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Part II: Digging Route 74’s Dillsburg and Delta: Indiana Joneses searching for archeological jewels

This dig at a circa 1805 apartment building in Peach Bottom Township uncovered many artifacts, including this one found by Red Lion’s Leslie Martin. The building is believed to be the home of Welsh quarrymen before they built their own cottages. Also of interest: Stone structures tell York countians how their ancestors lived and Delta-Peach Bottom slate shingles: ‘Nothing works as good as this’ and Old York County town jails: ‘They’re kind of hidden history’ and Delta Welsh homecoming offers opportunity to learn about culture of slate miners.

Updating two digs, from southeastern York County in the Delta area to the northeastern part of the county, and hardly leaving Route 74 (see Part I) … .
This comes from a York Daily Record/Sunday News story on a Peach Bottom Township dig, led by Steve Ciborowski:

Ciborowski, a local archaeologist, stumbled upon the site about a year ago when he read an article about how its remains were in the area.
The land, in Peach Bottom Township, is owned by a local farmer. When the building burned down, Ciborowski said, others probably took pieces of the cobblestone and used it as a foundation for other houses.
For the most part, Knoll and others in the reading program got to keep artifacts they found, but “if we find something that would lend more to the story, then we’d have to turn it over to Steve,” she said.
Those pieces will later be put on display – after the property is registered with the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission.
While Ciborowski and his crew were looking for evidence of Welsh settlers, the site pre-dates them. It was founded by the English and Scots-Irish.
The Welsh workers didn’t come upon the area until later, when they came to work in the quarries.
“The Welsh helped the state business flourish,” Ciborowski said.

And then, in Dillsburg, this newspaper story tells about a major discovery:

An archaeological dig at the historic Dill’s Tavern in Dillsburg has uncovered a second wall line this week.
Steve Warfel, a retired archaeologist from State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, said he and his team are following the wall line in hopes of finding a corner.
That will help them determine the size of a former building and what it might have been, he said.
Some elementary students digging to learn about archaeological work a couple of years ago found what appeared to be a foundation and it ran underneath the tavern.
The Northern York County Historical and Preservation Society, which owns the tavern, hired a professional archaeologist to investigate. Warfel and a team of professionals and volunteers started digging last month.
Warfel described the stone foundation as “light-weight,” meaning it could not have supported a stone building. However, it could have supported a frame building.
Perhaps it was a summer kitchen, he said.

Also of interestPart I: Digging Dillsburg and Delta: Indiana Joneses searching for archeological jewels.
See great interior photographs of the Welsh quarrymen cottages.

Busy hands sift for artifacts at the Delta dig. See video of a separate dig in Dillsburg.
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