THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608040057
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY JENNIFER MCMENAMIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BUXTON LENGTH: 132 lines
They carry trowels and brushes, shovels and sifters, small picks and insect repellent. But patience may be an archaeologist's most valued tool.
Excavators never unearth entire towns - or even houses - in a week's work.
Their harvest more likely is a piece of fish vertebrae here. A shard of ribbed pottery there. The tooth of an animal somewhere else. And thousands of charred scallop shells everywhere.
A copper bead or the remains of rotten wooden pilings are treasured finds. And even something as insignificant as a discarded shell can provide valuable information about the dates of human occupation once radioactive carbon tests are run.
``All those little pieces help us,'' David S. Phelps, an anthropology professor at East Carolina University who led a week of digs in Buxton, said Friday. ``They may not be so exotic to the public, but let me give you an analogy.
``Suppose you are trying to understand Manteo as a town. You've dug two holes approximately 20 feet square and you tried to explain the evolution of Manteo from just these two holes. So what we have is a very small sample of what was Croatan.
``But it's enough to tell us it was there,'' said Phelps, director of ECU's new Coastal Archaeology Office. ``It's the proper time period. And there are everyday artifacts. That's what we're looking for - everyday patterns.''
Phelps, five ECU students and a team of local volunteers spent five long days amidst a maritime forest, uncovering what they believe is Croatan, the capital of the Algonquin Indian chiefdom of the same name. The site stretches about a half mile along the island in the present town of Buxton.
Excavation is a painstakingly slow process with few instant rewards. The real discoveries frequently occur in laboratories, where archaeologists clean and test the artifacts.
But that does not diminish the diggers' excitement as they carve what Phelps called ``peep holes into the earth'' and sift through the dark, organic soil that stains skin with a single touch.
Zander Brody carefully fingered a thick, dirt-covered find. Sweat glistened on the 42-year-old volunteer's forehead, dripped from his sideburns and plastered bits of soil to his legs.
``Look at this marking,'' the Buxton resident told Phelps.
The professor held the ridged material up to the tree-filtered light for a better look.
``That marking tells you it's a Carolina box turtle.''
``Oh,'' Brody said, disappointment creeping into his voice. ``I thought it was pottery.''
``Nope.''
The desire to find something important often overrides common sense. In an imaginative instant, a bit of shell is turned into a key to pottery ovens of the past.
As the designated sifter of the hour, Brody rolled the screen-bottomed box on wheels back and forth while a digger tossed up dirt from the deepening pit.
``I want to find something European,'' Brody mumbled. ``I want to find John White's molar where they knocked it out of him for being a foreigner.''
Throughout Thursday afternoon, this exuberant mood continued, rich with jokes about the ``Lost Colonists,'' the first English settlers who some say abandoned their Roanoke Island fort for the Croatan kingdom on Hatteras Island.
``Hey, Ricky, pitch me up one of Raleigh's buttons,'' Brody shouted.
``Hard to do,'' responded Rick Scarborough, a 35-year-old commercial fisherman from Buxton. ``He never came over here.''
``How do you know?''
``Queen Elizabeth was having her way with him at the time.''
Scarborough groaned as one toss of dirt fell short of the filter. ``That was the one with Virginia Dare's baby teeth,'' he said, laughing.
But beneath this jovial and flippant surface was real archaeological work.
``It's going great,'' Phelps said, taking a break from sifting, explaining and overseeing. ``The site gets better and better every time we expand it.''
Although this site was first recorded in 1956, tested in 1983 and excavated in July 1995 and March 1996, this visit centered around sampling the content and type of features that remain intact.
From the pit where Brody; Scarborough; Barbara Midgette, 64, of Buxton; and 21-year-old ECU student Gretchen Hardee worked, diggers removed tulip shells, clam shells, cord pottery, fish vertebrae and animal teeth from a midden, an archaeologist's term for a garbage pit that contains food remains and broken tools. They also exposed post molds - dark circles in the ground that indicate structural remains.
From another pit - where 33-year-old project assistant Charles Heath directed Nancy Cowal, 46, of Buxton; Sandy Heyl, 54, of Frisco; and her husband, Bob Heyl, 74 - workers discovered gun flint, ceramics, shells, part of a crudely made pipe bowl, a hand-wrought nail and a few iron objects.
The iron, Heath said, indicates human occupation from the post-historic period, which began with European contact.
``Indians never developed the technology to smelt or forge iron,'' the ECU graduate student said, ``so any sort of iron artifacts definitely indicate post-European.''
Although most archaeologists define ``post historic'' as anything after Columbus' 1492 voyage, the historic period for Roanoke Island does not begin until the 1580s when the first English settlers arrived.
The sense of rediscovering history intrigues first-timers and keeps ``experienced amateurs'' coming back for more.
``You get hooked when you do this,'' said Midgette, who found several porpoise teeth. ``All you need to do is get one of these shakers. It's like an Easter egg hunt. It reminds me of when I'd look for shark teeth in the Chesapeake Bay when I was a girl.
``Plus, it's such a sheer joy to have the privilege of doing this.''
``Chop poison ivy,'' Cowal chimed in, chuckling. ``Pitch soil.''
``Get up way too early,'' Midgette continued. ``And feel the continuity of humanity. That's what I feel working here.''
But while Midgette's work is finished until Phelps' next visit, the professor's has just begun. It's time for radio carbon dating tests, artifact cleaning and project evaluation.
And more patience.
``All this accumulated information will be added to what was gathered from previous visits. We'll assay what we know, what we need to know and develop projects for next time.
``Just as it took things a long time to occur, it takes a long time to go back and rediscover them,'' he said Friday evening, after the holes were refilled. ``It takes time to piece it back together.'' ILLUSTRATION: DREW C. WILSON color photos, The Virginian-Pilot
David S. Phelps, an anthropology professor at East Carolina
University, makes notes at the excavation of what researchers
believe is Croatan, the capital of an Algonquin chiefdom, near what
is now Buxton.
James Brody, 14, of Buxton, catches a shovelful of soil in his
sifting screen. Local volunteers are helping researchers search for
400-year-old clues.
DREW C. WILSON photos, The Virginian-Pilot
Above, ECU archaeology students Gretchen Hardee and Clay Swindell
remove shell-encrusted earth from a sandy hilltop in Buxton under
the guidance of professor David Phelps. At left, Phelps gives
volunteer Barbara Midgette a break from sifting earth from the dig.
The tiniest piece of pottery can give the researchers clues to what
life was like hundreds of years ago on the Outer Banks. by CNB