2025 Public Archeology Lab Days (July- Sept)

CCASM has been working with Charles County at the ongoing Public Archaeology Lab since 2015.  The lab is for processing artifacts recovered from various archaeology initiatives in Charles County -  including artifacts from investigations of sites on County properties, artifacts recovered from savage archaeology in the County, as well as artifacts recovered around the 1970's before the Port Tobacco Courthouse was reconstructed.  Esther Read is the archaeologist in charge.

Location: Courthouse (2nd floor; use South Wing door) and Burch House (both inside and outside) in Historic Port Tobacco Village  map 

 Next dates: 
Note: (We try to post the latest schedule as soon as we get it - may not get until Monday morning. 
            Being in the field depends on the weather - if it's not raining and not too hot.)
Fall School Visits on Mondays scheduled Sept 22, Sept 29, Oct 6, Oct 13, and Oct 20 (make-up day)
 
  Monday,    Oct    6   (10:30am - 2pm) 2 School Groups
  Monday,    Oct  13   (10am - 3pm) Rich Hill in the field

Monday September 29 Claudia, Linda, Evie, Carol, and Malinda worked in the lab at Burch House processing artifacts recovered from Elsmere.  We bagged the dry artifacts that the school children had washed (four times) and started to wash the other artifacts.  So far there are twenty-nine bags (one per STP).  Meanwhile Elsie, Denise, and Kathy were in the field at the Swann Site opening up a new unit to the northwest of the current units.  Esther got to show Joel Binkley, Charles County Planning Supervisor, all  that we have been doing in Port Tobacco, and we got to tell him what repairs are needed on Burch House.

Monday September 22 Linda, Claudia, Denise, Elsie, Ned, Kathy, and Malinda along with Esther worked with second graders to introduce them to archaeology.   There was one group in the morning and another in the afternoon.  Both groups were from Billingsley Elementary School. 
 
On week days in the Fall 2025 (Sept 15 - Oct 22) and in the Spring 2026 (Mar 2 - Apr 13) second graders from the various Charles County Schools are coming  to visit the One-room School House and Stagg Hall but also to get an introduction to archaeology.  Each group tends to include  around twenty children.  We have only been helping on Mondays, our regular lab day, when we are not scheduled to be in the field.  Esther has provided the activities and the script for docents at Stagg Hall to provide the archaeology introduction on the other days.

Monday August 11 Claudia, Linda, Peggy, and Carol were at Burch House and finished the sorting and bagging of all the remaining Swann Site artifacts recovered to date.  Denise, Malinda, and Kathy were in the field.  The base of two Swann Site units were troweled to better see any features.  This did produce five additional artifacts.

Monday August 4 was a short day in the Lab.  After Denise, Claudia, and Carol finished sorting and bagging the artifacts from the four trays of artifacts recovered from the same Swann Site provenience, we all decided to stop for the day.  Another tray had a small number of artifacts from several Swann Site provieneces that Malinda bagged and sorted, and Linda washed most of the remaining artifacts - not that much left.

Monday July 28 was another day in the lab at Burch House.  Everyone (Elsie, Denise, Claudia, Malinda, Kathy, and Carol) worked on sorting artifacts from four trays of artifacts recovered from the same provenience.  The tray highlighted last week was just one of those trays.  So each person worked on a different type of artifact - glass or ceramics or lithics or nails or brick or ...  We almost got everything sorted and bagged, and we plan to finish up next week. 

Tray of washed Swann Site artifacts

 
Monday July 21 we had seven people working at Burch House on Swann Site artifacts either washing or sorting and bagging.  It's been a while since we've had that many.  Jack joined Elsie, Denise, Linda, Malinda, Kathy, and Carol as we worked on the artifacts.  Since it's was Jack's first time, Linda gave him a tour of Burch House and worked with him as he washed Swann Site artifacts.  We decided to choose that tray of washed artifacts as the "artifact' of the day.  The tray includes a wide variety of artifacts - fragments of bricks, oyster shells, ceramics (decorated and plain), bottle glass, window glass, a tooth. and even a tobacco pipe stem.  If you blow up the image, you may see more.

Pipe Bowl Fragment

Monday July 14 we were back in the Lab at Burch House.  Denise, Claudia, and later Linda continued to wash, sort, and bag artifacts recovered from the Swann Site.  Linda also spent time straightening up Burch House, and Denise inventoried remaining artifact bags. Carol sorted and bagged artifacts from BF1-1-4.  It is from these artifacts that we selected an artifact of the day.  The artifact of the day is a fragment of a tobacco pipe bowl with a partial maker's mark that is somewhat distinctive - a "D" inside what appears to be a heart with additional geometric symbols (diamond circle, bar, possibly a stylized Fleur-di-lei) under the initial.  There isn't enough to identify the maker but there was a mid-eighteenth century London pipe maker whose makers mark was a TD inside a circle or heart.  Interestingly there are several seventeenth maker marks with initials and a stylized Fleur-di-lei inside a heart.  Maybe someone else will be able to identify the maker. 

2025 Public Archaeology Days (Apr-Jun) -- 2025 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Jan-Mar)  
2024 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Oct-Dec) --2024 Public Archaeology Lab Days (July-Sep) 
  --2024 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Apr-Jun)  --2024 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Jan-Mar)
2023 Public Archaeology Lab Days (July-Dec) --2023 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Jan-June)
2022 Public Archaeology Lab Days (July-Dec) --2022 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Feb-Jun)
2021 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Mar-Dec)
2020 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Sep-Dec) --2020 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Jan-Mar)
2019 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Jul-Dec)   --2019 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Jan-June)
2018 Public Archaeology Lab Days (July-Dec) --2018 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Jan-June)
2017 Public Archaeology Lab Days (July-Dec) --2017 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Jan-June)
2016 Public Archaeology Lab Days (July-Dec) --2016 Public Archaeology Lab Days (Jan-June)
2015 Public Archaeology Lab Days

2025 ASM Fall Meeting in Charles County

2025 ASM Field Session 
at Teagues Point

Come to the 2025 ASM Fall Meeting hosted by Charles County Archaeological Society of Maryland, Inc on Saturday October 18 at the Maryland Veterans Museum in Newburg, MD.

You can 
* learn what the Archeological Society of Maryland has been doing throughout Maryland this past year
 
* hear about some of the archaeology that has been going on in Charles County
    - identifying ancient Native American sites
    - investigating a seventeenth century Colonial site
    - learning about an early twentieth century African American community.
 
* hear how archaeology has changed over the past forty-seven years

* participate in a discussion on ethics and avocational archaeology.   

Admission is free. 

Click for program and talk details 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Archeological Society of Maryland Annual Fall Meeting

Sponsored by the Charles County Archaeological Society of Maryland, Inc

Saturday October 18 (9am-3:30 pm)

Maryland Veterans Museum
11000 Crain Highway
Newburg, MD

The agenda for the meeting is

•   8:30     Registration and Refreshments
•   9:00     ASM Annual Business Meeting 
  
  
• 10:20     Break
• 10:30     2025 Frederick M Stiner Memorial Address
  
      The Plantation of Michael Swift on the Patuxent River: 
      Ground-truthing the Teague’s Point Site, Charles County, Maryland
      Dr. Matthew D. McKnight, Chief Archaeologist for Maryland Historical Trust
  
  
• 11:15     ASM Ethics and Conduct in Action
  
      Moderator: Valerie Hall, ASM President
      Panelists: Brent Chippendale, Jim Gibb, and Julia Berg
      ACM Ethics Committee Members 
  
  
  
• 12:00     Lunch Break (bring your own lunch)
  
  
•  1:00      Westwood: An Ancient Native American Site on the Banks of a Relict Creek
  
       Jim Gibb, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
  
  
•  1:45      From Slave Labor to Free Labor: 
  
      The Archaeology of Post-Emancipation Charles County
       Julia A King, St. Mary's College of Maryland

•  2:30      Break
•  2:40      An Archaeological Retrospective: A View From 47 years in the Trenches
  
      Esther Doyle Read, Charles County Archaeologist
  
  
  
•  3:25      Closing Remarks     
  

2025 MHT Archaeology Workshop

The 34th Annual Maryland Historical Trust Workshop in Archeology was held in Crownsville, MD, on Saturday September 20, and as its name implies this year there were a number of workshops. 

The keynote speaker was Cassandra Michaud who is the Cultural Resources Stewardship Supervisor for Montgomery County.  The talk was entitled "Public Interpretation & the Evolution of the Montgomery County Parks Archaeology Program".

Since this was a Workshop in Archaeology, the keynote address was followed by talks, some of which had hands on activities.  Since many were held concurrently, it was often a hard choice on which one to attend.

• Not Another Sandbox Dig!
  Excavation Experiences Using 3D Printed Models 
  Rachel Aluine     
  
• Artifact Recovery: Preservation Practices in the Field and Lab
  Nichole Daub
• Identifying Stone Tool Functions through Microscopic Use-Wear Analysis
               Katherine Sterner  
  
• Adventures with Blue Painter's Tape:  A Vesselization Workshop
               Julie Mankin   
• Flotation and Fraction Separation of Soil Samples
   Alex Glass
• Illustrating History - The Basis of Artifact Illustration
               Tyler Ball
• What's That Rock?  Toolstone Identification
               Zachary Singer
• Meet Your County Archaeologist 
               Beau Lockard (Frederick County)
              Esther Doyle Read (Charles County
              Chris Sperling (Calvert County)
              Jennifer Stabler and Amelia Chisolm (Prince George's County)
              Lauren Schiszik (Baltimore)   
• CAT Workshop — Basic Lab Procedures - Parts I and II
  Rebecca Morehouse
  
  

 

CCASM members attending included Elsie, Carol, Ned, Peggy, and Patricia 

CCASM is a chapter of ASM.

Click for program and more details about talks

Volunteering at Strata Florida in Wales

Patricia Vazquez

On September 18 at our first meeting after the summer break Patricia Vazquez shared experiences from her 2024 and 2025 trips to Wales where she volunteered for the Strata Florida Archaeological Field School.  

Pat started with telling us about the location of the site and a little of its history.  Strata Florida Abbey was built in the twelfth century as a Cistercian abbey and is the burial site for numerous medieval Welsh princes.  It is considered a special place in Wales.

Pat included stories of working on the site with the Strata Florida team as well as her experiences of staying in Wales and interacting with the local residents.  Quite interesting.

A little bit of geography and history

Strata Florida Abbey

Strata Florida site

Patricia Vazquez is currently CCASM's Vice President.

We were really glad that Pat traveled down from New York to speak to us in person.  We also had a Zoom meeting set up for others to attend.   This was our first time to run the Zoom meeting without Jim being in the room.  (Jim attended via Zoom).  So we need to work on the Zoom part.  Thanks to Jim for setting up the Zoom meeting.

Wonder what Pat was telling us

Attendance: 11  (2 via Zoom)

Investigating Sites with Charles County Archaeologist

When a historic property in Charles County is to be modified or demolished, the Charles County Historic Preservation Commission reviews the plans.  Esther Read, Charles County Archaeologist, who is also on the commission, checks out if any additional archaeological information is needed.  When there is some archaeological interest in  the property, but there is no legal requirement for the owner to have archaeology done, Esther reaches out to the volunteers at Monday's Lab (most of whom are also CCASM members)  to help with digging a small number of STPs.   

Site near Marshall Hall
A historic circa 1900's house on the Potomac was to be demolished, and there had been no photographs of the house.  Esther along with Cal Carpenter from Charles County Planning did drawings and photographs of the interior of the house documenting the various additions.  Esther also wanted to verify there was no evidence of an earlier site and to investigate if this was one of the fields where William Graham had collected artifacts.  So we were at the site digging STPS before the house was demolished.

Friday September 19 Denise volunteered with Esther and Tim to finish the STPS on the west side before the house was to be demolished next week.  One of the two paved brick areas had revealed a wall.  Using a tile probe it was determined that the brick pad was a 6 by 8 foot square, with the wall running through the middle of it on the short axis. 
Thanks to Esther for the info.

On Monday September 15 Elsie, Denise, Linda, Carol, Ned, and Malinda dug around twelve STPs (I forgot to count) on the north and west sides of the house.  Artifacts included a few nails (some wire and some machine made) as well as staples, an American stoneware vessel base, a blue and white decorated earthenware fragment, a few flakes, and a point reject.  We also found two buried paving brick areas.

On Monday September 8 Linda, Denise, and Ned dug 10 STPS to the south of the house and one STP to the east for a total of eleven STPs.  There was a nice breeze when we were south of the house. but none of the east of the house (so a little hot).  The soil was sandy loam and was really easy to screen.  
 (Thanks to Ned for the September 8 info and photos.)