I Participated in an Archaeological Dig Today

Being involved in an archaeological dig has been on my bucket list for some time now and I finally had an opportunity to do it this morning without even needing to get in my car.

Some background. My hometown of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin has a park known as Swan Park.  This part of Beaver Dam has a history that dates back thousands of years, when it was (according to the city web site) a popular hunting ground for local Native American tribes.

The part of Beaver Dam's past that is applicable to this story is the late 19th Century, when Dr. George Swan built a hotel/spa on the piece of land. The resort lasted just two years before he closed it and auctioned off most of the buildings. Today's dig, which was open to the public and drew quite a few volunteers was to try to locate artifacts from that hotel.

Courtesy of the Beaver Dam Library

Since the park is within walking distance of my house, I decided to volunteer. I only was there for a couple hours, but it was a productive couple of hours with me helping with everything from scraping off the first couple layers of dirt to helping sift.

My biggest concern, of course, was being there and finding nothing. Or more specifically, having them make a big discovery after I left. However, I ended up satisfied with the outing.

For one, we found quite a bit in those two hours. Nothing newsworthy, like finding the lost Ark of the Covenant, but stuff that was still historic. This included old can tabs, nails, pieces of brick and a dinosaur tail (a plastic one from a toy, not a real one) that, based on how deep we had dug, was probably not left there recently.

The BIG find in those two hours was something I am proud to say I was involved with. They asked for volunteers to do some test digs in a different part of the park a few feet away from where they were excavating. A couple feet down, I found a rock that didn't look like it was a normal rock. Soon after, others were found and according to the experts running the dig, they are likely foundation stones from the hotel. It was a pretty cool discovery.

There is talk of doing more of these in the future and, after this experience, especially after learning about another discovery made at the park earlier this year. Apparently, a test dig related to some planned landscaping work resulted in the discovery of pottery shards that could be as much as 2,500 years old. It is unclear if the public will be allowed to help with that excavation though.

Maybe I'll just grab a shovel and do an excavation in my backyard, just to see what I come across.