Archaeology

Red Hill archaeology started this summer with an investigation of an area where a house and an earlier kitchen stood during Lucy Harrison’s ownership of the property in the early 20^th century. Maps and aerial photographs from Red Hill’s archives were put into a GIS mapping system to help us locate the site of these structures, a few hundred feet northwest of the Henry House. The kitchen, which stood at that location at least as early as 1906, burned down in 1928 and a new structure, labeled on maps as a Servant’s House, was built in its place. This was one of several houses rented by sharecroppers and their families in the first half of the 20^th century. Excavation on this site aimed to uncover any artifacts or building remains that could teach us more about life at Red Hill during that time.

Archaeologists and volunteers dug three 5×5 ft. square test units, with one revealing a deep layer of disturbed soil – an indication that a large feature was dug into the ground and filled back in. Artifacts from this site included bricks, brick fragments, glass, nails, ceramic, some prehistoric lithics, two metal hooks, a few buttons, a bottle neck with a glass stopper, a sink drain, and several unidentified metal objects. Future analysis in Red Hill’s new archaeology lab will provide more data on these artifacts.

After reaching undisturbed subsoil in the test units, we turned our efforts towards conducting a shovel test pit survey along the western side of the historic grounds, with additional testing around the kitchen/servant’s house site to discover more about the deep feature in the first unit. The shovel test pit survey involves digging small pits along evenly spaced intervals to give us an idea of what the soil and artifacts look like across a larger area. This will be useful for informing future excavations and continuing to understand the changes in Red Hill’s architectural landscape.