Historic find in Plymouth
Researchers locate first evidence of a home in Pilgrim settlement
Just in time for Thanksgiving, researchers have definitively located the Pilgrims’ original settlement. But the evidence centers on a calf, not a turkey.
Digging on the eastern edge of Burial Hill over the summer, a team of archeologists from UMass-Boston led by David Landon discovered post holes along with a variety of early 17th century artifacts that for the first time offer evidence of a home within the settlement.
“This is the first physical evidence of that settlement,” Kate Ness, curator of collections at Plimoth Plantation, said of the find. “We have maps, text and descriptions, but it hasn’t been clear exactly where it is or how much it is. It's exciting because it proves where the physical location is, and parts of it are still there.”
Plimoth Plantation has partnered with Landon and his team of student archeologists on the project, which excavated pits on the shoulder of Burial Hill just west of School Street.
Landon said he believes the post holes are the remains of the corner of a house and part of a fence that existed along the northwest end of the original settlement.
The original settlement has been thought to extend from the top of Burial Hill east down Leyden Street to the waterfront. The excavation suggests it was wider that the confines of one street. Landon estimated its population at 180 to 200 people.
The researchers based their findings on meticulous studies of dirt collected from the holes where settlers placed the posts that formed the foundation of their wooden homes. The researchers found several post holes, some up to a foot in diameter. The wood is long gone, but the dirt is uniquely stained by it and offers evidence of where and how structures were located.
The key for Landon and his team was finding the post holes and the 17th century artifacts together.
Around the post holes, researchers unearthed broken pottery, hand-made nails, trade beads, straight pins and a musket ball from the first half of the 1600s.
They also uncovered the intact remains of a calf, which Ness said offers unique evidence of a Pilgrim settlement. The animals were not native to America. The Pilgrims began importing calves in the mid 1620s. They ultimately became a huge portion of the settlement’s economy, which led to expansion outside of the settlement for cattle grazing ground.
Landon and his team have named the calf “Constance” and continue to study the remains in hopes of solving the mystery of its demise.
Landon said it is normal to find animal bones in such digs, but very rare to discover an animal burial. He speculated that the calf may have been buried because it contracted a disease. The settlers also would not have eaten the calf if it had been attacked by wolves, he said.
“The calf is interesting because they are so important to Plymouth’s economy. Cattle became a big economic activity,” Landon said.
Ness said the discovery of the other artifacts is equally fascinating because it gives historians the first glimpse of artifacts the settlers would have had and used.
Plimoth Plantation recreates the year 1627 in its living history museum, but has had to rely on historical accounts and the artifacts found in settlements in Virginia to outfit its village.
But the museum’s artifacts are holding up well to Landon’s finds. Some of the pottery shards were German and English pieces that are in the museum’s collection and are unique to that time period.
Landon had been hoping to find evidence of the settlement in time for the town’s 400th anniversary celebration in 2020.
He is working under a three-year National Endowment for the Humanities grant and plans to return with his team through 2020 to continue unearthing the town’s past.
He said the settlement is thought to have been surrounded by a palisade fence that protected the village until about 1670. Landon believes post holes from the palisade will be located just beyond last summer’s dig.
Ness cannot wait. “We have a tiny portion of the window to look at now but we’re hoping to get a clearer picture. It’s the first time we’ve ever been able to say this is from the original settlement,” she said.