Previous Archaeology

Archaeology is a cumulative process, with successive projects contributing to an overall understanding of a site, and how people lived on it. This summer’s excavation is part of the third archaeological project on the Ravenscroft property. Each of these projects has had distinct goals, and excavation methods tailored to most efficiently achieve those goals.

In 1954 excavators dug trenches across the Ravenscroft site, searching for brick buildings to reconstruct. Although two foundations and a well were discovered on the Ravenscroft property, nothing was reconstructed.

Map of the Ravenscroft site showing brick foundations uncovered in 1954. (Click on image to enlarge)

Draftsmen record foundations of the smaller Ravenscroft cellar in 1954. (Click on image to enlarge)

A second project, in 1998, focused on a small portion of the Ravenscroft property (lying between the two known cellars) that was slated for development as a tenant house exhibit. Despite the small size of the excavation area, archaeologists recovered nearly 9000 artifacts from a trash pit (or midden), indicating that this site was heavily used, perhaps as early as the seventeenth century. In addition to artifacts, the 1998 excavation turned up postholes from an early eighteenth century fence line, and the remnants of a seventeenth-century boundary ditch.

Though the tenant house exhibit was ultimately installed, and occupied this site for a number of years, the 1998 excavation alerted archaeologists to the tremendous archaeological potential of the Ravenscroft site.

Map of the Ravenscroft site showing cellars uncovered in 1954 and the area explored in 1998. (Click on image to enlarge)

Archaeologists excavate portions of the trash midden in 1998. (Click on image to enlarge)

Eight years later, in 2006, the tenant house was removed from the Ravenscroft site, giving archaeologists an opportunity to explore some of the questions raised by prior excavations. This multi-year project, now in its third season, will eventually address the entire Ravenscroft property. The current phase, however, is focused on the 14-by-16-foot cellar fully exposed in 1954, and partially reexamined in 1998. Neither project successfully determined the date of the cellar’s construction, its configuration, how the building was used, or who might have occupied this space. To read more about what we’ve learned about the cellar to date, please see “Current Excavation” and “Ravenscroft Blog.”

Map of the Ravenscroft Site showing the current project area, the 1998 excavation area, and the two cellars exposed in 1954. (Click on image to enlarge)