The ASM’s annual fall meeting keynote address is named in honor of Frederick M. Stiner, a founding member of the Archeological Society of Maryland and its Journal’s first editor.
Dr. Matthew D. McKnight Chief of Archeologist for the Maryland Historical Trust
In the summer of 2023, Charles County collector Kevin Brady contacted the Maryland Historical Trust (MHT) about a site he had discovered decades earlier on what is now State-owned land. A quick examination of Mr. Brady’s collection suggested that a previously undocumented late 17th-century domestic site remained hidden in an agricultural field at the Maxwell Hall Equestrian Park. A groundpenetrating radar (GPR) survey in December of that year revealed the presence of several anomalies suggestive of intact subfloor pits and cellar features. The site then became the focus of ground-truthing excavations during the Annual Tyler Bastian Field Session in May of 2025. Excavation of 25 test units exposed at least 11 remarkably intact cultural features and thousands of well-preserved late 17th-century artifacts. Records of the period document that one Michael Swift, his wife Margaret, and their two daughters lived on this landscape around the time of Maryland's Glorious Revolution.
Valerie Hall, Moderator President, Archeological Society of Maryland, Inc.
Brent Chippendale, Jim Gibb & Julia Berg, Panelists ASM Ethics Committee Members
The Archaeological Society of Maryland recently adopted a new Code of Ethics and Conduct to guide our shared work in the field and in the community. This panel will explore how the Code’s principles—respect, stewardship, documentation, education, and safety—translate into realworld practice for avocational archaeologists. Through scenarios and discussion, panelists and audience members will consider common challenges, “gray areas,” and best practices for upholding ethical standards while protecting Maryland’s archaeological heritage.
Jim Gibb Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
Westwood North, originally identified as a multicomponent Early and Late Archaic site, is a single-component Brewerton Complex site blanketed by redeposited sands and gravels with Transitional and Late Woodland inclusions. The buried A horizon and BE horizon yielded 21 heavily reworked notched projectile points of quartz, quartzite and rhyolite. These buried deposits also produced 150 kg of fire-cracked rock and 6500 pieces of flaked stone, but there is no clear patterning evident across ten 5 ft by 5 ft excavation units. The site is adjacent to a relict tributary of Mattawoman Creek on the Chesapeake coastal plain. Westwood North appears to have been a Late Archaic base camp at which Native Americans exploited riverine and wetland resources with the bonus of plentiful toolstone.T
Dr. Julia A. King St. Mary's College of Maryland
Born into slavery on the old Chapman Plantation, also known as Pomonkey, Thomas Brown and his wife, Emeline, were witnesses to one of the most important transformations in American history. The couple gained their freedom in 1864, purchased land in 1877, and, in 1890, watched as the U.S. Navy opened a new powder factory down the road at Indian Head. Brown's children may have landed wage employment aboard the new naval facility. This part of Charles County--including Pomonkey, Indian Head, and Bryans Road--became a destination for the Great Migration as people arrived in the area to build and operate the base or to provide civilian services in support of the facility. Drawing on legacy archaeological collections recovered in the 1990s by R. Christopher Goodwin and Associates, this presentation describes that history and advocates for a greater investment in the region's important history.
Esther Doyle Read County Archaeologist, Charles County Planning and Growth
How has archaeology changed since the 1970s? The archaeological studies Esther Read finds herself currently engaged in are very different from when she began. This talk will focus on how interpretation and public archaeology has changed.