Longwood Archaeology Field receives grant to continue work at Staunton River Battlefield State Park

The Longwood College Archaeology Field School has received a five-year, $100,000 extension to its ongoing investigation of a Late-Woodland Amerindian site in Charlotte County.

The extension is funded by a federal grant for which the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) competed successfully last year. The site, located at Staunton River Battlefield State Park, has been under study by Brian Bates, lecturer in anthropology and director of the Field School, since being discovered in 1997. The investigation - a joint effort by Longwood, the Division of State Parks (of DCR), and the Archeological Society of Virginia - has yielded information on daily life along the banks of the Staunton River from 1000 A.D. to 1450 A.D.

"The extension of this project will provide researchers with a unique opportunity to examine what life was like in this part of Virginia for the people who lived there just prior to European contact," Bates said. The site, which he called an "outdoor laboratory for our students," is used by the Archaeology Field School every summer, and members of the Archeological Society of Virginia have volunteered on the project. "Several thousand visitors, including schoolchildren from surrounding counties and from as far away as Richmond, have toured the site," Bates said. "It's open to the public while work is in progress. We encourage teachers to bring their students to the dig to see, first-hand, how archaeologists conduct their investigations into the lifeways of the distant past."

The research was funded originally through a federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Enhancement Act (ISTEA) grant, the same type as the recent one. Last year a grant from Old Dominion Electric Cooperative provided funding for fieldwork and for developing an interactive educational CD-ROM, targeted at middle-school children, featuring the investigations. The continuing work at the site will provide the data needed to complete this project.

Work will run from May 21 to June 15 this summer, with analysis of the finds taking place throughout the year. Staunton River Battlefield State Park straddles the Charlotte-Halifax line; the archeological site is on the Charlotte County side, at Randolph.