\ o u n g mariners 



>f a Different Sort 



What could be more exciting than 

 digging up a 2,000-year-old piece of 

 pottery or a 5,000-year-old spear point? 

 Nothing, say archaeologists. 



Although archaeology — the study 

 of past cultures — is exciting, it is not 

 quite as adventurous as Indiana Jones 

 makes out to be. It is hard work. And 

 archaeologists must be very careful and 

 very exacting when they dig 

 into the past. 



Since the Indians who 

 lived along the Tar Heel 

 coast had no written 

 language that we know of, 

 archaeologists must look for 

 evidence of their societies in 

 the layers of the earth. 



They carefully plot the 

 sites where they plan to dig. 

 Then they take the earth 

 away layer by layer. Each 

 layer denotes a period in 

 time. The deeper the 

 archaeologists dig, the 

 further back in time they go. 



When archaeologists 

 find an important artifact, 

 they note how deep in the 

 earth it is found, its exact 

 location and its relation to other 

 artifacts. Where an artifact is found is 

 often as important as the artifact itself. 



Archaeologists look for more subtle 

 clues, too. They can tell where posts for 

 houses once stood by locating the 

 darkened earth that surrounded the post. 

 They have also unearthed the pits where 

 the Indians built their fires for cooking 

 and the refuse piles, called middens, 

 where they dumped their garbage. 



And occasionally, archaeologists 

 discover areas where these people 

 buried their dead. 



Like putting together a puzzle, 

 archaeologists fit together information 

 gathered at a dig site to get a picture of 



a society's people, its culture and 

 religious beliefs. 



You and your friends can try your 

 hand at archaeology with the assistance 

 of a teacher, a Scout leader or a parent. 



First gather these supplies: nails, 

 string, several large boxes, sand, peat 

 moss, paper, pencils, a yardstick, a 

 shovel, a garden trowel, a bucket of 



water, a pan and a paintbrush. 



Then collect some artifacts of your 

 culture that you don't mind burying. 

 Consider these possibilities: a plastic 

 spoon, a toy figurine (a Ninja Turtle, 

 Batman, X-Man, etc.), a plastic plate, an 

 empty can or bottle, a straw, a toy 

 building block, an empty shampoo 

 bottle, several paper clips, a small ball, 

 an eraser, a pencil, a ballpoint pen and 

 an old necklace or earrings. 



Ask a teacher, Scout leader or parent 

 to use a shovel to dig a 2-by-2 hole, 12 

 inches deep. Then ask this person to fill 

 the hole with alternating layers of 

 artifacts, soil, sand and peat moss. Now 

 the "site" is ready for exploration. 



Gather a research team of three to 

 five friends, and prepare a string grid 

 over the site, using the nails. The 

 resulting squares should be fairly large, 

 about 1 foot square. 



The team consists of a digger, 

 measurer, recorder, cleaner and sorter. 

 The digger is armed with a garden 

 trowel; the measurer, a yardstick; the 

 recorder, pencil and paper; 

 the cleaner, a pan, paintbrush 

 and bucket of water; and the 

 sorter with pencil, paper and 

 a box for storage. 



The digger, measurer and 

 recorder work together. The 

 digger removes a thin layer 

 of soil evenly, being careful 

 not to damage any artifacts. 

 The measurer gauges the 

 depth of the excavation, 

 which is noted by the 

 recorder. When artifacts are 

 found, the measurer deter- 

 mines each item's depth 

 from the surface and its 

 distance from each side of 

 the grid. The recorder then 

 writes these figures down 

 and plots them on a paper 

 map of the grid. 



Next, the cleaner removes the 

 artifact from the earth, brushes away 

 the dirt and dips it into the water for 

 final cleaning. Finally, the sorter places 

 the artifact into a box and writes a 

 detailed description of the item, noting 

 its color, size and possible use. 



After excavating the site, the young 

 archaeologists should discuss their 

 finds and analyze what they learned 

 about the culture that used this site. 



(This activity was taken from Coastal 

 Beginnings, a teacher curriculum 

 guide available from Sea Grant for 

 $3.50.) 



20 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1992 



