.W. pottery was located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, N.Y. and closed in 1922, which means that the bowl was manufactured in the U.S. some time between 1877 and 1922 (Lehner 1988).
The maker’s mark on the whiteware plate provides a much tighter date range. The mark has “IRONSTONE CHINA” written above a logo of the Royal British Coat of Arms. Below the logo are the words:
ALFRED MEAKIN
TUNSTALL
ENGLAND
Student researcher Julia Ghorai noted in a previous post that Alfred Meakin was a royal pottery that was allowed to use the Royal British Coat of Arms, but it was also common for American potteries to imitate this logo. According to the website, ThePotteries.org, the Alfred Meakin maker’s mark from the Evanston Chinatown dates to 1891-1897, as the word “ENGLAND” was not added to marks until 1891, and it does not contain the letters “LTD,” which were added to Alfred Meakin marks in 1897.
The plate gives us a terminus post quem (TPQ) of 1891 for this archaeological stratum, which means that this is the earliest possible date that these items came to be buried together. The terminus ante quem (TAQ), the latest possible date, for this stratum is 1907. The TAQ is based on a Sanborn fire insurance map from 1907, which shows the destruction of the western part of Chinatown where we were excavating the laundry. Sanborn fire insurance maps were not updated yearly, but buildings can be seen on the eastern and western part of Chinatown on an 1898 map, including two buildings labeled “Chine. laundry” and colored in blue. When compared to the 1907 map, most of the Chinatown buildings on the western side, including both laundries, are missing. The squarer of the two laundries is likely what we excavated. Dating other artifacts associated with the artifact cluster could change the TPQ, while any new information about the history of the sale and destruction of specific parts of Chinatown could change the TAQ.
Our method for determining the date range of the stratum is called relative dating, and is only possible because the cluster of artifacts were found in situ — undisturbed after burial — until the archaeological team came in to excavate it. Dr. Gardner has protected the Evanston Chinatown site by xeriscaping it to match the Great Basin environment. While there is a sign that relays the history and significance of the Chinatown, the archaeological site remains nondescript. Since 1994, Dr. Gardner has also led a public archaeology program where generations of local residents, including schoolchildren, have been able to participate in excavations. Intentional landscaping and public outreach efforts have both helped preserve the Evanston Chinatown archaeological site for future research and interpretation.
References
Gardner, A. Dudley, Martin Lammers, Laura Pasacreta, and Seth Panter. 2004. “Women and Children in the Evanston Chinatown.” Wyoming Archaeologist 48 (2):20–30.
Lehner, Lois. 1988. Lehner’s Encyclopedia of U.S. Marks on Pottery, Porcelain & Clay. Collector Books.
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