In the summer of 2024, grants from ArchaeologyX and the Archeological Society of Maryland’s new Project Fund facilitated a one-week field session where the PaleoDigger, an innovative mechanized system designed to excavate test pits up to seven meters in depth, was used to investigate the stratified deposits at The Herman Barton Village Site (18AG3) in Allegany County, Maryland. The site spans over thirty acres and is managed by The Archaeological Conservancy. Excavation via the PaleoDigger is the only technique viable for the deep sampling of the stratified deposits at Barton.
Overhead view of the PaleoDigger at the Barton Site in August 2024
The 2024 PaleoDigger session resulted in the excavation of ten test pits that reached depths over three meters below ground surface. The limited test pitting yielded exciting results including the discovery of a deeply buried 13,000 year old Clovis activity area around two meters below the current ground surface!
PaleoDigger at Barton
3-Meter Test Pit #37
Dr.Singer examines STP Stratigraphy
Scraper from STP #37
Flakes from STP #37
PaleoDigger Investigations of the Deeply Buried Clovis Occupation at the Barton Site (18AG3), Allegany County, MD
Financial support is being sought to facilitate a return of the PaleoDigger to the Barton Site in 2025. ASM is seeking to raise $5,000 to cover the costs of the heavy equipment rental necessary to operate the PaleoDigger at Barton. These investigations will focus on defining the boundaries of the activity area discovered in 2024 and also prospecting for additional Clovis-age activity areas across the Barton Site.
Although a specific date has not been set for this project, like all ASM excavation projects, volunteers will be encouraged to help in this fieldwork. As shown during the last PaleoDigger project, we will need many screeners as well as people to help out with many other aspects of the fieldwork.
Use ASM's PayPal donation account to help fund this project.
2025 PaleoDigger Project Donations
Current Donations
$2910
16 February 2025
Donations to the Archeological Society of Maryland, Inc.
ASM Inc. is a recongnized 503(c)(3) non-profit organization chartered to provide the community with education about archological sciences and activities in the Maryland area. Donations are used to further actitivies of the society, to include funding public excavations, providing speakers at venues aross the state and supplementing laboratory procedures suchs a radiocarbon dating, floral and faunal analysis, and geophysical site analysis on various projects prsented to the ASM Board of Trustees.