Photos by: Phil Grout
The history of Manchester and northern Carroll County is slowly being rewritten by a team of archaeologists who are finding evidence that humans lived there 3,000 to 6,000 years ago.
Led by Stephen Israel, a retired Army Corps of Engineers archaeologist,the group is concentrating on a site at the northern edge of Manchester in Pine Valley Park, part of Charlotte’s Quest Nature Center. They belong to the Central Chapter of the Archeological Society of Maryland.
So far, the excavation pits have yielded 23 stone tool fragments as well as several spear points of ryolite, a type of volcanic stone.
The tools were left behind by native people of the late Archaic Period. They were hunter-gatherers, Israel says. Evidence indicates that the Manchester site was not a settlement but probably a camp of people who were following the herds and stopping to make various stone implements.
Nearby springs, which have provided water to modern Manchester, probably attracted the early nomads. Israel said that the period predates the making of pottery, so they have found no pot chards; only unfinished stone tools and points.
The quest to uncover evidence of prehistoric activity in northern Carroll County was sparked by two county government executives: Benton Watson, Bureau of Roads director and Tom Devilbiss, head of the Bureau of Resource Management. Both are avid students of archeology. Watson is studying to be a certified archeology technician.
It was Watson who first showed Israel a small rock shelter on the Charlotte’s Quest property. The shelter was too small for human habitation, but it pointed the way to a site nearby where the scientists found evidence of Archaic activity.
But it is not just the artifacts that interests Israel.
“I’m not the honcho of this project,” he said. “I want this to be the town of Manchester’s project.” And even more important to Israel is the participation of students from nearby Manchester Elementary School. Some students, led by recently retired teacher Betty Smith, have been walking the trail down to the site and catching the excitement of the investigation.
“This is so important for the children: learning that we are all connected, and connected to the land,” said Israel. “My goal is to give them a rich experience that will add to their future collecting. The work at Pine Valley Park fits into a bigger picture. We want to add to the public record, to make a richer story, so that myth is not the only thing we know about the American Indian.”
