In her hands, a scrap becomes a story.
Jessie Grow fishes through a box full of what looks to be junk, pulling out a 2-inch fragment of clay pipe. It brings to mind a time long ago - hard to imagine now - when men, women and children routinely smoked tobacco, thinking it was good for their health.
A rust-eaten nail evokes the late 1600s, when settlers near the South River built small homes out of wood, never realizing they wouldn't last 30 years in termite-infested Maryland.
And a chunk of pottery evokes Colonial days, when traders from the Far East shipped their fine porcelain to the mid-Atlantic region in exchange for tobacco - the crop that gave birth to London Town, a bustling community that served as a major seaport for 90 years, then silently passed away.
Welcome to Historic London Town and Gardens, the Anne Arundel County park that houses one of the richest archaeological sites in Maryland: 100 acres packed with artifacts dating back three centuries. Grow is education coordinator here, an archaeologist who has tramped the grounds for more than half her life.
Grow, 26, and her colleagues will share their soil-sifting and storytelling skills with the public on Saturday, when young and old alike are invited to the park for Dig Day, when visitors can play archaeologist alongside the pros, digging up the shards that speak of Maryland's past.
"Material culture is fascinating," says Grow, who will lead informal tours, answer questions and help guests methodically sift through piles of soil that day. "Many [early Marylanders] had no written history, so their story has gone silent. We tell that story by looking at [the artifacts] and making educated guesses. I think it's what people enjoy."
She ought to know. When she was 12, growing up in nearby Davidsonville, her father read about a "dig day" at London Town and asked his daughter whether she'd like to go. She did, and she didn't miss one for the next four years.
"I just loved it from the beginning," says Grow, who studied public archaeology - the art of sharing archaeological findings and their meaning with the public - in college and graduate school and scored a full-time gig centered on the London Town dig in 2007.
Her job includes leading the site's tours for visitors, including regular field trips for schoolchildren, and giving talks.
When the economy was stronger and grants more plentiful, there were as many as six Dig Days per year. Now there are three, including the one next weekend and another Sept. 12.
