Over three summers as part of the U.S. Forest Service Passport in Time Project (PiT), Victor and teams of students and volunteers dug 300 test pits, about 16 inches deep, on a grid where she suspected the town existed based on the positions of the three surviving buildings. Artifacts such as pieces of nails, wine bottles, jars, and horseshoes found in each hole were carefully documented. Data specifying the type and location of each object was later entered into Surfer to generate distribution maps and predictive models.

Refined White Earthenware Sherds, Manufactured in the United States and England.		Chinese Brown-Glazed Stoneware Sherds.

“I tried mapping artifacts in a GIS package, but it just showed a bunch of dots,” she said. “Surfer allowed me to create real topographic maps to express artifacts.”

The distribution maps showed hot and cold spots where artifacts were found or not. These enabled Victor to predict where she should focus her excavations. More hot spots ultimately showed up in the Surfer maps on the eastern edge of the study area, indicating the work should be expanded in that direction.

Victor also generated density maps in Surfer showing which test pits had a higher number of artifacts than others. She also filtered the maps to portray distribution of specific types of artifacts. When visualized as topographic maps in plan view (with topographic highs representing lots of artifacts and lows denoting few or no objects), two important phenomena began to emerge.

Generated in Surfer, this contour map with a vector base layer shows the results of systematic archaeological excavations at the site; the data show evidence of activity areas, including probable roads. This became even clearer when Victor combined it with an artifact distribution map, which she also produced in Surfer.

“Long empty parallel spaces with no artifacts showed up…these were roads,” said Victor. “High densities of certain objects, such as nails or wine bottles, indicated where the blacksmith shop or saloon was located.”

In addition to revealing the layout of Highland City’s crisscrossing streets and locations of businesses and residences, the Surfer topographic maps have hinted at a town that may have been unusually integrated for the late 1800s. Victor found numerous jar and bowl shards that were known to belong typically to Overseas Chinese populations. Not only had there been no record of Chinese residents in Highlands, the distribution maps made another startling discovery.

“There was no Chinatown [where Chinese people lived apart from others as was typical of the time],” explained Victor. “Chinese residents lived in houses spread around the town.”

Victor plans to return to Highland City in coming summers – armed with Surfer – to learn more about the town and its inhabitants.

Dr. Megan Rhodes Victor, Primary Investigator for the Highland City Project (right), with her two wonderful USFS PiT Project volunteers Nancy McQuinn (and dogs, Emma and Jordy) and Dave Shimamura.