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US Route 301 Archaeology Update

Written on: August 7th, 2012 in Archaeology Updates US301

This week at the Rumsey-Polk site, archaeologists finished  measuring, mapping, describing, drawing and photographing the site’s 530-plus “features” including a possible house, wells, several pits, and over 400 post holes showing house and fence lines. Excavation began on some of the pits with artifacts on the surface and the possible house. Initial excavation has revealed that some of the features are very shallow. Over 200 years of farming and plowing has removed and mixed up the upper portions of some of the pits, making the survival of the shallow stains denoting the locations of the former structures that much more remarkable. Sampling these features, even if shallow, can provide a lot of information. Each feature may be dated to a specific period when it was used and filled in. The information from features should allow us to reconstruct changes to the Rumsey-Polk site over time and let us know more about the various tenant residents. Artifacts and animal remains from the features give us clues about what they were doing, what kinds of activities they were involved in, what they were buying – whether locally made or imported, the changing farming techniques or farming materials in use, and what kinds of animal or plant foods they were eating. Volunteers like Jim and Mary Atkins of the Archaeological Society of Delaware are providing critical assistance to our crew.