*Warning, picture heavy post because I couldn’t just choose a few!*

To me, when I have thought of an archaeological dig, I have always pictured a group of people out in the desert near Egypt surrounded by partially uncovered pyramids.  Or out in the plains surrounded by wheat fields with dinosaur bones being uncovered.  Never has it dawned on me that even in our local area we could have an archaeological dig!  Apparently they are more common around this area than what I thought!  We came to know about this dig from a homeschooling grandma in our group.  It is happening right on their property!  She asked me if I thought our group would be interested in taking a field trip to see what all they were doing.   I don’t know who was more excited, the kids or the mom’s!  It turned out to be a beautiful day for the field trip.

The reason for this dig was the state decided they needed to put in a new bridge in this area.  Before they could do that, they had to have a team of archaeologist come to do a little research to see if any Indian artifacts was found.  This area is known to have been a place where some Cherokee Indians lived.  Sure enough, when they started digging, they found areas where outbuildings had been built, broken shards of pottery and arrowheads.  One of the biggest finds they came across was an area where they would dump their food and broken pottery vessels, like a garbage hole.  They have been able to date most of the pieces from the early 1700’s.

This is Bruce Idol.  He is heading up this archaeological dig.  Bruce was gracious enough to host our group at the site and answer the questions we all had.

He is showing the kids an arrowhead that they had just found that morning!

I thought this was a cool looking area that they had searched.  Loved it being in the shape of a cross.

One person is shoveling a thin layer of dirt and tossing it into the sieve box where the guy will shake it to see if he can find any shards of pottery or arrowheads.

These two workers were making sketches on paper and mapping out the rocks they had uncovered.  Once they finished with that, they removed the rocks and then went down another layer.

The guy that was working the sieve box was showing the kids what all he had found.  The workers were very nice to the kids, answered all their questions and even let them hold a few pieces of the broken pottery.

I loved how all of the kids were attentive.  They were so well behaved and respectful of the history the guys were uncovering.

I think this was the “garbage hole” that they had discovered.  She was carefully scooping up the dirt in a dust pan.  She was taking out the larger pieces and putting them in the bucket next to her.  Then she would take the dirt and sift it through a sieve box to find smaller pieces.

This field trip has been one of the most memorable ones we have taken in a while.  I love history and to see it unearthed and come back to life was truly amazing.  That is one of the reason I love living where we do.  The Great Smoky Mountains and surrounding area is so filled with history that you just never know what you will come across or learn next.

Have you had any fun, interesting or unusual field trips lately?  I would love to hear about them!