Monday, June 7, 2010

Public Archeology Day at Kingsley Plantation

There was a really nice turn out for Public Archeology Day. Blaze and I showed up just as DH was doing a question and answer period after his talk.

Question: Were all these tree here back then?

Answer:


DH was giving his talk at what they've been calling "The sugar mill", although they are not really sure that is what the structure was. The whole time he was speaking, and for a short time afterwards, two students were working on a unit right there.

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Sifting through the dirt to uncover several pieces of various colored, broken glass.
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Not far from the sugar mill, in the woods, between the mill and the river, DH proudly shows off that with a single shovel test he has found the tabby floor of another building.

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Blaze helping dad brush dirt away from the new building site.
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One of the other grad-students gave a talk at the cabins, where she showed the crowd the well they just uncovered behind one of the cabins.


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There were students hard at work in the floor of one of the cabins.

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Sifting dirt from the cabin floor.
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In a previous post, I mentioned the hand charms and showed a picture of one found on another plantation. Here is a picture of the two found at Kingsley over the past three weeks. They are a hook and eye (one of each, making this a complete set).

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I just have to include this picture, because I'm so pleased with how it turned out. This is one of the park rangers at Kingsley.

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2 comments:

Tammy said...

How big of an area is the Kingsley Plantation? How much of the area has been completed?

Crescent Moon said...

The original plantation was something like 1000 acres, but it's not that big anymore. There are several VERY nice private houses on the island now. The national park, which includes the Kingsley Plantation buildings, is still pretty big, though. There were originally 32 slave cabins, but only 26 are still above ground. The new building that DH just found, is one of two buildings in that area, that appear on old maps, but they hadn't found in past years. There are also some things on the island that pre-date the Kingsley era. There are some tabby crypts out in the woods that are believed to be from an earlier family, but the location of their house has not yet been found. The oldest Catholic mission in Florida was also located on the island, although, there is no building left there. Before all that, there were native people living there. So, the island could keep the university archeology program busy for years to come, especially since they only do this for 6 weeks every summer.

Crafty Crow