Last summer's dig yielded items now being studied in the classroom. Photo by Alvin Powell.

A fragment of clay or a chip of stone tell a story to an archaeologist.

Speaking in a language of shape and form, color and texture, location and layer, the pieces whisper a story of past lives.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Elizabeth Chilton, an expert in New England archaeology, is teaching a group of students that language. She is hoping that, in turn, they will help translate the story of Lucy Vincent Beach on Martha's Vineyard.

Last summer, students at a Harvard archaeology field school led by Chilton collected thousands of items from the endangered beachfront site (see Gazette, July 9, 1998). The hilltop site -- already two-thirds gone -- is rapidly eroding into the ocean. Chilton estimated that storms in the winter of 1998 alone claimed as much as 12 feet of the hill.

A preliminary assessment of items from the site has already revealed some significant details.

The site has been used by humans much longer than archaeologists first expected. A stone spear tip indicates the spot was inhabited by humans as long as 10,000 years ago -- just 1,000 years after humans were known to have inhabited New England and long enough in the past that Martha's Vineyard was still connected to the mainland.

Though spear tips of similar age have been found by private individuals on the Vineyard, Chilton said she believes the tip found last summer is the oldest found by professional archaeologists on the island.

"I think what makes the fluted point a 'major find' is that it demonstrates that this has been a special site for Native Americans for the past 10,000 years!" Chilton said. "We have components from 10,000 years ago, 8,000 years ago, 5,000 years ago, 1,000 years ago, 500 years ago, and lots in between. Few sites in New England show such consistent use over time."

Another indication that the spot has been a special place to Native Americans is the fact that they buried their dead there. Among the very last finds at the site were human remains: a part of a human skull, discovered as members of the field school worked late on the last day they were scheduled to be on the site.

The skull, which was covered up and then exhumed after the tourist season ended, was estimated to be 1,000 years old, based on the age of burned wood found in the same pit. The skull was quickly analyzed and then turned over to the Wampanoag tribe, whose ancestors lived in the area, for reburial.

"The cooperative relationship that happened between Harvard, the tribe, and the state through Brona Simon [the state archaeologist], was very successful," said Bret Stearns, an associate planner in the Wampanoag's Natural Resource Department. "This is the first time the tribe has taken immediate possession of remains."

Michael Katherine Haynie '00 examines a piece of a hand-blown glass bottle. Students analyzed items like this found on Martha's Vineyard last summer. Student Lori Ricard '00 is in the background.

Bones on the Beach

It was human remains that brought archaeologists to the site in the first place. Twice in recent years, human remains have eroded out of the hill's 40-foot cliff and been found by people walking on the beach below.

With the dig site considered one of Massachusetts' most endangered archaeological sites, Chilton got permission from the state, the town of Chilmark, and the Wampanoag Indians, who inhabited the island before European settlers arrived, to conduct a field school there. The school simultaneously taught students field archaeology techniques and salvaged items from the site.

The site proved rich, with thousands of items excavated during the school's five weeks. Those artifacts include pottery shards, stone flakes, piles of broken clam shells, and the occasional crafted item, like a spear point or a carved wooden pipe.

The artifacts are now being used in an archaeology laboratory techniques class, Archaeology 197, being taught this term by Chilton. Students will analyze items from the site and their findings will become part of a report on the dig that Chilton must submit to the state by the end of the year.

Besides the fact that the site is much older than previously thought, Chilton said a closer examination of exhumed items can show many things. Field school members uncovered 50 finished stone tools, whose dimensions and shape can give clues to their age, as well as thousands of flakes from stone toolmaking. The type of stone used can provide insight into the trading environment at the time, since some of the raw materials may have come from the New York or Boston areas.

By analyzing the clam shell fragments -- about 100 small plastic bags full -- researchers can tell the season that the clams were taken and get a hint about the times of year that the site might have been in use. Examining the wood and charcoal found during the dig could show which trees were once found on what is now a treeless hilltop.

A pipe stem from the excavation

Food remains can give clues about the diet of the people who lived there. Glass, pottery, and metal fragments can also speak volumes about the people who lived there, both in recent times and before European settlement.

Though students will do some of the analysis, some will be done by specialized experts, adept, for example, in analyzing charcoal to tell what kind of wood it was made from.

Chilton's students won't just jump into the analysis. First, they'll take several weeks to learn general techniques used in identifying everything from pottery to stones. Then they'll tackle a project during which they will analyze and catalog one type of item from the dig.

"What we aim to sort out in the lab is which items belong to which time periods, how did site use change through time, and how does subsistence and the environment change through time?" Chilton said.

Chilton is receiving some financial help with the analysis. She was recently awarded a $24,000 grant from the William F. Milton Fund, administered by the Harvard Medical School, to aid her analysis. Chilton plans to use the money to pay for expert analysis and to radiocarbon-date some of the items.

Students Intrigued by Artifacts

The fact that they will be doing real work on items exhumed just last summer is attractive to the seven students enrolled in the class.

Senior Michael Haynie is getting a second look at the dig items. Haynie, the only student in the class who was at the field school, said she appreciates the chance to look closer at items dug up last summer.

"Seeing the stuff cleaned up, it looks very different," Haynie said. "There were many more maize kernels than I ever found, more projectile points. . . . [Last summer,] I wanted to put everything together and figure out what was in every [archaeological] feature, but I couldn't do that then."

Haynie said she also appreciates that she had the chance to save something that might have been lost forever.

Chilton also plans to dig somewhere on the Vineyard this summer. She said more digging remains to be done at Lucy Vincent Beach and she plans to offer the field school again, through Harvard's summer school. The prominence of the site near a popular beach, where curious passers-by have easy access to the dig during off hours however, may make Chilmark officials reluctant to repeat last summer's field school. If not Lucy Vincent, though, Chilton has already contacted private landowners and the Wampanoags in search of other sites.

"We're committed to being back on the Vineyard," Chilton said. "There are many sites that are in danger of eroding, and there is much more to be learned about Native American history on the island."