What’s new with Camp Security?
The 2015 archaeology dig at the site of Camp Security has come to a close. Over eighty volunteers participated in various ways: shuttling workers to the somewhat remote site, visual and metal detector surveys, digging and sifting tons of soil, or cleaning and cataloging artifacts. These activities were professionally supervised by archaeologist Steve Warfel and his assistant, Amanda Snyder.
Even though the stockade location at Camp Security wasn’t found, this year’s dig ruled out one more possible location. Fundraising continues so that other logical possible stockade locations, and there are several, can be explored in the not-too-distant future.
My hat is off especially to those who actively dug into the sometimes very muddy soil, often in the broiling sun. I didn’t physically participate in the dig, but did get a chance to help clean and catalog some of the objects. They showed humans have trod these fields for thousands of years.
The chronically earliest objects found were Native American spear points and scrapers, used as they hunted the area. Some were of non-native minerals, demonstrating trading or traveling activity.
How about the Camp Security era, 1781-1783? Part of a pewter spoon handle was found; it could date from that time, as could the hand-wrought nails. There were also numerous shards of redware. These cannot be specifically dated because of the long period of redware use, but they could be of the time. A piece of English white salt-glazed stoneware, perfect for the period, a piece of English flint, and several creamware pieces were found. All of these date to the 22 months the camp was in operation.
There were also some scraps of 19th century creamware and of bottle glass, which could even be early 20th century. These latter items could have been broken items discarded in pre-trash collection days and eventually dispersed by heavy rains or a farmer’s plow.
Some of the items that could date from the Camp Security era are shown above. I’ll share a sampling of the objects that date either earlier or later in a subsequent post.
Click here for my previous posts and York Sunday News columns related to Camp Security.
