With two weeks of excavation done and roughly two weeks to go, we have seven excavation units open in Plymouth. Three of these are finished; the others are still in progress. We’ll probably open one or two more this week, but since the units can be very deep, we don’t want to start more than we can finish. Two of our completed units are about four feet deep! These are both inside the footprint of 19th-century buildings that cut deep into the hill when they were constructed. Because of this, we know that we won’t find deposits from the 17th century settlement in either of these areas, but both of them taught us about the later history of Burial Hill. In one, we have the foundation of one of the barns that lined this section of School Street. The other contained a large and unusual artifact – the post about that is coming tomorrow.

We had a rain day today, so spent time in the lab organizing the artifacts we’ve recovered so far and writing up some of our results to share on the blog.

If you are in Plymouth, stop by to say hello and tour the site. We’re happy to talk!