Guest Blogger - Xander Cook - A full circle feature

As I sit in the Globe Hotel archaeology lab and reflect on the past 10 years that I have been working on the Smith’s Island Archaeology Project, I find myself contemplating the evolution of not only the project, but myself as an archaeologist.

I started on this project back in 2014 as a kid still dreaming of finding dinosaurs, completely unaware of the heritage world. After meeting Mike and his team of field students, I began discovering the past of my own home country. This experience started me down the path of becoming a professional archaeologist. At this time (2014), we were still working on Oven Site proper, now known to be the detached kitchen serving a larger nearby main structure.

2014 - My first year digging!

We then moved further north and east in 2017 and discovered the corners of the cistern wall. This season, we were finally able to complete what we started in 2017. I was a student beginning to learn the ins and outs of archaeology when we began digging a portion of the cistern; seven years later I now find myself directing and teaching students as we excavate the rest of it.


I look back on those earlier days with fondness, unaware of the many trials and adventures I would experience through university. I am now entrusted with the supervision of Oven Site, a position passed down to me by Mike like a sacred torch. I will admit, I didn’t think myself up to the task, but the more the team and I worked together, the more I found myself explaining and instructing just like Mike did all those years ago.

Brothers-In-Armchairs

This season, we started at Smallpox Bay. Ewan and I worked in symbiosis as co-supervisors, covering each other’s bases and picking up the slack where we needed it. We had many a silent conversation across the site with a single look as our team excavated more than 150 contexts before I left to lead a team of my own excavating at Oven Site.




The small excavated part of the cistern was reburied at the end of the 2017 field school, so our first task was to dig out this backfill. To dig the main portion of this four-foot by ten-foot feature, we positioned four meter-square units east along this north-orientated site to recover artifacts from the site’s last decade of occupation as well as deposits from early 18th-century quarrymen who buried the site. In tandem, we extended an exploratory trench dug last year to investigate large anomalies in GPR data from a survey done in March 2024. We extended one square to the East and four to the North from there to continue the trench from the same level it was left at from the previous year.

The hope in unit N17 E2 was that the large feature discovered was a substantial post hole. However, as we came immediately down on to bedrock 5cm later, as well as a few other natural depressions and a tree fossil, we discovered that while the GPR was indeed providing accurate identifications of geological anomalies, the anomalies themselves were not man-made post holes. Although we were disappointed to not find architectural features, we recovered a smattering of older artefacts, including ceramics, pipe stems, and a large oyster shell.

Back at the Cistern we came down on the northern walls. After removing the first three layers and a thickly packed layer of limestone quarry waste rubble, we got to the good stuff: thick undisturbed artefact-rich layers dating to just before or around when the site was abandoned. The fill included much earlier material redeposited there from the house’s early years, most notably a boar tusk and a piece of late 16th-century German stoneware. At the very bottom were several large whale vertebrae in shattered, butchered conditions.

The day after we revealed the bottom of the cistern, the site was reburied and sealed with our own “twisted” identifiers, so that future archaeologists will know that it was already excavated. While this was one of the harshest work days, we were all filled with a bittersweet motivation from knowing it was the final push.

As the dig comes to a close, I would like to state that this has been my favorite season yet! I can finally see how my many years of excavating, both at home and abroad, have formed me into an archaeologist that others can trust. Initially, I had a hard time trusting my own instincts, but I grew more confident in leading all those digging with me. Together we worked to solve all the problems that incomplete paperwork, puzzling natural features, and confusing stratigraphy threw our way.

I especially appreciated working with my Dad, who has been coming out to dig once a week since I started. I also want to thank my UK friends Katie Brown (who has come out twice now) Sadie Brown, Wyatt Crater, and Cazamir Radvan. 

Last but not least, I wouldn’t have been able to do this without Ewan. Ewan and I met in 2017, where we formed an instant and unbreakable brotherly bond. Leigh, our supervisor at the time, had to separate us for constantly fooling around. Now that we have both become supervisors ourselves, we both see just how right they were to do that. Separation allowed us to flourish and grow without restricting our bond. In the past weeks, we have both found moments when we have needed to do so for others, and saw in real time the same positive outcomes.

Portrait of a Digger as a 
Young Dirt Bum

I’ve made many new friends this season, and I hope that they will return on future excavations! I am proud of each and every one of them and enjoyed seeing them grow into new roles with a passion to learn and work together. I am curious to see which ones take a permanent interest in archaeology, and where their experiences on this dig will take them, just as it did for me all those years ago.

I can’t wait to see what future excavations hold, or shall we say, what is cooking in the oven?

Kermit and Gollum in their natural environment....goofing around on a day off