YORKTOWN, Va. — YORKTOWN, Va. - Early this summer students from William & Mary and Flagler College attended an archaeology field school at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown.
And I was invited on base to check out the dig site.
"We are looking for evidence of people living here a couple 100, a couple 1000 years ago." says Jessica Jenkins, a professor at Flagler College. "What they were doing, where they were living, how they were living, and how they were interacting with the local oyster fishery in this area."
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For the past five weeks, students from William & Mary and Flagler College in Florida have been conducting research and digging for artifacts at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown.
"The project that we're doing this summer is really part of a long term research effort to make sense of the ways in which native societies engaged with the oyster fishery, adjacent to the site in the York River." says Martin Gallivan, a professor at William & Mary.
So far, they have found pieces of decorated pottery, an elbow pipe, and evidence of two houses from over a thousand years ago.
"We know a lot about the colonial history of Virginia and the more recent history of Virginia, but there's a longer story that predates that," Gallivan says. "It's the native history of Virginia, particularly Tidewater, Virginia."
"We're beginning to learn more about that. And the Navy has been really great and allowing us to study this history."
