Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 18, 1995                   TAG: 9508180065
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: HAMPTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

HAMPTON TO PAVE OVER 17TH-CENTURY HISTORY

``It's interesting, but there is nothing worth rewriting history over,'' Eric Martin, Hampton's construction services supervisor, said of the site discovered last year during construction of a new downtown bus station.

``Is it really a showstopper? We said no,'' Martin said.

But Robert R. Hunter Jr., former director of the College of William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research, said the 280-by-230-foot site could produce artifacts that would contribute to a proposed city history museum, as well as to efforts to transform downtown into a tourist attraction.

``It's too bad the city can't see that as a positive experience and assume its responsibility to be a guardian of the past,'' said Hunter, who directed a past archaeological dig at Hampton's Air and Space Center.

Preliminary excavations at the bus station project turned up evidence of what may have been the 17th-century plantation home of Chesapeake Bay explorer William Claiborne, said archaeologists who conducted the dig.

Claiborne, the colony's surveyor general and treasurer, had extensive trade operations from Cape Hatteras to the mouth of the Susquehanna River. But outside Virginia, he was considered a pirate and fought land battles in Maryland with Lord Baltimore.

``He was involved in virtually every important event in the colony during the second and third quarters of the 17th century,'' said Tom Davidson, curator of Jamestown Settlement.

Under the National Historic Preservation Act, the city must either work around the discovery, preserve it through burial or conduct a more comprehensive dig.

Although the property is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, city officials believe the estimated $73,000 excavation cost isn't worth it.

Instead, the site will be covered with a thick fabric topped by at least 2 feet of dirt to protect any artifacts from the weight of vehicles on a parking lot..

``If we had found some Colonial fort or Bacon's tomb, it would have been, `Forget about the parking lot,''' Martin said. ``But there's a real need ... so we decided to find a way to let the project proceed and protect what's there.''

Cara Metz, an archaeologist for the state Department of Historic Resources, said properly designed site burials work well to protect locations of archaeological significance. Though her agency has not yet reviewed the city's plan in detail, it has endorsed the basic proposal.

Archaeologists worry about the effectiveness of the burial procedure in the long run.

``It's absolutely a valid procedure,'' said Donald W. Linebaugh, co-director of the William and Mary archaeological center. ``But in urban areas, especially, a guy with a backhoe can start digging before anybody can react, and the next thing you know is that there's a 2-foot-wide utility trench that cuts across the site.''