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Staff and volunteers dig a test pit at the home of Francis Lightfoot Lee, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Tracy Jenkins and Eileen Smith (right) sift soil from a test pit at Menokin. They were among the various students helping at an archaeological field school at the historic site last week.
Tom Karow surveys the area around the ruins of Menokin during a three-day field school. He is working to earn an archaeological certificate. |
WARSAW
--The sun was starting to cook everything below it, making Tom Karow thankful that his painstaking digging in a test pit at Menokin was happening under the shade of a work tent.On this 500-acre parcel that was once the home of patriot Francis Lightfoot Lee, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Karow and a throng of others were at the historic home Friday in an archaeological field school with several different sorts of students.
Some, like Karow--a real estate appraiser who lives in Matthews on the Middle Peninsula--were there as members of the Archaeological Society of Virginia, getting hours toward their certification by that organization.
Others, such as Eileen Smith of Urbanna, a teacher in a private academy in Essex County, were students who had signed up through Rappahannock Community College to take the field school as a class, obtaining continuing education credit.
Still others, such as Amy Hilton of Los Angeles and Rachael Davis of Long Island, were interns working with the archaeologists conducting the school.
John Hoffman, who lives in Westmoreland just a mile or two from the historic home between Montross and Warsaw, was simply a volunteer who wanted to get the chance to do some real-world archaeology.
"I heard about the chance to do this and just came over to see what it was like," said Hoffman, who like the others in the school, dug, sifted, troweled and collected artifacts that ranged from nails to bits of pottery dating from the late 18th century to the mid-19th.
Sarah Pope, Menokin's executive director, said the field school was conducted for several reasons.
"From work done here before, we have reason to believe that the area where these test pits are being dug might have been in the area where slave quarters once existed," she said Friday. "We're hoping some of this week's work will shed light on that."
Beyond that real detective work, she said giving people the chance to learn about archaeology and the history of Menokin fulfills a key mission of the historic attraction: education.
Thane Harpole and David Brown, the archaeologists who ran the field school, said they were pleased that so many different types of students took part.
Brown noted that back in the 1990s, students from Mary Washington College performed a surface search of the property, noting areas where high concentrations of artifacts were found.
Then, in 2007, those records were used to dig small pits in a grid on the property.
The digging of pits 5 feet square this past week was a follow-up to those earlier searches. The history detectives were hoping to find signs of foundations, fence posts or other clues that would tell them where buildings and other features were on the property back in Lee's day.
Brown and Harpole, who do for-profit work as archaeologists for Montpelier and nonprofit work through a foundation at the historic Fairfield property in Gloucester County, said the work the students did this past week will continue in the coming years with other volunteers and students.
"It's a plus in that it moves us closer to finding answers to some of our questions about the site, and also provides all these people with a chance to see what archaeology is all about," said Brown.
The time the lifelong archaeologist spent with Karow in a test pit was a good example of that hands-on learning. Though the certification student has put in years of work learning to wield the archaeologist's trowel, Brown gave him tips to refine his technique.
Mainly, "Make sure you're always going in the same direction, scraping dirt away from where you've cleared to areas you still need to do."
He noted the direction to start and travel in depends largely on whether you're a lefty of a righty.
The troweler with the best technique he'd ever seen?
"It was a woman who'd iced ice-cream cakes for years," said Brown. "She just had the touch."
menokin.orgRob Hedelt: 540/374-5415
Email: rhedelt@freelancestar.com
