Historic St Mary's City Archaeology Lab and Curation Facility Field Trip

Saturday August 25 nine CCASM members traveled to Historic St Mary's City for a special tour of HSMC's Archaeology Laboratory and Curation Facility.  This is where artifacts from Maryland's first colonial capital are cared for and housed.  The Lab is only open to the public once a year during Tidewater Archaeology Weekend.  However, Silas Hurry, Curator of Collections and Archaeological Laboratory Director, gave a special invitation to CCASM members to have a guided tour of this new state of the art facility.

We started in the room where artifacts would be received into the building and followed the artifact's path through this three-story "building".  Along the way we saw numerous artifacts and heard a lot about what went into creating this facility.  Really interesting.
 

Where artifacts are catalogued

Silas Hurry

On the balcony

After a seafood lunch several of us visited the St John's Site Museum that preserves the foundation of the home that stood here throughout the 17th-century (https://hsmcdigshistory.org/pdf/St-Johns.pdf).   This was move-in day at St Mary's College and many of the roads were one-way.  So Aaron gave us a special escort to the Museum.

At St. John's Site Museum

St John's Site within Museum

CCASM would like to give Silas a special thanks for the tour as well as for facilitating our visit to the St. John's Site Museum.

Pomonkey North Site added to Maryland Unearthed

The Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum web site (jefpat.org ) has a number of Archaeology Research Tools including "Maryland Unearthed".  Maryland Unearthed is a guide to many of the important archaeological collections maintained by the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory, the state's central curation facility.

The guide only contains sites investigated at the Phase II and/or Phase III levels.  And now Pomonkey North (18CH73) has been included.  CCASM started investigating 18CH73 in 2012 and completed documentation in 2016.

There are sites from all over Maryland including twenty-four sites in Charles County.  To check out Maryland Unearthed, go to http://jefpat.org/mdunearth/

2018 Fieldwork at Stagg Hall

On a pretty but very humid Saturday August 4 CCASM members and other volunteers joined Charles County archaeologist Esther Reed along with fellow archaeologist and CCASM member Jim Gibb to investigate what was behind Stagg Hall.  A 20-foot grid was laid out, and we dug fourteen shovel test pits (STPs) at the grid intersections.  As expected we found artifacts ranging from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries.  But in one area we also found these two Native American artifacts - a quartzite utilized flake and the tip of a rhyolite projectile point.  Somewhere in or near Port Tobacco was the Portobac Indian village of the Portobac Chiefdom.

Utilized Flake

Projectile Point Tip

And here are some Photos of us digging and screening.  (The house in the background is Chimney House that is adjacent to Stagg Hall.)

Denise, Linda, Joe, Esther

Esther, Maggie

Elsie, Julie

(Andre),  Jim, Elsie, Julie

CCASM members participating were Denise, Joe, Elsie, Julie, Jim, and Carol (not pictured).  Other volunteers included Maggie, Linda, and Pat (no picture).  And Esther was the principal investigator.