What’s New in Archaeological Research?

May 2008

Excavation Projects

Colonial Williamsburg archaeologists and archaeological field school students will spend the 2008 summer field season at the Ravenscroft site, located at the east end of Williamsburg’s Historic Area. The current project, now in its third year, is focused on an eighteenth-century cellar in use during the occupancy of two of the Ravenscroft site’s more well-known residents: William Hunter and Joseph Royle. Hunter and Royle were successive printers of the Virginia Gazette which, until the mid-1760s, served as the colony’s only newspaper. As editors and disseminators of information, Hunter and Royle were men of influence during this critical transition period in colonial history.

The 2008 Ravenscroft excavation season opens on May 28th, and continues through August 29th. Visitors are invited to visit Monday through Friday from 9-12 and 1-4, weather permitting. Hands-on activities will be offered between 10 and 11:30 each weekday from June 2nd through August 1st. For further information on visiting the site, please click here.

June 2007

New Book Co-Edited by Staff Member Steve Archer

A book of essays, Between Dirt and Discussion: Methods, Methodology and Interpretation in Historical Archaeology, co-edited by Steven N. Archer and Kevin M. Bartoy, was published in late 2006 by Springer Publishers, New York. Along with the editors, current and former staff members Marley R. Brown III, Andrew C. Edwards, Mark Kostro, and Anna Agbe-Davies have essays in the 235-page book, available from Springer Publishers (http://www.springer.com/west/home/social+sciences/anthropology+%26+archaeology?SGWID=4-40389-22-168285911-detailsPage=ppmmedia|toc).

SHA Conference

The 40th annual conference on Historic and Underwater Archaeology was held January 10-14, 2007 in Williamsburg, Virginia, attracting more than 1,500 archaeologists. The theme of the conference was OLD WORLD/NEW WORLD: CULTURE IN TRANSFORMATION.

Papers presented by individual staff members included:

• Marley Brown, III— “Can We Leave the Wild West Behind? Toward a Non-Frontier Conception of Early Chesapeake Archaeology” 
• Joanne Bowen (with Susan T. Andrews)—“Livestock at Jamestown: The Early Years.”
• Andrew C. Edwards—“Landscape Management at (Colonial) Williamsburg”
• Ywone Edwards-Ingram—“Period Archaeology and Public Education at Colonial Williamsburg”
• Stephen Archer—“Context and Content: Ethnobotany and the Material World of the Later 17th Century Chesapeake”
• Meredith Poole (with Gregory Brown and Joanne Bowen)—Public Archaeology Session Activities