Lithics, Ceramics and Fauna, Oh My! – An Internship Cataloging Adventure

By Grace Davenport, Maryland Historical Trust Intern

My name is Grace. I am an intern with the Maryland Historical Trust in Crownsville, MD. I have only ever worked in an archeology lab once before. All I did was put some dirty artifacts in some water, gently brush them with an old toothbrush and listen to other groups in the class become excited that they had a hair comb in their collection of artifacts. Meanwhile, when I looked at my bag it just looked like a clump of rust (which it was). That was a historic site, and we never went into much detail with it. Working in the Archeology Lab with the Maryland Historical Trust has been an entirely different experience.

Huntingtown High School Connects Past to Present through Archeology

By Patricia Samford, Director, Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab

For the last several years, Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum has been working with the Archeology Club at Calvert County’s Huntingtown High School on a project to tell stories about Baltimore’s past.  Students in this year’s club identified and studied artifacts from a privy that was filled with household garbage between 1850 and 1870. In addition to mending pottery and glass and identifying the seeds and animal bones that made up the food remains in the privy, the students turned to land records to discover just whose garbage they were studying.

An Archeology Club member mends a circa 1850-1860 platter. About 90% of the vessel, decorated with a Greek Revival motif, was present.