TRENTON, N.J. -- An archaeological dig at a British barracks captured by George Washington has yielded a nearly 4,000-year-old arrowhead and evidence of a prehistoric Indian settlement on the same site, archaeologists said Monday.
'This dig has produced more than we ever could have hoped for,' said Ian Burrows, the British-born archaeologist leading a seven-member team that has been at work since Aug. 15 and will finish its work this week. 'Archaeology has a way of turning up surprises.'
The dig is part of a $2.8 million restoration project at the state-owned Old Barracks, a two-story stone barracks built in 1758 for British troops involved in the French and Indian War.
The barracks was occupied by Hessian mercenaries when Washington attacked Trenton early on the morning of Dec. 26, 1776, after his famous Christmas-night crossing of the nearby Delaware River. Washington surprised Hessian and British troops still celebrating Christmas in the midst of a heavy snowstorm and took the city.
The dig was intended primarily to determine the original dimensions and elevation of the barracks' parade ground, and whether a second-floor balcony reconstructed in 1913 is historically accurate.
'We've found out a lot about the barracks, but also a well-preserved and very important prehistoric Indian settlement site beneath the barrack,' Burrows said.
Burrows said hundreds of artifacts were discovered, including tools and broken pieces of pottery and tobacco pipes.
The oldest was a 1 inch arrowhead carefully sculpted from stone and dating from about 2,000 B.C., Burrows said.
A piece of pottery, carved with decorative lines, displayed by Burrows as other members of the team continued to dig and sift soil, was about 1,000 years old, he said. Also found were small awl-like pieces of bone or stone used to pierce holes in animal hides.
The items showed that the site was occupied for hundreds of years, predominantly through the 'late woodland' period of about the year 500 until contact with European settlers was made in the 1600s, he said.
Burrows said estimates of the age of the artifacts was based on their styling and construction. The material will cataloged, then turned over to the state archives for scholarly study, he said.
'These are not just artifacts scattered loose in the soil,' he said. 'There was an actual settlement here. These are where they were dropped by the people who last used them.'
