Class Digs Fragile Martha's Vineyard Site

Students help preserve Wampanoag history

By Alvin Powell

Contributing Writer

It's easy to see why the original inhabitants liked the spot.

A vantage point high above the crashing ocean, a calm freshwater pond nearby, and, judging from remains found so far, lots and lots of shellfish to eat.

The hilltop, at Lucy Vincent Beach on Martha's Vineyard, is the site of a Harvard summer archaeology field school. The five-week course, which runs through July 24, serves a dual purpose. Not only does it train future archaeologists, it is salvaging one of Massachusetts's most endangered archaeological sites.

Assistant Professor of Archaeology Elizabeth Chilton said she chose the spot with the help of Massachusetts State Archaeologist Brona Simon. The site, inhabited for thousands of years by Native Americans, is rapidly eroding into the ocean. Already two-thirds gone, the hill is washing into the sea by several feet each year. Last year's storms washed away about 12 feet of the hill and an unknown number of remains and artifacts, Chilton said.

"I'm really touting this as a salvage," said Chilton. "We're trying to recover all the information we can because we figure we are going lose the site."

It was the rapid erosion that brought the site to official attention. In 1995, beachcombers found human bones on the beach below, eroded out of the 40-foot cliff face. Unfortunately, the beachcombers, in what they characterized as an act of respect, tossed a human skull into the ocean before notifying police.

Though Harvard has had archaeological field schools in New England before, this is the first to look at a prehistoric site, Chilton said. Depending on how this summer goes, she added, she plans to offer the class either every summer or every other summer.

Arranging the five-week dig took the cooperation of the town of Chilmark, where the beach is located; the state; and the nearby Gay Head Wampanoags, Massachusetts's only federally recognized Indian tribe.

Bret Stearns, an associate planner in the Wampanoag's Natural Resource Department, is coordinating the tribe's efforts in the project. The tribe normally prefers that burial sites remain undisturbed, but in this case, the tribe prefers excavation and reburial to losing remains to the sea, Stearns said.

"If there are remains, we wish to preserve them and return them to tribal lands," Stearns said.

Stearns said archaeology has often meant digging up ancestral remains and cultural artifacts and putting them in a box in a museum somewhere. In this case, however, the tribe has a say as to what happens to the items taken from the site. Harvard's permit allows the University to house artifacts from the dig for at least one year. The final disposition of those artifacts, as well as that of any burial items found, must still be worked out between the state, the tribe, and the University.

"An interesting part of this project is the cooperation that is taking place," Stearns said.

Clam Shells, Pottery Shards

Despite the presence of human bones, evidence so far is that the site was not only a place of burial, Chilton said. An exploratory dig last summer headed by Chilton showed several discolorations in the earth that were likely post holes for structures and garbage pits. In addition, the abundance of shells indicates the site was at least a seasonal residence. Any burials would have been incidental to the fact that people lived there.

Though some illegal digging has occurred at the site, there is little of value to the untrained eye. After the first week of digging, students had uncovered hundreds of bits of shell and rock flakes left over from stone tool-making. Though not dramatic, those items have value to archaeologists seeking information about the site's past. The items show evidence of human habitation as far back as 3,000 years.

The most dramatic find in the first week was a small wooden pipe, depicting a hand holding the pipe's bowl. The pipe was obviously hand-carved, but it's difficult to date without further tests. Chilton said.

The four instructors and 14 students are camping at a nearby campground and shuttling back and forth by van to the dig site. They work for five days and have weekends off. Artifacts are brought to the Menemsha School in Chilmark, where they are cleaned and prepared. Area residents can visit and ask questions about the dig from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Wednesday, until July 22.

The permit for the site does not include the excavation of human remains. If remains are found, Chilton must contact state and tribal officials, who will decide the best course of action.

The site itself is intensely busy. The low bushes and grasses on the hilltop have been cut back to form an irregular circle of cleared vegetation about 50 yards across. Inside that shaved circle are seven square plots, dug with precision into the windswept hilltop. Sod and dirt from the holes are set aside for replanting after the dig is completed.

Under supervision from the instructors, students dig away the upper layers with flat-ended shovels, and shake buckets of dirt through a 1/4-inch screen, letting the dirt fall through and retaining pebbles and bits of debris, which are then examined for signs of having been worked by humans.

The upper foot or so of the soil, Chilton explained, has been plowed repeatedly, probably by European settlers on the island. Any artifacts in this layer have been jumbled out of their original positions, so students can use shovels to dig quickly without worrying about losing historical information.

As the upper layers are removed and the orange soil below is revealed, students switch to handheld trowels to carefully scrape the earth. The orange earth in one pit shows darker stains that could be the remains of a post and what may have been a hole of some kind, now filled. Details like soil color and the position of objects in relation to each other provide important clues to the site.

After a week of digging, students are enthusiastic about their tasks. Randy Jardin, a Wampanoag attending the field school on a Harvard Summer School scholarship, said he has always been interested in finding artifacts on the island, but never learned the scientific techniques of archaeology.

Jardin, along with Jessi Halligan, a Harvard archaeology concentrator going into her junior year, is excavating a pit that has dark stains in the red underlayer that Chilton said may be the remains of posts from a structure and a larger pit, perhaps for garbage.

"This is the first time I've dug with a professional and it's very interesting," Jardin said. "I'm learning a lot and, hopefully, what I learn I can pass along to the tribe."

Michael Haynie '99, a Harvard archaeology and social anthropology concentrator also going into her junior year, said she's learning to recognize items that have been worked by humans how to distinguish them from ordinary rocks. She found a gun flint, probably used by Native Americans on guns bought from Europeans. It was the first finished stone tool found on the site, but she almost missed it.

"I almost threw it out. I brought it over to [the instructors] and they got all excited," Haynie said.

The trip is particularly satisfying for Halligan, because, as Chilton's research assistant, she helped organize it. Like Haynie, Halligan is learning to distinguish items with historical value from ordinary rocks.

"I've loved it," Halligan said. "It's kind of cool to actually be here."