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Archaeologists digging on the grounds of the Fairbanks House this summer have made a startling discovery: sand, a perplexing type and amount of sand.
It's everywhere.
On a raised area by the Fairbanks driveway, off Eastern Avenue, Travis Parno and his team came across pure sand beneath the surface, much to his surprise. The soil goes down about a foot, and there is nice, clean tan-gray sand after that.
Parno, a doctorate student in Boston University's Department of Archaeology, and volunteer archaeologists have excavated one cubic meter of sand from a test pit so far. But the sand goes deeper, with no signs of stopping.
And another pit begun farther west, by some trees, has also yielded only sand.
Parno, 24, offers up two main theories.
"Either at some point someone paid an extraordinary amount of money to bring in an extraordinary level of sand to raise the area up," or the sand is prehistoric, from a glacial period, he said. But glaciers usually drag along pebbles or rocks with sand, and they have not found either here.
Both main arguments - sand brought in by man and glaciers - are equally weak, he said.
Parno also tosses out the possibility of naturally occurring "marine sand," but there is no evidence of that either.
"There is literally nothing in this sand," he said. "We're a little perturbed by all the sand."
The Fairbanks dig, which is Parno's doctorate project, began July 13 and wraps up for the summer Aug. 21. He said the dig is a precursor to the widening of the Fairbanks House's narrow driveway, which it wants to double.
"We wanted to dig here to make sure they don't pave over anything important," he said.
The site has certainly seen much history: the house, at the corner of Eastern Avenue and East Street, is believed to be the oldest standing timber-frame building on the continent. Built about 1637-1641, the house was home to eight generations of the Fairbanks family, and is now a museum open each year from May to October.
Parno did not find much in nearly all of a series of pits along the driveway. But he did uncover something significant in the first test pit, the one closest to Eastern Avenue. There he found three layers of furnace ash - yellowish material on top, and gray bands on the two layers below that.
Archaeologists digging on the grounds of the Fairbanks House this summer have made a startling discovery: sand, a perplexing type and amount of sand.
It's everywhere.
On a raised area by the Fairbanks driveway, off Eastern Avenue, Travis Parno and his team came across pure sand beneath the surface, much to his surprise. The soil goes down about a foot, and there is nice, clean tan-gray sand after that.
Parno, a doctorate student in Boston University's Department of Archaeology, and volunteer archaeologists have excavated one cubic meter of sand from a test pit so far. But the sand goes deeper, with no signs of stopping.
And another pit begun farther west, by some trees, has also yielded only sand.
Parno, 24, offers up two main theories.
"Either at some point someone paid an extraordinary amount of money to bring in an extraordinary level of sand to raise the area up," or the sand is prehistoric, from a glacial period, he said. But glaciers usually drag along pebbles or rocks with sand, and they have not found either here.
Both main arguments - sand brought in by man and glaciers - are equally weak, he said.
Parno also tosses out the possibility of naturally occurring "marine sand," but there is no evidence of that either.
"There is literally nothing in this sand," he said. "We're a little perturbed by all the sand."
The Fairbanks dig, which is Parno's doctorate project, began July 13 and wraps up for the summer Aug. 21. He said the dig is a precursor to the widening of the Fairbanks House's narrow driveway, which it wants to double.
"We wanted to dig here to make sure they don't pave over anything important," he said.
The site has certainly seen much history: the house, at the corner of Eastern Avenue and East Street, is believed to be the oldest standing timber-frame building on the continent. Built about 1637-1641, the house was home to eight generations of the Fairbanks family, and is now a museum open each year from May to October.
Parno did not find much in nearly all of a series of pits along the driveway. But he did uncover something significant in the first test pit, the one closest to Eastern Avenue. There he found three layers of furnace ash - yellowish material on top, and gray bands on the two layers below that.
"In a New England winter you're going to be running a furnace 24 hours a day," and generating a lot of ash, Parno said, and it looks like someone dumped all their furnace ash into a pit at the spot.
He believes there has been some sort of human activity there, although the average trash pit would be much smaller. Parno says a cellar makes the most sense, but he won't commit to that wholeheartedly. It also could be some sort of building foundation.
The ash is from the 1850s to 1900s, based on artifacts that have been found with it. He shows one: an ironstone plate, in two pieces, that carries the still-clear maker's mark of Anthony Shaw, an English potter from the 19th century. "We know from historical records that Shaw used this particular maker's mark from 1850 to 1882. He later changed the mark to 'Anthony Shaw & Sons' to include his sons in the family business," Parno wrote on his project blog, fairbanksarchaeology.blogspot.com.
The pit with the furnace deposits has been expanded to three adjoining pits, just over 5 feet deep. Three more sections will be added there. Parno says ideally the work on those areas will be completed this summer but, if not, work will continue next summer.
He is also investigating a possible "buried living surface" on the eastern side of the driveway.
The archaeological work is being done weekdays, and Parno encourages people to come by the site and ask questions, saying it is fun to share the excitement of making discoveries with them.
Yesterday, one of Parno's helpers was Max Cerulle, 15, a junior at Hopkinton High School. Cerulle was digging in the unit at the far end of the Fairbanks House's west yard, by the trees, and expressed bewilderment at the sand he was finding.
"I have no idea how it got here, or why it's here," he said.
Daily News staff writer Edward B. Colby can be reached at 781-433-8336 or ecolby@cnc.com.
