WheatLand Foundation

From 1977 to 1981 extensive excavations were undertaken by the Virginia Research Center for Archaeology (VRCA) at the Drummond/Harris Site (44JC0043) near Jamestown. The historic occupation spanned c.1648-c.1820 when the Drummond and later Harris families lived there. Entirely situated in a plowed field, the site artifact scatter visibly extended over a large area, 300’x 330’. This fortuitous situation, no longer seen because of “no-till” farming methods in the region, offered the rare opportunity to accurately position a grid of 95 contiguous 10’ squares across the core of the site for the systematic recovery of plow zone soil samples and artifacts. The artifacts were recovered by screening 9,500 cubic feet of excavated soils through ¼” wire mesh. Significantly, at the time these investigations were conducted, plow zone studies were not used on other area sites, demonstrating a regional preference for the recovery of artifacts only from subsurface deposits at the time. Nevertheless, numerous studies since then have clearly shown the value of plow zone information. While evident at the onset from the 170-year date range of artifacts in the plow zone, the complexity of the site was eventually revealed during the mapping of subsurface features. These deposits included at least 32 structures, three craft areas, eight wells, one icehouse, nine refuse pits, 16 lengths of fences, seven ditches, a roadway, and 21 graves. Therefore, the use of GIS to perform a spatial study of overlying deposits is crucial to understanding the usage dates and functions of the various areas of the site and its extensive inventory of corresponding subsurface features and artifacts.