Digging Deep
FREEPORT — In December, the underside of a bridge next to a river in Pennsylvania is a cold place to be.
But the discovery of just a few shards of flint was enough to warm the cockles of an archaeologist's heart.
That archaeologist, Ryan Rowles, serves in the state Department of Transportation's Cultural Resources office. He recently spent about six weeks under the old Freeport Bridge that allows Route 356 to span the Allegheny River.
Rowles' work — searching for possible cultural artifacts left by Colonists, settlers and American Indians — is part of the project to replace the 43-year-old bridge that connects Freeport to Westmoreland County.
The project is scheduled to be bid in 2010 with construction beginning in 2011.
Rowles' finds will not disrupt that schedule, he explained as he showed off sandwich bags containing snail shells and waste material called lithic debitage, produced during the manufacture of stone tools such as arrowheads.He explained that PennDOT, as well as all other state transportation departments, started looking for such artifacts in 1966 with the enactment of Section 106 of the National Historic and Preservation Act."Up until then, development was just happening without consideration for what was being lost for previous cultures," Rowles said.The Freeport Bridge dig began in November after a geomorphologist — a scientist who studies the formation, alteration and configuration of landforms — determined there was a good chance areas around the Freeport Bridge project could yield artifacts.Rowles located a likely site for the dig by working with archaeologists from the contracted Skelly & Loy of Pittsburgh, an engineering, environmental and cultural resources consulting firm, and Allprobe Environmental of Wexford, whose owner, Greg Baker of Zelienople, did all the heavy digging.The process includes using a backhoe to dig a hole, leaving a mound in the middle that corresponds at a certain height with markers in the soil noting natural and man-made disturbances. Archaeologists jump in with shovels, digging a very square hole in the middle of the mound, 1 meter by 1 meter and about 6 feet deep.
The dirt that is taken from the second hole is then screened, or rubbed over a large screen, isolating large material from the dirt that sifts through.This process allows for the discovery of artifacts and other material deposited in the soil under the bridge decades and centuries before.Rowles explained that the chink or flint debris they found is exciting, but not enough to expand the Phase I, or identification dig, to a Phase II, or an investigation of the land for possible registration on the National Register of Historic Places.Bryan Henderson, field director for the Freeport dig, said he just finished with a five-year dig in Tioga County, where they excavated three American Indian villages along Route 15.Other recent projects for Penn- DOT and Skelly & Loy include the excavation of an old well in Juniata County — the well was used as a disposal site for generations — and a rock shelter in the southern corner of Western Pennsylvania."I love my job," Henderson said. "I've been at it for 21 years and it takes a certain kind of person, one with patience and who likes to travel."Now that the Freeport Bridge dig is done, the holes refilled and the ground flattened, PennDOT can move forward with its project.Rowles, Henderson and the other archaeologists can move to the next site looking for Pennsylvania's past.
<table width="300" height="275" border="0" align="center" valign="top" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><embed src="/assets/mov/BE6227012.MOV" width="320" height="250" autostart="true" loop="false" ></embed></td></tr><tr><td align="center"><a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/" target="_blank"><span class="style11">Requires Quicktime Media Player </a><br><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Times New Roman">Video by Brandon Gerthoffer</font></span><td></tr></table>
