From the Field 2007
- Welcome from the Director
- Weeks 1 and 2
- Weeks 3 and 4
- Week 5
Week 1, May 21-25
Palisaded Indian village, drawn by John White, ca. 1585.
Reported by Mark Dalski and Parker Mitchell
Welcome to the 2007 summer Archeology Field Study! As of now we have completed our first week of classes and have begun our quest for archeological excellence. From lectures in the historic Custom House, to "chain gang" marches through the Sassafras cornfields, it's been quite a week.
On our first day of classes, we relaxed a bit with a half-day of class and an introduction to the field school. Although the day was short, we sat in on lectures from Professor Seidel and from Darrin Lowery. Both lectures allowed for a more specific understanding of what we will be looking for over the course of the semester and why. They allowed the class to fully realize what our summer semester was to consist of, and what we were to accomplish through the course of it. The course's purpose is to give us a more complete understanding of the field of archeology and to conduct field studies of areas in our region, possibly leading to valuable discoveries.
Our second day of class began with a brief evaluation of a bag of rocks - or at least that is what we saw when we received them! We soon learned from Darrin that the "rocks" were an assortment of materials that Indians living in this area would have used to make tools. Some of the articles were actually finished products themselves. We then went outside to get our first demonstration of the labor-intensive process of making a stone projectile point, using prehistoric methods. Darrin began with a piece of obsidian and, with another stone (a hammer stone), flaked pieces off of the main body until a projectile point was achieved. With blood on Darrin's hands, he was eager to head out in search of Bambi. To finish out the day, we loaded the vans and went out to the field.
We began walking and within the first five minutes Parker had found a "projectile point." As he began to boast about what a fine archeologist he would make due to his unparalleled vision and keen sense of awareness, others began to discover projectile points as well. Although Parker's moment of glory was cut short, it gave him and others the motivation to continue the quest—it was a great way to start off!
Throughout the rest of the week, we continued our surveys of different fields along the Sassafras River, noting the probable locations of Indian inhabitance. Lining up and marching across the fields with everlasting enthusiasm, we discovered quartz, quartzite, chert, jasper, and other materials, all of which were either discarded in the making of a projectile point, or are projectile points themselves. As our work progressed, we began to understand that some areas are more saturated with artifacts and material culture than others, and thus may be considered "sites" in which Indians once lived and worked.
With our three and a half days out in the field we have already discovered 13 new sites, finding a large cache of both projectile points and the flakes from their production. It has been a fun-filled week, opening the door for many more discoveries over the next 5 weeks. It has been an enjoyable experience thus far, especially because Darrin (who is very knowledgeable) doesn't make us look too stupid when we come marching up to him with ear-to-ear smiles across our faces, holding what we believe are ancient treasures, only to have him to determine that they are indeed "dog stones" (our jargon for garbage).
Artifacts in the making Darrin works on a chunk of obsidian. This volcanic glass is especially prized by stone-workers for its fine grain and the sharp blades it produces.
Darrin Lowery roughly shaping a pre-form of obsidian using a wood billet.
Finer flaking with a hammer stone.
Pressure flaking on leather (despite this precaution, obsidian is sharp and the blood flowed!).
The finished product—all we need is a spear, and we're ready to hunt!
Eyes on the ground—hope the corn doesn't grow too fast!
Some of the fields go on and on...
But there are artifacts! Broken knife or pre-form (left) and a re-sharpened Susquehanna Broadspear (3200-3800 years before present).
More Susquehanna broadspears—Archaic sites are found in abundance along the Sassafras, but more recent Woodland Period sites are scarce.
The Custom House porch—at the left, Karen Ferguson, Marian Robbins, Astra Haldeman, and Elizabeth Clay.
Center for Environment & Society Director John Seidel (left) explains an archaeological predictive model to Governor O'Malley (middle) and Frank Kratovil (photo by Trams Hollingsworth).
Excavated fluted point in situ at Paw Paw Cove (photo by Darrin Lowery).
Dennis Stanford explains Solutrean and Clovis technology at the Smithsonian Institution.
Behind the scenes at the Smithsonian.
Memorial Day Weekend
Although the field school had a three-day weekend after the first week, many students showed up to give tours of the archaeology lab to the public on Saturday, May 26. This was the annual Chestertown Tea Party, held to commemorate a dumping of tea that supposedly occurred in Chestertown in 1774, in sympathy with the Boston Tea Party. More than 700 people came through the lab, learning about our work, examining artifacts recovered during the field school and hearing about the history of the Custom House (c. 1745). The highlight of the day was a visit by Governor Martin O'Malley, who seemed particularly interested in our predictive modeling. After his visit, the student volunteers had a prime spot from which to view the ceremonial dumping of the tea, standing on the rear porch of the Custom House. JLS
Week 2, May 29 - June 1
Reported by Marian Robbins and Karen Ferguson
In the second week of archaeology field school, the students split into two groups. One group continued working with Professor Darrin Lowery doing field surveys of the State Lands on the Sassafras River near Kennedyville, while the remainder of the students went to the site of Brynn Torelli's master's thesis to aid her in field surveying on a farm near Eastern Neck. Professor Lowery's group continued to find a plethora of prehistoric sites, exceeding even our expectations. The students found a variety of artifacts including projectile points, bifacial cores, pre-forms, and flakes from the creation of or re-sharpening of said items. These findings date to a median of approximately 3500 years of age. At the completion of Wednesday, May 30th, we had surveyed a total of 210 acres along the Sassafras and discovered 18 separate prehistoric sites. This number is far above par for this point in the course. On Eastern Neck, several historic and prehistoric sites were encountered.
On Friday, we had the great honor of getting a behind-the-scenes tour and presentation at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC by resident archaeologist Dr. Dennis Stanford. Dr. Stanford gave us a private presentation on his current work entitled "An AUKward Proposal," which discussed an alternate hypothesis concerning how the American continent came to be populated. Contrary to the well-known theory of early people crossing the Bering Strait, Stanford's research proposes that these first peoples came instead from what is now France and Spain, crossing the Atlantic by way of boat and traversing the ice sheets that existed at that time. These conclusions are based on the comparison of tools and projectile points made by the Clovis peoples, believed to be among America's first inhabitants, and those of the Solutrean peoples found in France and Spain.
The method of creating Clovis tools, and their resulting shape and fluting, does not match any of the technologies found in Asia. Instead, they are a perfect match for those found in Western Europe.
Dr. Stanford's findings are revolutionary, implying that the earliest Americans' origins were in the Solutrean peoples and suggesting that the earliest Clovis sites should be found on the East coast of the United States. They would have traveled west at a later date, despite the fact that Clovis is often associated more with the American Southwest, where the first fluted points were found in he late 1800s. Stanford's hypothesis is supported by a site found by our very own Professor Lowery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Paw Paw Cove, on Tilghman Island, is one of the most prolific Clovis sites in all of North America.