Field School in Archeology
June 5 - July 14, 2000

Designed to provide students with a solid grounding in the field and laboratory methods of archaeology, the course will focus on the historic Custom House (ca. 1745) in Chestertown.

Students also will have an opportunity to visit several other sites that are under investigation by Washington College. At the Hermitage in Queen Anne's County, home of the influential Tilghman family since the mid-17th Century, work has focused on slave quarters, including a rare, still-standing 18th Century cabin that is slated for restoration.

cabin

Investigations also are taking place at the Frederick Douglass Birthplace, a plantation in northern Talbot County. The original buildings of the plantation have long since vanished. Field work will concentrate on survey and reconnaissance Douglassto pin down the precise location of the plantation buildings and cabin in which the abolitionist was raised.

 

Further details

So that archaeologists can map and accurately record where things were found, the first step is to set up a grid across the site. Grid stakes are placed at regular intervals and each is labeled with a coordinate, a measurement telling how far away the point is from the grid's beginning. N50/E100, for example, means that the point 50 meters north of the grid's origin and 100 meters east of the origin.

Excavation units are squares or rectangles laid out for excavation within the grid. Each is numbered, so that material from different units can be tracked.

When archaeologists dig, they excavate one layer at a time. Just as natural soils or rocks are layered in the earth, archaeological sites are made up of layers or strata. Each layer represents a different time period, so by digging stratigraphically , one layer at a time, archaeologists can sort out the history of a site.

In most layers, archaeologists will find artifacts, things that were made and then lost or discarded by people. The layer and location in which an artifact was found is recorded, and artifacts from each layer are kept together, as they are from different time periods.

Because some artifacts are extremely small, such as pins, beads, or seeds, all of the excavated dirt is screened through wire mesh. Screening ensures that no small objects are missed.

 

Introduction | History | Techniques | Artifacts