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Since March, the students have spent each Friday in the field, mapping, excavating and conducting soil and artifact samples.
"This isn't a discipline you can just learn from a book," says junior anthropology major Elanor Sonderman, while scraping the borders of a three-and-a-half foot hole. "You can't really understand stratigraphic sequence or collection and processing until you're in the ground."
In addition to the archeological fieldwork, the students have also performed historical research on the property and previous owners of the land.
As an anthropology and women's studies double major, senior Marissa Kinsey was fascinated to discover a last will and testament that left specific instructions for the living arrangements of the deceased's wife and slave.
"Objects alone aren't enough," she says. "Part of the satisfaction of discovering artifacts is learning more about the people who used them."
Since De Cunzo began her fieldwork more than 15 years ago, she and her team of student archeologists have excavated more than 70,000 artifacts, including objects from 17th-century Dutch-American Indian exchanges as well as well-preserved remnants of early colonial structures, such as wells and kitchens.