Archaeology in Annapolis

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/10991

Archaeology in Annapolis was a city-wide excavation of Maryland’s capital city whose purpose was to recover and teach with the below ground remains of materials from the 1680’s to today. Archaeology in Annapolis is a part of the Department of Anthropology of the University of Maryland, College Park and has been, and in some cases remains, partners with Historic Annapolis Foundation, the Banneker-Douglass Museum, Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Foundation, and the City of Annapolis. The project was begun in 1981 and continues to work in the City and to excavate on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The project works to provide understanding of the many peoples who have made up the City in the past and present. Under the direction of Mark P. Leone, the organization has conducted over forty excavations in the historic area of Maryland’s capitol city as well as in Queen Anne and Talbot Counties on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, including Wye House Plantation. This collection includes archaeological site reports, technical reports, and dissertations produced by the project between 1985 and the present. Where possible, separate files for artifact catalogs have been provided.

A physical component of the collection is housed in the National Trust room of Hornbake Library on the University of Maryland campus. It contains copies of site reports, field notes, drawings, slides, contact sheets, photographs, historic research, oral history transcripts, artifact cataloging sheets, analytical notes, dissertations, scholarly and public papers, presentations, journal articles, administrative planning notes, correspondence, visitor evaluations, press releases, brochures, exhibition planning notes and grant proposals.



The Sites in this Collection Include:





Browse

Filters

2013 - 20152

Settings

Author: search.filters.author.Jenkins, Tracy H.Subject: search.filters.subject.Easton, Maryland

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Phase I and II Archaeological Testing at the Talbot County Women’s Club, 18 Talbot Lane, Easton, Maryland, 18TA439
    (2015) Jenkins, Tracy H.; Leone, Mark P.
    The University of Maryland, College Park, Archaeology in Annapolis Project, conducted Phase I and II archaeological excavations of the Talbot County Women’s Club (TCWC) in Easton, Maryland, from July 8th through July 26th, 2013. This site is located at 18 Talbot Lane. The Women’s Club granted permission for this excavation as a part of The Hill Community Project to document and publicize the history of the Easton neighborhood known as The Hill and of the community of free African Americans that coalesced around this neighborhood in the nineteenth century. Following on the heels of the 2012 successful public excavation of the Home of the Family of the Buffalo Soldier (HFBS), this second public excavation within The Hill Community Project sought more information on early members of the free black community and on the material conditions of tenants living on The Hill in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. It also continued archaeologists’ efforts at the HFBS to test the capability of archaeological sites of bringing together people of different backgrounds to forge a more open, civil discourse about the past. To these ends, archaeologists conducted a shovel test pit (STP) survey of yard spaces at the Women’s Club and opened seven test units to further investigate activity areas and construction phases, while maintaining a public dig site. While the HFBS excavation focused on African-American landowners from 1879 to 2002, the Women’s Club excavation focuses on the non-landowners who lived here from the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries in order to highlight the diversity of experiences among neighborhood residents through the years. These residents included enslaved and free African Americans in the nineteenth century and tenants of unknown ethnic background in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today, upwards of two thirds of the residents of The Hill rent their homes. The high rate of tenancy has been identified as a major contributor toward the gentrification processes that currently threaten the integrity of the African American community by pushing black families from dilapidating homes and demolishing historic community and racial landmarks in attempts to remove blight from the neighborhood. Excavations at the Women’s Club therefore sought more information on the material conditions of tenancy and the ways in which community can exist even without home-ownership. The most promising archaeological materials for addressing these questions at the Women’s Club are a nineteenth-century kitchen used by both enslaved and free cooks and a sheet midden created by the several families renting the property from 1891-1946.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Phase I and II Archaeological Testing at 321 and 323 South Street, Easton Maryland, Home of the Family of the Buffalo Soldier, 2012
    (2013) Jenkins, Tracy H.; Skolnik, Benjamin A.; Leone, Mark P.
    The University of Maryland, College Park, Archaeology in Annapolis Project, conducted Phase I and II archaeological excavations of the property in Easton, Maryland, known as the Home of the Family of the Buffalo Soldier (HFBS) from July 9th through July 20th 2012. The Housing Authority of the Town of Easton owns this property, located at 323 South St., and excavations were conducted at the request of Historic Easton, Inc., with the Housing Authority’s permission, and forms a part of The Hill Project to document and publicize the history of the Easton neighborhood known as The Hill, which has been home to a community of free African Americans since the late eighteenth century. This first excavation within The Hill Project successfully tested the potential for research archaeology to serve the interests of The Hill’s resident and descendant communities, and excavation at the HFBS contributed to The Hill Project’s ongoing historic preservation and community revitalization efforts. Four shovel test pits (STPs) and three 5’x5’ test units were excavated in yard spaces. The Hill’s free black community dates to the late eighteenth century. However, documentary and oral history indicated that the standing built environment at the HFBS dated only to the period of the first African American owners of the site, from ca. 1879. Shedding light on the development of the community through time, archaeological remains documented at the site suggest that this period was the first inhabitation of the property, despite the inhabitation of other properties nearby for the one hundred years prior. They indicate that much yard space has been used in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries for activities including gardening, play, and trash disposal. Two US Army buttons from ca. 1900 support the site’s association with Buffalo Soldier William Gardner and his family, who curated his discharge papers in the house. The site remained open to the general public during excavation and was actively interpreted to site visitors. During and since the excavation, the HFBS has received many visitors, including many Hill residents, and has attracted much news interest. As of the summer of 2013, it has been included in regular walking tours of The Hill’s historical heritage. The excavations determined that the archaeological record at the HFBS, and likely across The Hill, is quite intact and can support active research. Both the HFBS and The Hill are therefore eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places under criterion D. Because of the integrity and uniqueness of the archaeological record at the HFBS, we recommend that the site be protected for further archaeological research. However, since the communities’ interest in researching the origins and early development of the free African American community that existed on The Hill during the time of slavery can be more effectively addressed elsewhere in the neighborhood, we recommend that excavation at the HFBS be a secondary priority for archaeologists for the present.