DEERFIELD — As a way to provide a look behind the scenes of Historic Deerfield, the public was invited to watch the extended process of live archeological digging on the Stebbins House lawn.
The museum had a ground-penetrating radar scan the landscape as part of the restoration of the Stebbins House. The radar detected objects of interest under the ground and Historic Deerfield launched the first, multi-weekend phase of an archeological dig.
Claire Carlson, Historic Deerfield’s director of archeology, said the past few weekends were an opportunity for the public to learn more about archeology in the field.
“We want to be able to share with the public what archeology is and why it’s important,” Carlson said. “We had a lot of public interest and it was really nice to interact with them.”
The museum is interested in the land-use history of the Stebbins House, which was built in 1799 and was the first brick house in Deerfield. The dig could also provide clues about a fire that burned a house down on the property along with the use of wells, privies and other structures, according to Carlson and the Historic Deerfield website.
“Historic Deerfield is interested in how the landscape was used by the Stebbins family in the 19th century,” Carlson said. “We’ve recovered some artifacts so far.”
Carlson said the initial digging sites provided “fill,” which is an archeological term for material that is dumped into a pit or hole to level out the land that differs from the natural layers present. She said the fill will be taken to the lab to be examined.
“When you’re done with field work,” Carlson said, “you have to take the bags back to the lab to be analyzed.”
Carlson said this was the first phase of an archeological process and only a few test sites were dug to investigate anomalies, which are objects that differ from the normal composition of the ground, detected by the radar. She said the anomalies were detected about 100 centimeters, or a little more than 3 feet, below the surface.
Any object determined to hold historical value will be curated and housed by the museum. A summary report will also be created and sent to the state archeologist. Since this is still an ongoing project, analysis will be conducted on objects pulled from the ground over the next few weeks, and Carlson said the dig team will be back in late July.
Carlson said the museum will try to make the next phases of the project open to the public as well.
“We wanted to do this as a sort of public outreach,” Carlson said. “We are going to work to invite the public.”
Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.