Archaeology class helps to dig up College Hill's past
10-02-07 - North America — , Rhode Island
This fall, 15 students enrolled in Archaeology 1900: "The Archaeology of College Hill" have started work on the second year of excavation at the First Baptist Church.
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Excavations at the church - the oldest Baptist church in the United States - are part of an ongoing collaboration between the church and the University's anthropology department, the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World.
The class, which is taught by Joukousky Institute doctoral candidate Kate Marino GS, focuses on unearthing clues to the main uses of the church's meeting house in its early days. The church was built in 1775 and served as the third site for the original First Baptist Church founded in 1638 by Roger Williams, Rhode Island's founding father.
This year's excavation seeks to build on last year's findings, which were mostly ceramics, coins and buttons dating from as early as the mid-1800s. Marino said last year's most exciting discovery was a near-complete animal skeleton found near the front of the church, which the team suspects is the remnants of a pig roast. Quahog shells were also found near the side of the church, which the class concluded were evidence of frequent clambakes. The church's written record also verifies social gatherings such as clambakes throughout the church's history.
"This work opens up a new window to the history of the area. We're trying to expand upon what was in the written record," Marino said.
The class spends the first six weeks of the semester excavating and digging at the site and the remaining weeks analyzing artifacts in the lab. Marino and her team have isolated six test pits to perform their work, changing some of last year's locations after they yielded poor results. Though digging this semester has only just begun, Marino said she hopes to uncover evidence of American Indians in the region, although last year's findings did not yield any.
The class, which took only a few months to organize, began the project last fall largely thanks to the cooperation of the First Baptist Church, said Susan Alcock, professor of classics and director of the Joukowsky Institute. The church has been enthusiastic about collaborating with the University in the past - Brown's annual Baccalaureate ceremony for graduating seniors is held there - and the class served as a bridge between the University and the congregation, she added. "
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