"To clinch it," King said, "I need to survey all around it and rule out all other properties. This is extremely tantalizing."
The Zekiah survey crews have moved on, expanding their grid patterns of shovel tests across fields that old maps suggest might be promising. They are looking for anything, really, but especially for traces of the 1680 Zekiah Fort.
Calvert ordered the fort built to resettle 90 to 320 Piscataway Indians. These English allies were being raided by hostile Susquehannocks from the north. By moving the Piscataways into the fort, Calvert figured, they would be safer along with the planters. The Indians remained there, in close commerce with the settlers, for 12 years.
FOR THE RECORD - An article about an archaeological project in Charles County in Wednesday's editions included an error in a reference to the period. The artifacts discovered date from the late-17th and early-18th centuries.
The Baltimore Sun regrets the error.
Last week, in a Zekiah hayfield, Smallwood Foundation employee Scott M. Strickland led a small band of students as they dug shovel tests every 100 feet.
"It's always a challenge. Every day is a different learning environment," said Amy Publicover, 21, an anthropology/archaeology major at the College of Southern Maryland.
Her dig partner, sophomore Sara Greenwell, 18, found the Spanish coin fragment at the Calvert house site, a thrill for any archaeologist. "I just couldn't believe it ... that something from so long ago was in my hand. I just wanted to keep it forever," she said.
Archaeology is not always that exciting. Shaking the sandy dirt through a quarter-inch screen, they found several quartz flakes - evidence of stone tool-sharpening - and a lone fragment of decorated Indian pottery. Strickland identified it as Potomac Creek ware and dated it to 1300 to 1700.
It was a nice find on a slow day, but not, by itself, evidence of the fort or of the mingling of European and Native American artifacts they're looking for. The shovel-test grid would probably have to be extended into the more difficult beech, sycamore and sweet gum woods nearby, King said.
This season's search will continue for several weeks, King said. But the archaeological work in the Zekiah Swamp is likely to continue for years.
