Intern Spotlight: Nicole Six

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This is the sixth in a series of posts highlighting our awesome summer interns!

“My name is Nicole Six, I have a BA in Archaeology and Ancient History from Durham University in the UK.

“I have a special interest in zooarchaeology so I’ve been identifying and cataloguing faunal remains from the Bob Ogle Collection. The remains date from the 17th century, and are mostly from livestock. I make note of the species, what type of bone, what part of the bone, the approximate age, and any notable features. For example, ‘left proximal femur of a non-adult cow, with butcher marks.’ After I finish this project I’m aiming to start a new project focusing on collections management within the museum.”

Nicole’s Faunal Project from the Swann site

Thanks, Nicole, for sharing your expertise in all things animal bone!

Abby (C) with fellow interns Kaitlin (L) and Julia (R)

Your support can help us provide internships to the next generation of archaeology and historic preservation professionals! If you are able, please consider making a tax-deductible internship donation to the Lost Towns Project today. Every contribution, no matter the size, makes a big difference in preserving local history. Thank you!

County Archaeologists Present at the Middle Atlantic Archaeology Conference

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This past weekend, March 24-27, Anne Arundel County Archaeological Sites Planner Stacy Poulos and consultant Drew Webster participated in the Middle Atlantic Archaeology Conference in Ocean City, MD.

Stacy Poulos
Drew Webster

Stacy was featured as a panelist on “The Sea is Rising and the Mountains are Sliding: A Discussion of Climate Change, Middle Atlantic Cultural Heritage, and Actions We Must Take.” The panel discussion brought together our colleagues who are engaged in site discovery, documentation, and mitigation with those who are creating programs to prioritize and preserve cultural heritage.

Drew presented a poster entitled, “55,555 Artifacts from the Swann Site, Calvert County, Maryland.” The poster summarizes the findings from the Swann Site, the largest site assemblage in the Ogle Collection. You can view the poster here.

County Archaeologists Catalog Research Collection; Discover 30 New Sites

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Anne Arundel County archaeologists and volunteers have recently completed a two-year project to catalog the Bob Ogle Collection, a large research collection that was donated to the county by longtime local resident and avocational archaeologist Bob Ogle. With funding support from the Maryland Historical Trust, the team curated 150 boxes of artifacts from Anne Arundel, Calvert, Charles, and Prince George’s Counties.

Some highlights from the Ogle project:

  • The collection contains 161,982 unique objects from 154 different archaeological sites. 
  • Revisiting the Ogle collection resulted in the identification of 30 new sites that were previously unrecorded by the State; 
  • 82 volunteers contributed 2,673 hours of work on the collection. A big thank you to all our volunteers and interns! 
  • Amelia Chisholm was lead author on the project’s technical report, which topped out at over 500 pages. 
  • Shawn Sharpe personally identified and catalogued an astounding  27,037 projectile points. Sharpe also cataloged over 44,000 unique objects from the Tanyard site in Anne Arundel County, a large site along the South River. The Native American base camp is stratified and has intact prehistoric occupation dating to around 2,000 years ago.
  • Drew Webster and a cohort of summer collegiate interns catalogued over 55,000 colonial-period artifacts from the Swann sites in Calvert County.
  • 108 Paleoindian artifacts were identified in the collection from 28 archaeological sites. 24 of these sites had never had a Paleoindian component identified at them before. These artifacts represent the oldest record of human habitation in Maryland, and date to as early as 13,500 years ago. This finding is a significant contribution to the research of Maryland’s earliest Native Americans.
  • The team also identified 40 projectile points of the Hardaway Dalton, Dalton, and Hardaway Side-Notched types, which date to 10,500 years ago. Only 20 points of these varieties were known across the entire State prior to this research, so this work has tripled the known number of these exceptionally ancient projectile points in Maryland. 
  • The work has the potential for countless avenues for additional research, such as large-scale settlement patterns, lithic raw material preferences, and other comparative studies. Interested researchers, be they professionals or students, should contact Lab Director Amelia Chisholm at [email protected]
Projectile Points in the Ogle Collection