From Tongs to Dredges: Changes in Chesapeake Bay Oystering Technology

Figure 1. Oyster shell recovered by archaeologists at the late 19th-century home of Black watermen in Calvert County, Maryland. Photo courtesy of the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab. The National Oyster Festival, celebrating the American oyster, Crassotrea virginica (Figure 1), … Continue reading →

1652 Susquehannock Treaty

Note from author: I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Ed Chaney, Deputy Director of the MAC Lab and Dr. Julia A. King, St. Mary’s College of Maryland in the preparation of this blog. Any errors are my own. Figure 1. Tulip shaped tobacco pipe from the Pine Bluff site. Tobacco … Continue reading →

Waterfront Amusement Parks in Maryland

Figure 1. A sample of beads from Brownie Beach. Two or three times a year, staff at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab will get a call from a local citizen who has been beachcombing along the Chesapeake Bay at Brownie’s Beach. While better known as a place for hunting fossils … Continue reading →

Stone Tools and Environmental Reconstruction at the Indian Creek Site

Figure 1. Projectile points from the Indian Creek V Site. We probably all have an “arrowhead” or two kicking around in a drawer or shoebox tucked somewhere into the back of a closet. I remember finding points similar to the ones depicted here while picking butterbeans and tomatoes in … Continue reading →

Germans in Maryland

Figure 1: This 25.5 x 23.5” plate from a five-plate stove is one of eight from the site that bear German or Pennsylvania Dutch motifs. The Antietam Furnace (18WA288), more properly known as the Mt. Aetna Iron Furnace, operated between around 1761 and 1783 in what is now Washington County. … Continue reading →