Excavations

During the first two years of fieldwork in 1995 and 1996, teams of University students, area high school students, and volunteers began exploring the nature of the archaeological remains surviving on the Read property. Excavations focused on the yard of a late 17th-century house later occupied by the George (I) and Gertrude Read family that burned in 1824; two decades later, the Couper family, then residing in the surviving, ca. 1800 house, laid out a formal garden over the remains of the old house and yard. The excavations revealed that layer upon layer of archaeological deposits extend at least four feet deep in portions of the property. These layers contain material dating from well before the Dutch first arrived at New Amstel (now New Castle) in the 1650s through the present. They contain especially well-preserved evidence of the early house and its yard, the occupants’ possessions and daily lives, the building’s tragic destruction in the 1824 fire, and the later garden.

The archaeology has also generated much public interest. More than 800 visitors have viewed the excavations and lab during daily tours and special Beneath our Feet archaeology days at the site. Now we invite you to enter our virtual tour of our excavations in the garden’s parterre and of a test trench in the park section of the garden.

1995 Archaeological Staff: Keith Adams, Greg Ferzetti, Ian Janssen, Timothy Layton, Carol Maltenfort, Randolph McEvoy, and Nedda Moqtaderi.

1996 Archaeological Team: Heather Parmenter, Public Education Co-ordinator; Timothy Layton and Nedda Moqtaderi, Crew Chiefs; A. J. Brandt, Keri Brondo, Carrie Krop, Sarah Tischer, and Andrea Wolff, University of Delaware students; Brooks Aukamp, Daniel Castillo, Kevin Hornberger, Brienne Keener, Amanda Keeney, Laura Koitsch, Kathleen Manning, Shaun Patterson, Nathan Snyder, Luciana Spencer, Josiah Wolcott, Katy Woodford, Digging the Past participants from regional high schools.

[Trowel] Return to Archaeology at the George Read II House