Diggin' up Fort Astoria

Image courtesy: Nat'l Park Service

College students from the Public Archaeology Field School were in Astoria last week, conducting the first sanctioned dig at the Fort Astoria site at 15th and Exchange streets.  Established as a Fur trading outpost, the fort was the first permanent American settlement west of the Rockies.  
Rozalyn Crews, a student from Florida, described last week’s progress in her work area:
Crews.wav  (:30)  “We have this archaeological excavation happening to find Fort Astoria, to locate it scientifically, and we put in this one by one unit to, where the blue line is, from the 1818 map of where the fort was, and so we have this unit, hopefully looking for the palisade line.”   

Dr. Robert Cromwell, an archaeologist from the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in Washington, directed the students at the Fort Astoria site.
Cromwell_1.wav (:32) “This is actually an archaeological field school, with Portland State University and Washington State University Vancouver, and the National Park Service.  And we’re wrapping up a six week archaeological field course, by doing the first test excavations here at Fort Astoria.  Really what we’re doing is just testing the site, so see if there are archaeological remnants of the Fort, and to initially just start asking some research questions, to see what we can learn about the first Euro-American settlers here in Astoria.”
Cromwell said amongst the modern fill at the site, students were finding artifacts dating to the early nineteenth century, to the time period of early Fort Astoria and Fort George. 
The dig attracted attention from neighbors, some of whom have found their own artifacts of early days.  Julia Wagner, who lives across from the site, spoke with the archaeologists about some of her own finds.  
Wagner.wav (:38)  “They said they were looking for pieces of pottery in walls, from the original structure when it was there, and I just happened to mention that over the years, gardening at my home across the street, that I had found a number of pieces of pottery, and they were like “Oh, you know, can we see them?” so I went home, I knew right where they were, I had saved them over the years, and brought all those down plus some papers that we had found in the walls after the big storm of ’07, and doggone, they knew every little piece, what it was, what the glaze was, what the purpose of the item was, about what year it was made, It was just so wonderful to learn about those things."
Dr Cromwell says the artifacts may eventually be put on display locally, with explanations about their uses and context.  
Cromwell_2.wav  (:13)  “It is our hope that eventually, it will make it back, we’re actually in negotiations now with the Columbia River Maritime Museum,  for them to curate these items long term, and if so its my hope that they would do some sort of exhibit so that people can see them.”  
Next, the artifacts will go the Washington’s Fort Vancouver, where archaeologists will stabilize, clean and date them,  The field school may come back in the future to continue their research.   (1:04)