The Search for Moore's Town begins July 3 - and I cannot wait!

 

In less than two weeks, archaeologists from all over will be descending on Smith's Island to help determine whether the Smallpox Bay peninsula on Smith's Island's southern shore was the location of Governor Richard Moore's first town, established upon the Plough's arrival in July 1612. Documentary evidence and the past discoveries of numerous post holes and early seventeenth-century pottery suggests this is the site, but only extensive excavation and careful analysis of features and finds will determine if our hypothesis is correct.

Xander @ WEB 2019

Ewan @ Trunk 2020

This season is a renaissance for SIAP as we assemble the largest single crew of diggers yet. Most are undergraduate or graduate students in terrestrial or nautical archaeology, history, and anthropology coming from the University of Rochester, Texas A&M, and the University of Southampton, but at least three Bermudian students will be getting their trowels dirty and two SIAP veterans - Xander Cook and Ewan Shannon - will be on hand to mentor those new to Bermudian archaeology.

Peter Leach of GSSI takes notes during his
 GPR Survey at Smallpox Bay

As we head into the field, we will have the benefit of ground penetrating radar survey results from our fieldwork in April, which will also enable us to literally "ground truth" the data and determine just how accurate GPR technology is for discovering and assessing buried sites in Bermuda's geological environment. 

Dr. David Givens and Peter Leach confer
 about subsurface feature identification

GPR vertical "slice" of soil strata and buried features.
Note the parabolas indicate cuts or post holes

Survey grid line at Smallpox Bay

Bermuda's Royal Gazette published two feature stories on our work to inform the public about our research:

Royal Gazette: "Radar digs deep into St George’s history"

Royal Gazette: "Radar gets under the surface of Bermuda's historical sites"

It will surely be an adventure living and working together daily over six weeks.  At least the commute will be easy: SIAP is especially grateful to the Department of Youth, Sports, and Recreation for the use of Paget Island as our base - in fact the only facility large enough to house a field team of our size. Paget Island itself, of course, is amazingly rich in historical and archaeological sites, with a lived history that similarly spans four hundred years, but my heart belongs to Smith's Island!

So subscribe to this blog and check in often in the weeks ahead as we launch the biggest archaeological dig in a decade, searching for a settlement that predates even the venerable Town of  St. George's.