Volunteering at Burch House Addition - Part 3

Port Tobacco Archaeological Project (PTAP) opened two new units next to the Burch House. You should recognize the location from the pictures of the previous excavations in this area (Volunteering at Burch House Addition).
 
On Sunday October 24, eleven George Washington University students from the Classics and Archaeology Club worked at the Burch House along with the PTAP crew and other experienced volunteers.  There were five screens and plenty of soil to screen and plenty of artifacts to identify.  It was a great day.

CCAS members Phil Angle, Carol Cowherd, Jane Keller, Steve Lohr, and Elsie Picyk as well as ASM member Calvin Martin assisted the PTAP crew members Anne, Alyssa, and Scott. Scott was there with his new wife Laurie. And, of course, Jim Gibb was there overseeing everything.

On Tuesday October 26 PTAP and CCAS along with Rich Gorski completed the units.  Now all that remains is washing artifacts, cataloging artifacts, and writing the report.  PTAP will do the cataloging and the report in Annapolis.

CCAS plans to schedule a weekend day for washing the artifacts.

Volunteering at Burch House Addition - Part 2

During September and October Charles County Archaeology Society members helped the Port Tobacco Archaeological Project  (PTAP) with the additional excavations needed to provide an addition to the Burch House.   This house is one of three surviving 18th-century houses in the town.

Alyssa, Jim. Anne, Elsie, Jane

PTAP looked at two areas around Burch House.

On the left new PTAP crew member Alyssa Marizan along with Dr. Jim Gibb, Managing Director for the Port Tobacco Archaeological Project, PTAP crew member Anne Hayward, and CCAS members Elsie Picyk and Jane Keller excavated a unit in the woods.   The well will be in this area Not pictured is CCAS member Carol Cowherd.



The second area was to the east of Burch House.  This unit was full of layers of heavy gravel, lighter gravel, sandy soil -- normally not a very interesting unit.  But the unit shows the sedimentation that occurred in Port Tobacco and may even give a clue to the date.  Also over 2 feet down, Jim excavated a gully.  Sorry I didn't get a picture of it, but on the right is a picture showing some of the stratigraphy.   Below this level were additional brick fragments and pieces of eighteenth century ceramics.

See Volunteering at Burch House Addition for pictures of the excavations completed next to the house itself.

October 16 ASM Annual Fall Meeting

George, Carol, Elsie, Jim, Anne, [Belinda]

On October 16 the Archeological Society of Maryland (ASM) held its Annual Fall Meeting at the Oregon Nature Center in Cockeysville, MD.

At left are the CCAS members that represented the Charles County Chapter at the meeting.  Carol Cowherd gave the report on the Charles County Chapter at the Business Meeting.
Of note to CCAS members, Jim Gibb was elected Treasurer of ASM, and Belinda Urquiza was elected ASM Membership Secretary.

Anne Hayward presented a talk on The Burch House, Archeology at Port Tobacco. Other talks included Michelle Kerms on Recent Anne Arundel Chapter Projects, Don Housley (Mid-Potomac Chapter) on Archeology at the Josiah Henson Site, and Stephanie Sperling on Excavations at Pig Point.  (You may remember Stephanie talked to CCAS about Pig Point last spring. Well, this talk included an update of what has been found since then.)

The 2010 Frederick Stiner Memorial Lecture was The Archaeology of the Irish Immigrant Village in Texas, Baltimore County, Maryland by Dr Stephen Brighton, Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland at College Park.

Hearing About an Early Prince George's County Town

Mike Lucas

At the October 6 CCAS meeting, Dr. Michael Lucas described the historic archaeological activities taking place at Mount Calvert Historical and Archaeological Park in Prince George's County.  Mount Calvert includes part of Charles Town, the first county seat of Prince George's County.  Charles Town was established in 1684 and gradually disappeared after 1721 when it was no longer the county seat .  Mike showed details of some of the excavations and indicated what the excavations could tell us about the type of buildings that had been there and how those buildings were used.  

Anticipating Talk

Mount Calvert Excavation

Mike is an archeologist at Prince George's County, Natural and Historic Research Division of  Maryland National Capital Parks and Planning Commission.

Mount Calvert offers Public Archaeology programs from April through October.  To volunteer or for more information you can e-mail Mike at Michael.Lucas@pgparks.com.