Archaeology in Annapolis
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Item Cultural Resource Survey of the United States Naval Academy Annapolis, Maryland(1993-09) Bodor, Thomas W.; Anroman, Gilda M.; Russo, Jean B.; Jopling, Hannah; Etherton, Kevin M.; Leone, Mark P.This report presents the results of the Legacy Resource Management Program, Cultural Resource Management survey as it relates to the United States Naval Academy (USNA) in Annapolis, Maryland. Sponsored by the United States Department of Defense and managed through the Naval Facilities (CHESDIV), a multi-faceted project was initiated by Archaeology In Annapolis, an on-going research project jointly sponsored by Historic Annapolis Foundation, and the University of Maryland, College Park. The project was comprised of an archaeological survey conducted over a 2 month period, title searches on properties now occupied by the USNA, oral history interviews conducted with residents of a former neighborhood purchased by the Academy, and the use of the AutoCAD computer mapping program to assist with the archaeological survey and to potentially generate a predictive model of where historic or prehistoric cultural resources may exist on USNA property. Conclusions drawn from this study highlight the rich amount of cultural resources which exist in the form of artifacts dating from the late-1700's, deeds information that shows changing economic and social patterns throughout the 290 year history of the ground occupied by the Academy, memories of individuals who lived through the expansion of the Academy into their homes, and a series of maps which can be used to indicate the likelihood of further cultural resources.Item Phase Ill Investigations for the Banneker-Douglass Museum Expansion, The Courthouse Site (18AP63), 86-90 Franklin Street, , Annapolis, Maryland, 2001(2002) Larsen, Eric L.; Leone, Mark P.; Beadenkopf, Kris; Lev-Tov, Justin; Madsen, AndrewPhase III archaeological excavations for the Banneker-Douglass Museum Expansion Project were conducted over a six-week period in July and August of 2001. Archaeology in Annapolis undertook the project at the request of the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture and by the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. The open lot on the north side of the Museum is part of the larger Courthouse Site (18AP63), a multi component site in the historic district of Annapolis. Previous archaeology for the Banneker-Douglass Project determined this area to be eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion D (archaeological significance). A new addition to the Banneker-Douglass Museum will impact all remaining cultural contexts. As no other alternatives are available, archaeology was planned to mitigate these losses. Known to have once held four separate dwellings built during the mid 19th century, the property was occupied until the structures were tom down in the 1970s. During the late 19th century, the area grew to become part of Annapolis' African-American community. Previous archaeology found intact cultural remains from this period including two different households' privies, a sheet midden, and other structural features. Current excavations pursued the retrieval and analyses of these contexts to increase the understanding of site formation processes and to provide additional information and insights into Annapolis' African-American community- its households, material culture, and adaptations. The development and everyday workings of African-American communities during the period of Jim Crow segregation have not been well documented. Examination of the built environment provides new insight into how and when this community developed. Ceramic, glass, and faunal analyses provide material comparable to other post Civil War African-American sites in Annapolis. This comparison allows the acknowledgment of the inevitable differences present within the African-American community-while also pursuing the nature of a common identity built around race and place.Item Test Excavations at Gott's Court, Annapolis, Maryland(1992) Leone, Mark P.; Little, Barbara J.; Warner, Mark S.In the summer of 1989 Archaeology in Annapolis undertook three weeks of archaeological testing in a parking lot in the Historic District of Annapolis located to the immediate west of Church Circle. The property was scheduled to be destroyed by the construction of a below-ground parking garage. Historical research on the area had indicated that property to have been occupied since the mid 18th-century. The primary purpose of test excavations was to determine the integrity of the archaeological remains below the modern asphalt surface. Results of the excavations indicated that significant archaeological deposits remained from Gott's Court, the early 20th century occupation of the property by working-class African Americans. There was also strong evidence to suggest substantial deposits from earlier occupations of the area. Unfortunately, constraints upon the archaeologists' access to the property did not allow for a more thorough study of that aspect of the site's occupation.Item Legacy Resource Management Program Archaeological Reconnaissance Survey, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD.(1994) Seidel, John L.; Cox, Jane; Leone, Mark P.The Archaeological Reconnaissance Survey of United States Naval Academy will provide the Navy with a rich understanding of the history of this property. A National Register of Historic Places District, such as the Academy, deserves a thorough analysis of its past, in order to preserve what exists and to plan for the future. The goal of this project is to investigate the history of the Academy through traditional historic research, innovative computer analysis of historic maps, oral history interviews, and tract histories. This information has been synthesized to provide the Navy with a planning tool for Public Works, a concise look at the cartographic history of the Academy, and reference manual of the vast amounts of information which have been gathered during the course of this project. This information can serve as a reference tool to help the Public Works department comply with Section 106 regulations of the Historic Sites Preservation Act, with regard to construction. It can also serve as a source of cartographic history for those interested in the Academy's physical development, and as a way of preserving the culture of residents in Annapolis. This program and archaeological survey will ultimately serve to add to the rich history of the United States Naval Academy while preserving an important part of our nation's heritage.Item Phase I-II Archaeological Investigations on the Courthouse Site (18AP63): An Historic African-American Neighborhood in Annapolis, Maryland(1993) Warner, Mark S.; Mullins, Paul R.; Leone, Mark P.; Little, Barbara J.During the Summer and Fall of 1990, Archaeology in Annapolis conducted archaeological excavations at the Courthouse Site (18AP63), a multi-component historic site in Annapolis, Maryland. The testing area, which is now a parking lot, is a roughly triangular block bounded by Franklin, Cathedral, and South Streets in Annapolis' Historic District. A limited number of units restricted to three areas of the lot were permitted for this phase of the investigation. Excavations analyzed the archaeological integrity of the site and evaluated the age and diversity of archaeological deposits in the test areas. It is expected that the phase of excavations analyzed here will precede Phase III investigations in the areas of the lot which contain rich deposits. The excavation area's use during the colonial period is unknown, but undisturbed strata containing a light deposit of eighteenth-century artifacts were identified in the southeast corner of the testing area. The lot gradually became an African-American neighborhood after about 1850, and a large and diverse assemblage of nineteenth- and twentieth-century artifacts was recovered throughout the test area. Testing in the southwest corner of the block revealed filled basements and grading disturbance dating to the circa 1960s dismantling of the neighborhood. In some units, this disturbance mixed eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artifacts with modern refuse. A partially disturbed barrel privy dating to the late-nineteenth century was identified in this area of the site in the back of the home which was numbered 38 Doctor Street in 1903 (renumbered 68 Franklin Street circa 1910). The feature contained a small assemblage of 13 glass vessels, including an unusually high number of glass table vessels (ten). A unit placed in the back yard of 80 Franklin Street identified a circa 1921 dog burial. Testing revealed several areas worthy of rigorous excavation and indicated that artifacts have been discarded into the lot since about the mid-eighteenth century. The identification of several features associated with the African- American occupation of the block indicates that the site contains significant intact African-American deposits. These will provide a particularly important archaeological opportunity to examine the African-American material world between about 1850 and 1950. This report provides analyses of the site's stratigraphy and artifact assemblages and suggests promising strategies for subsequent archaeology of the site.Item Archaeological Investigations at the Adams-Kilty House (18AP107) 131 Charles Street, City of Annapolis Anne Arundel County, Maryland 21401(2006) Jones, Alexandra; Chisholm, Amelia G.; Leone, Mark P.The Adams-Kilty House (18AP107) was built in the late 18th century and historical documents revealed that the property has undergone a great deal of change to its landscape and architecture over the course of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Renovations continue on the house and even were taking place during the archaeological excavations. The basement level was where African Americans lived and worked. This area was the focus of the archaeological investigations. The deposits in the home were disturbed by renovations which had been conducted in earlier times, mainly the installation of utility pipes. There were bundles of artifacts associated with West African spirit practices (nails, shards of glass, and an insulator) found in two locations within the basement, which were disturbed by a utility pipe eruption. No further investigations are recommended for this site.Item 1991 Archaeological Excavations at the Charles Carroll House in Annapolis, Maryland, 18AP45(1992) Logan, George C.; Bodor, Thomas W.; Jones, Lynn D.; Creveling, Marian C.; Leone, Mark P.This report provides a detailed summary of archaeological excavations that were conducted by Archaeology in Annapolis inside the ground story of the Charles Carroll House in Annapolis (18AP45) during the summer and fall of 1991. This project was initiated by Charles Carroll House of Annapolis, Inc. (CCHA), and was made possible through an agreement between CCHA and Historic Annapolis Foundation. It was designed as an initial phase of a larger project to restore the Carroll House to its late 18th-century appearance, while at the same time adding modern facilities to accomodate receptions, conferences, and other adaptive uses. These excavations were conducted between June and mid October of 1991, prior to interior house restoration, with monitoring of site restoration activities continuing well into 1992. Archaeologists, working with fieldschool students, and volunteers, tested all identified rooms in the house's ground story and then expanded excavations as deemed necessary and as time permitted. In designing the project and in preparing this final report, the staff followed the "Guidelines for Archaeological Investigations in Maryland" (McNarnara 1981). The report includes several levels of summaries (from descriptive summaries of soil levels excavated from the individual units (Appendix A), to interpretive room summaries) in an effort to make the data easily accessible and understandable to archaeologists and others interested in this site.Item Archaeological Investigations at the James Brice House (18AP38): A National Historic Site, 42 East Street, City of Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, Maryland(2000) Harmon, James M.; Neuwirth, Jessica L.Beginning in the summer of 1998, Archaeology In Annapolis performed a multi-phased archaeological investigation in and around the James Brice House, a National Historic Landmark with associated archaeological deposits (18AP38), located at 42 East Street in the historic District of the city of Annapolis, Maryland. The work was done under a series of contracts to the International Masonry Institute, owners of the structure. Funding for the project was provided by the IMI and the Maryland Historical Trust. A total of twenty-eight units were excavated during the initial portion of the project, and another four were excavated in support of a secondary project designed to rehabilitate the retaining wall located at the southern edge of the South Yard. In addition, several trenches excavated during construction at the site were profiled, and the lowering of the grade in the South Yard was monitored by Archaeology in Annapolis staff. Testing in the South Yard revealed evidence of a number of filling and landform modification episodes dating from the periods following construction of the Brice House up to the beginning of the twentieth century. Further evidence of twentieth century modification to the yard space was revealed in the form of a number of utility trenches and related features. Features related to no-longer extant stairs including brick piers and postholes were discovered in a number of areas. Finally, an oyster shell drainage feature and associated evidence of African-American religious practices were recovered from a trench and excavation unit at the western edge of the yard space. Excavation in the interior of the West Wing revealed the presence of three major stratigraphic units with a large number of associated structural and depositional features. The first of these depositional units consisted of twentieth century deposits associated with modification of the interior of the Wing, and the majority of this material had been recently disturbed. The second stratigraphic unit consisted of material associated with the construction of the Brice House between 1767 and 1773. The final stratigraphic unit in the West Wing consisted of structural features and a floor deposit dating to the early 18th century. This material is potentially related to a store owned by Captain John Brice and his son John Brice II. Excavations in the East Wing and Hyphen also revealed a number of stratigraphic units related to the initial construction and subsequent modification of the Brice House structure. In addition, a large deposit of late nineteenth and early twentieth century material associated with the religious practices of African-American occupants of the house was discovered beneath remnants of a brick floor in the interior of the East Wing.Item Archaeological Excavations at 18AP44: 193 Main Street, Annapolis, Maryland, 1985-1987(1994) O'Reilly, Carey; Shackel, Paul A.; Leone, Mark P.; Beavan, Michele; Fernandez, Robert; Graminski, John; Gryder, Dennis; Jastrab, Marcey; Lev-Tov, Justin; Mullins, Paul R.193 Main Street (18AP44) is located between Main Street and Duke of Gloucester Street. The property was used ass a yard related to residential and commercial buildings during the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 1930's a movie theatre and parking lot were built on the property. That structure was torn down in the 1980's and a three-story commercial building was constructed. Archaeological excavations were conducted on the property from 1985-1987. A preliminary report was written in 1986 by Paul A. Shackel. This report is the final report on the archaeological investigations at 193 Main Street.Item Archaeological Excavations at the Sands House (18AP47)(1994) O'Reilly, CareyThe Sands House (18AP47) is located at 130 Prince George Street in Annapolis, Maryland. Historical documentation notes that a house stood on the property at least by 1706 (Liber W.T. 2, 1706: 402). Archaeological evidence indicates that an earthfast structure was built in about 1700. This building has been modified and renovated extensively. In the 1720's a fieldstone foundation was put under the house and in the late 18th century an addition was made to the west side of the house. In 1904 an addition was put on the rear of the house and the entire structure was raised. Archaeological excavations were conducted inside and outside the Sands House in 1988 by Archaeology in Annapolis. This work was sponsored by Historic Annapolis Foundation and the University of Maryland, College Park. This volume is the final site report for the archaeological investigations at the Sands House.