Archaeologists unearth secrets of Lancaster County's oldest tavern, buried for centuries beneath pasture

The dig, involving students from Millersville University in Pennsylvania, has yielded thousands of artifacts this autumn.

The excavation site is located north of Marietta at what researchers believe was a tavern called the Galbraith Ordinary, built around 1725.

Timothy Trussell, an anthropology professor at Millersville University, is leading the project - and the treasures he's uncovered reveal insight into provincial life. 

"This is interesting, as it tells us they were augmenting the traditional 'barnyard' animals with wild game, something that is common in pioneer settings."

"The ceramics are particularly valuable, since they are easily dated and can be used as time-markers for us to discern when in time a particular soil layer or feature was created," he said.

Some of the ceramics date back as far as the 17th century, but Trussell placed most of them between 1750 and the 1790s.

"As wealth grew over time, they began buying more refined ceramics in larger numbers, and those are what we are finding."

"The brass bells that look exactly like antique sleigh bells were especially surprising," he said. 

He added, "They likely date a bit later, sometime in the 19th century, but I have never found bells like that before. One was small, roughly the size of a quarter, while the other was quite large, just a bit smaller than a tennis ball."

"Although we've found some pipe fragments, it was not nearly the amount I expected," he said. 

"Perhaps the Scots-Irish patrons were not big smokers at that time."

He also said the students "really love" going into the field, not just as a departure from typical classroom routines, but for the excitement of uncovering history.

"It is genuinely exciting to hold something in your hand and know you are the first person to touch this item in nearly three centuries," the archaeologist said. "One cannot help but wonder who last used this cup, how it was broken or what life was like for the person who used it."

All in all, Trussell said the project is helping to recover stories lost to time - not just about life in colonial Pennsylvania, but also the trade networks that connected it to the rest of the world.

"The story of these people happened locally, but it was intimately intertwined with a massive geographical area encompassing a complex flow of people and goods across the entire Atlantic World. … It is a fascinating story, and well worth researching!"