Live Civil War Shell Discovered at Pennsylvania Battlefield

Archaeologists working at a historic battlefield at Gettysburg recently made an explosive find: a live 160-year-old artillery shell that had to be detonated by a specially trained U.S. Army disposal team.

The shell was found on Feb. 8 at Little Round Top, a hill that offered Union forces a strategic position during the Civil War. On July 2, 1863, the second day of the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, the North and the South struggled for 90 minutes to control Little Round Top, leaving thousands of soldiers dead.

The rocky hill was not, however, an ideal platform for an artillery offensive, as Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee suggested in his 1864 report about the Gettysburg campaign. Lee reported that Confederate Gen. Longstreet was delayed by Union forces firing from Little Round Top, but Longstreet decided to go around them rather than attempt to take the hill.

An 18-month-long rehabilitation project is currently taking place at Little Round Top as the National Park Service works to preserve and protect the battlefield landscape and to add new signage for Gettysburg visitors.

Archaeologist Steven Brann and his team from Stantec, a consultancy company that also performs archaeological work, were sweeping the area with metal detectors when they hit on something nearly 2 feet (0.6 meter) underground. “It is standard procedure to use metal detectors on battlefields,” Brann told Live Science in an email.

The unexploded round they discovered was about 7 inches (18 centimeters) long and weighed about 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms). “There are procedures in place in case such objects are found,” Brann explained.

Ultimately, the Army’s 55th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company (EOD) from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, was called in to remove the shell and destroy it safely.

“Unexploded ordnance still found on the battlefield is a fairly unique circumstance,” Jason Martz, a spokesperson for Gettysburg National Military Park, told Live Science in an email. “It’s only the fifth found since 1980.” 

“Most of the objects we find are much smaller, such as percussion caps, bullets, and uniform buttons,” Brann said. “Much of what we find turns out to be modern trash or objects that were discarded during the construction of monuments, such as iron straps and nails.” Still, these artifacts are not usually discovered unless excavation is happening. And as evidenced by the current find, excavation at a battlefield can be dangerous.

“Archaeology work is always completed before any ground disturbance takes place, and it’s a federal offense to dig or metal detect for these items by the general public,” Martz said.

Many commenters and history buffs on the Gettysburg National Military Park’s Facebook post lamented the fact that the ordnance — which Capt.

Matthew Booker, commander of the EOD, identified as a 3-inch Dyer or Burton shell for a rifled cannon — had to be destroyed. 

Nonetheless, “this particular shell hasn’t told us its whole story yet,” Martz said. The park is researching the shell and its discovery location in greater detail now, trying to figure out, for example, whether it was fired by Union or Confederate troops, and will release that information to the public when it is available. 

“The fact that this shell was found nearly 160 years after the Battle of Gettysburg is a very powerful and tangible connection to the past,” Martz added. “It also reminds us that the battlefield still has stories to tell.”

Research Team Identifies Oldest Bone Spear Point In The Americas

A team of researchers has identified the Manis bone projectile point as the oldest weapon made of bone ever found in the Americas at 13,900 years.

Dr. Michael Waters, distinguished professor of anthropology and director of Texas A&M’s Center for the Study of First Americans, led the team whose findings were published this week in Science Advances.

The team studied bone fragments embedded in a mastodon rib bone which was first discovered by Carl Gustafson, who conducted an excavation at the Manis site in Washington state from 1977 to 1979.

Using a CT scan and 3D software, Waters and his team isolated all the bone fragments to show it was the tip of a weapon — a projectile made from the bone of Mastodon, prehistoric relatives of elephants.

“We isolated the bone fragments, printed them out and assembled them,” Waters said. “This clearly showed this was the tip of a bone projectile point. This is this the oldest bone projectile point in the Americas and represents the oldest direct evidence of mastodon hunting in the Americas.”

Waters said at 13,900 years old, the Manis point is 900 years older than projectile points found to be associated with the Clovis people, whose stone tools he has also studied. Dating from 13,050 to 12,750 years ago, Clovis spear points have been found in Texas and several other sites across the country.

“What is important about Manis is that it’s the first and only bone tool that dates older than Clovis. At the other pre-Clovis site, only stone tools are found,” Waters said. “This shows that the First Americans made and used bone weapons and likely other types of bone tools.”

He said the only reason the Manis specimen was preserved is because the hunter missed, and the projectile got stuck in the mastodon’s rib.

“We show that the bone used to make the point appears to have come from the leg bone of another mastodon and was intentionally shaped into a projectile point form,” Waters said. “The spear with the bone point was thrown at the mastodon. It penetrated the hide and tissue and eventually came into contact with the rib. The objective of the hunter was to get between the ribs and impair lung function, but the hunter missed and hit the rib.”

Waters studied the rib bone previously, presenting findings in a 2011 paper published in Science, in which radiocarbon dating determined the bone’s age and a genetic study of the bone fragments determined that they were mastodon.

“In our new study, we set out to isolate the bone fragments using CT images and 3D software,” he said. “We were able to create 3D images of each fragment and print them out at six times scale. Then we fit the pieces back together to show what the specimen looked like before it entered and splintered in the rib.”

Not much is known about the people who used the Manis spearpoint other than they were some of the first Indigenous people to enter the Americas. Waters said the Manis site and others are giving archaeologists some insight.

“It is looking like the first people that came to the Americas arrived by boat,” he said. “They took a coastal route along the North Pacific and moved south. They eventually got past the ice sheets that covered Canada and made landfall in the Pacific Northwest.

“It is interesting to note that in Idaho there is the 16,000-year-old Coopers Ferry site, in Oregon is the 14,100-year-old site of Paisley Caves. And here we report on the 13,900-year-old Manis site. So there appears to be a cluster of early sites in the Northwestern part of the United States that date from 16,000 to 14,000 years ago that predate Clovis. These sites likely represent the first people and their descendants that entered the Americas at the end of the last Ice Age.”

Stone Points Found in Idaho Dated to 15,700 Years Ago

Oregon State University archaeologists have uncovered projectile points in Idaho that are thousands of years older than any previously found in the Americas, helping to fill in the history of how early humans crafted and used stone weapons.

The 13 full and fragmentary projectile points, razor sharp and ranging from about half an inch to 2 inches long, are from roughly 15,700 years ago, according to carbon-14 dating. That’s about 3,000 years older than the Clovis fluted points found throughout North America, and 2,300 years older than the points previously found at the same Cooper’s Ferry site along the Salmon River in present-day Idaho.

The findings were published today in the journal Science Advances.

“From a scientific point of view, these discoveries add very important details about what the archaeological record of the earliest peoples of the Americas looks like,” said Loren Davis, an anthropology professor at OSU and head of the group that found the points. “It’s one thing to say, ‘We think that people were here in the Americas 16,000 years ago’; it’s another thing to measure it by finding well-made artifacts they left behind.”

Previously, Davis and other researchers working the Cooper’s Ferry site had found simple flakes and pieces of bone that indicated human presence about 16,000 years ago. But the discovery of projectile points reveals new insights into the way the first Americans expressed complex thoughts through technology at that time, Davis said.

The Salmon River site where the points were found is on traditional Nez Perce land, known to the tribe as the ancient village of Nipéhe. The land is currently held in public ownership by the federal Bureau of Land Management.

The points are revelatory not just in their age, but in their similarity to projectile points found in Hokkaido, Japan, dating to 16,000–20,000 years ago, Davis said.

Their presence in Idaho adds more detail to the hypothesis that there are early genetic and cultural connections between the ice age peoples of Northeast Asia and North America.

“The earliest peoples of North America possessed cultural knowledge that they used to survive and thrive over time. Some of this knowledge can be seen in the way people made stone tools, such as the projectile points found at the Cooper’s Ferry site,” Davis said. “By comparing these points with other sites of the same age and older, we can infer the spatial extents of social networks where this technological knowledge was shared between peoples.”

These slender projectile points are characterized by two distinct ends, one sharpened and one stemmed, as well as a symmetrical beveled shape if looked at head-on. They were likely attached to darts, rather than arrows or spears, and despite the small size, they were deadly weapons, Davis said.

“There’s an assumption that early projectile points had to be big to kill large game; however, smaller projectile points mounted on darts will penetrate deeply and cause tremendous internal damage,” he said. “You can hunt any animal we know about with weapons like these.”

These discoveries add to the emerging picture of early human life in the Pacific Northwest, Davis said. “Finding a site where people made pits and stored complete and broken projectile points nearly 16,000 years ago gives us valuable details about the lives of our region’s earliest inhabitants.”

The newly discovered pits are part of the larger Cooper’s Ferry record, where Davis and colleagues have previously reported a 14,200-year-old fire pit and a food-processing area containing the remains of an extinct horse. All told, they found and mapped more than 65,000 items, recording their locations to the millimeter for precise documentation.

The projectile points were uncovered over multiple summers between 2012 and 2017, with work supported by a partnership held between OSU and the BLM. All excavation work has been completed and the site is now covered. The BLM installed interpretive panels and a kiosk at the site to describe the work.

Davis has been studying the Cooper’s Ferry site since the 1990s when he was an archaeologist with the BLM. Now, he partners with the BLM to bring undergraduate and graduate students from OSU to work the site in the summer.

The team also works closely with the Nez Perce tribe to provide field opportunities for tribal youth and to communicate all findings.

Archaeologists uncover oldest known projectile points in the Americas

Oregon State University archaeologists have uncovered projectile points in Idaho that are thousands of years older than any previously found in the Americas, helping to fill in the history of how early humans crafted and used stone weapons.

The 13 full and fragmentary projectile points, razor sharp and ranging from about half an inch to 2 inches long, are from roughly 15,700 years ago, according to carbon-14 dating. That’s about 3,000 years older than the Clovis fluted points found throughout North America, and 2,300 years older than the points previously found at the same Cooper’s Ferry site along the Salmon River in present-day Idaho.

The findings were published today in the journal Science Advances.

“From a scientific point of view, these discoveries add very important details about what the archaeological record of the earliest peoples of the Americas looks like,” said Loren Davis, an anthropology professor at OSU and head of the group that found the points. “It’s one thing to say, ‘We think that people were here in the Americas 16,000 years ago’; it’s another thing to measure it by finding well-made artifacts they left behind.”

Previously, Davis and other researchers working the Cooper’s Ferry site had found simple flakes and pieces of bone that indicated human presence about 16,000 years ago. But the discovery of projectile points reveals new insights into the way the first Americans expressed complex thoughts through technology at that time, Davis said.

The Salmon River site where the points were found is on traditional Nez Perce land, known to the tribe as the ancient village of Nipéhe. The land is currently held in public ownership by the federal Bureau of Land Management.

The points are revelatory not just in their age, but in their similarity to projectile points found in Hokkaido, Japan, dating to 16,000–20,000 years ago, Davis said. Their presence in Idaho adds more detail to the hypothesis that there are early genetic and cultural connections between the ice age peoples of Northeast Asia and North America.

“The earliest peoples of North America possessed cultural knowledge that they used to survive and thrive over time. Some of this knowledge can be seen in the way people made stone tools, such as the projectile points found at the Cooper’s Ferry site,” Davis said. “By comparing these points with other sites of the same age and older, we can infer the spatial extents of social networks where this technological knowledge was shared between peoples.”

These slender projectile points are characterized by two distinct ends, one sharpened and one stemmed, as well as a symmetrical beveled shape if looked at head-on. They were likely attached to darts, rather than arrows or spears, and despite the small size, they were deadly weapons, Davis said.

“There’s an assumption that early projectile points had to be big to kill large game; however, smaller projectile points mounted on darts will penetrate deeply and cause tremendous internal damage,” he said. “You can hunt any animal we know about with weapons like these.”

These discoveries add to the emerging picture of early human life in the Pacific Northwest, Davis said. “Finding a site where people made pits and stored complete and broken projectile points nearly 16,000 years ago gives us valuable details about the lives of our region’s earliest inhabitants.”

The newly discovered pits are part of the larger Cooper’s Ferry record, where Davis and colleagues have previously reported a 14,200-year-old fire pit and a food-processing area containing the remains of an extinct horse. All told, they found and mapped more than 65,000 items, recording their locations to the millimeter for precise documentation.

The projectile points were uncovered over multiple summers between 2012 and 2017, with work supported by a partnership held between OSU and the BLM. All excavation work has been completed and the site is now covered. The BLM installed interpretive panels and a kiosk at the site to describe the work.

Davis has been studying the Cooper’s Ferry site since the 1990s when he was an archaeologist with the BLM. Now, he partners with the BLM to bring undergraduate and graduate students from OSU to work the site in the summer.

The team also works closely with the Nez Perce tribe to provide field opportunities for tribal youth and to communicate all findings.

Discovered the Oldest Forest in the World, dating back 386 million years

Ruins of an ancient forest have been identified at a quarry near Cairo, New York, USA. The fossils have been dated to 386 million years old, making them the oldest known fossils.

According to scientists, the new site not only tells us more about how Earth’s climate has changed over time, but also evidence that forests evolved 2 to 3 million years earlier than previously thought. before. The findings were published recently in the journal Current Biology and New Scientist.

“Charles was just walking across the floor of the quarry and he noticed these large root structures are very special,” said Christopher Berry at Cardiff University in the UK – the find involved Charles Ver Straeten at the New State Museum York, who discovered the first fossils in 2008.

The researchers found three types of trees at the site – evidence that the ancient forests consisted of several different species of trees. One of them, belonging to the genus Archeopteris, has roots reaching up to 11 meters long. This species is similar to modern conifers and was the first known to have evolved flattened green leaves.

At an abandoned quarry near the town of Cairo, New York, scientists suddenly discovered the remains of the oldest forest that has ever existed in Earth’s history.

This discovery is considered a turning point in the history of the formation of life on the planet. When old trees develop clusters of roots like these, they consume them to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and lock it in.

Previously, the oldest Archaeopteris fossils found were dated to no more than 365 million years old, Berry said. Exactly when this plant evolved into a modern tree is still unclear.

But now, the discovery in Cairo suggests that Archaeopteris began its transition about 20 million years ago, said Patricia Gensel, a paleontologist at the University of North Carolina.

“The size of those root systems has really changed the way we look,” she said. By 20 years ago, researchers thought that trees with such large and complex root systems did not develop so early in geological history.

Archaeopteris not only incubates and nurtures the life, the creatures around him, but also helps promote the process of life evolving and covering all over the Earth.

“Archaeopteris seems to reveal the beginnings of the future of what forests will eventually become,” said William Stein, a biologist at Binghamton University in New York and lead author of the new study.

Based on what we know from earlier fossil body fossil evidence of Archaeopteris, and now from the root evidence that we’ve added, these plants have evolved very rapidly relative to plants. Although still significantly different from modern tree species, Archaeopteris seems to indicate the future evolutionary path of forests at that time.”

Stein and his team also discovered evidence of “scaly plants” of the class Lycopsida – trees that are only thought to have existed in the Carboniferous period millions of years later, at the end of the Devonian period. The new findings therefore provide evidence that forests evolved much earlier than previously known.

Christopher Berry, a paleontologist at Cardiff University, UK, said the quarry floor the team found was about half the size of a rugby field. It was a layer cut across just below the surface of the ancient forest.

In fact, when looking at the age of the forest, we can know that at the time when it was most powerful, on Earth there were no birds, terrestrial vertebrates and even animals. dinosaur. These species only appeared and developed 150 million years after this forest appeared.

However, this forest is not a place where no animals live. Instead, it is likely inhabited by millipedes and other insects. “It’s funny to think about a forest without big animals,” Chris Berry, a paleontologist at Cardiff University and a co-author of the new study, told The Guardian.

Forests and their evolution have played a central role in shaping our planet’s climate and ecosystems. By capturing carbon dioxide, forests have reduced levels of greenhouse gases to modern-day levels, significantly cooling the planet.

According to Sandy Hetherington at the University of Oxford, fossil research can help provide clues about the relationship between deforestation and modern climate change.

“Understanding how this has happened in the past is important for predicting what will happen in the future due to climate change and deforestation,” she said.

Tlingit Objects Repatriated to Alaska Village

Nearing the end of his flight from Seattle to Juneau, Frank Hughes looked out his plane window to the ground below where the outline of the Organized Village of Kake slowly appeared beneath him.

An excitement built in him, one that he said made him feel like his heart had just skipped a beat. Though Hughes has lived in the small Southeast Alaska Native village for years and has come and gone from it too many times to count, this time was different — because he wasn’t alone in coming home.

In the belly of the plane sat a sturdy black bin locked by zip ties and scattered with fragile stickers holding 25 Alaska Native artifacts ranging from spruceroot-woven baskets to ceremonial paddles to headdresses that were taken from the village in the early 1900s.

Many of the pieces are estimated to be more than 200 years old.

“We’re going home,” Hughes said. “These artifacts are coming home.”

Since 2018, Hughes has worked to bring the collections of artifacts that were found at George Fox University in Oregon back to Kake after discovering their existence while doing research for the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act for which he served as coordinator. Hughes said during his work for NAGPRA he had done many Indigenous artifact repatriations across the country, but said he couldn’t believe it when he came across the artifacts from Kake.

Now, after nearly five years of waiting, Hughes, along with Lincoln Bean, vice chairman for the Organized Village of Kake, flew to the university this month to retrieve the artifacts and bring them home. The pair and the bin of artifacts made stops in Seattle and Juneau before heading to Kake on Nov. 18.

“When I looked at them, it was like looking at my past and my elders,” Bean said. “It’s some of the most beautiful art of weaving, headdresses I’ve never seen before. The apron for dancing, with some of the most intricate, beautiful beadwork you’ve ever seen in your life.”

How the collection of this small Southeast Alaska village’s cultural artifacts ended up nearly 1,000 miles away, stored off-display at what bills itself as the No. 1 Christian college in Oregon, is up for debate, Hughes and Bean explained.

The pair said they believe that some of the artifacts may have been given as a gift to visitors of the village. They said it is more likely, however, that most were taken by the Religious Society of Friends in Alaska — also known as Quakers — who built a mission in the village in late 1891, then left after the building was handed over to the Kake Memorial Presbyterian church in 1912.

“They cut it out and took it,” Hughes said about a wooden mask that was part of the collection of artifacts repatriated. The piece was likely the oldest of the collection and served as a marker on a tree identifying the territory. He said the mask would have to have been cut out of the body of the tree to be removed.

Quakers were missionaries in Alaska who during the 1800s and 1900s ran about 30 boarding schools for Indigenous children in the U.S. and its territories, including the Douglas Island Friends Mission School on Douglas Island.

Quakers were part of the historical movement in which many Alaska Native children were sent away from their families, communities and culture to boarding schools in the state — or across the country — and were forced to divorce themselves of their Indigenous identity in exchange for U.S. values and culture.

Though many of the boarding schools were closed by the late 1900s, the legacy of trauma and abuse from these schools still remains for many Alaska Native families and communities.

Hughes said though the pain still permeates from the past, repatriation serves as a way to bring healing to both the people living in Kake today and the spirits that live within the artifacts.

“We’re just trying to bring them home where they came from,” Bean said.

Hughes said when he first saw the artifacts in Oregon, he knew immediately that the spirits of his Tlingit ancestors were there with him.

“When we opened it up, the excitement and the spirits were alive, it’s like walking in an air-conditioned room — the spirits came alive,” Hughes said. “It’s good to see you, we’re happy to see you.”

Bean agreed and said the Tlingit culture is a gift from God and bringing home these items gives him a glimpse of his culture he didn’t know was missing.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Bean said. “It’s powerful looking back on people we know that were here before us — as a family, as a tribe — and it’s tangible, we can touch it.

Hughes said he and Bean would present the artifacts, still unopened, to the village. Plans to open the box and welcome the artifacts home were on track to commence but likely wouldn’t happen until after Thanksgiving. Bean and Hughes said that the repatriation serves as a step toward healing and rebuilding the parts of their culture that were taken.

“We know who we are, we know where we come from, we know where we’re going,” Bean said.

See the face of an 18th century ‘vampire’ buried in Connecticut

In the late 18th century, a man was buried in Griswold, Connecticut, with his femur bones arranged in a criss-cross manner — a placement indicating that locals thought he was a vampire. However, little else was known about him.

More than 200 years later, DNA evidence is revealing what he may have looked like. (And yes, he was genetically human.)

After performing DNA analyses, forensic scientists from a Virginia-based DNA technology company named Parabon NanoLabs, and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL), a branch of the U.S. Armed Forces Medical Examiner System based in Delaware, concluded that at the time of death, the deceased male (known as JB55) was about 55 years old and suffered from tuberculosis.

Using 3D facial reconstruction software, a forensic artist determined that JB55 likely had fair skin, brown or hazel eyes, brown or black hair and some freckles, according to a statement. 

Based on the positioning of the legs and skull in the grave, researchers suspect that at some point the body was disinterred and reburied, a practice often associated with the belief that someone was a vampire. Historically, some people once thought that those who died of tuberculosis were actually vampires, according to the statement. 

“The remains were found with the femur bones removed and crossed over the chest,” Ellen Greytak, director of bioinformatics at Parabon NanoLabs and the technical lead for the organization’s Snapshot Advanced DNA Analysis division, told Live Science. “This way they wouldn’t be able to walk around and attack the living.”

To perform the analyses, forensic scientists began by extracting DNA from the man’s skeletal remains. However, working with bones that were more than two centuries old proved challenging.

“The technology doesn’t work well with bones, especially if those bones are historical,” Greytak said. “When bones become old, they break down and fragment over time. Also, when remains have been sitting in the environment for hundreds of years, the DNA from the environment from things like bacteria and fungi also end up in the sample. We wanted to show that we could still extract DNA from difficult historical samples.”

In traditional genome sequencing, researchers strive to sequence each piece of the human genome 30 times, which is known as “30X coverage.” In the case of the decomposed remains of JB55, the sequencing only yielded about 2.5X coverage.

To supplement this, researchers extracted DNA from an individual buried nearby who was believed to be a relative of JB55. Those samples yielded even poorer coverage: approximately 0.68X.

“We did determine that they were third-degree relatives or first cousins,” Greytak said.

Archaeologists originally unearthed the supposed vampire’s remains in 1990.

In 2019, forensic scientists extracted his DNA and ran it through an online genealogical database, determining that JB55 was actually a man named John Barber, a poor farmer who likely died of tuberculosis.

The nickname JB55 was based on the epitaph spelled out on his coffin in brass tacks, denoting his initials and age at death. 

This week, researchers will unveil their new findings, including facial reconstruction, at the International Symposium on Human Identification (ISHI) conference, held from Oct. 31 to Nov. 3 in Washington, D.C.

Revolutionary War–Era Graves Unearthed in South Carolina

The bones came out, one by one, lifted from the earth by experienced hands, wrapped in foil and labelled, until the entire skeleton was liberated from this shallow gravesite. The coroners laid each package in a box. Someone unfurled a Maryland flag. Doug Bostick, executive director of the South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust, offered words of thanks to the team.

“It’s so surreal,” he said of the find, “and real.”

Then his colleague David Reuwer voiced a loud cheer.

“Hip-hip …” he called.

“Hoozah!” came the collective response.

“Hip-hip …”

“Hoozah!”

“And for them, hip-hip …”

“HOOZAH!”

The box containing the remains of this Continental Army fighter from Maryland was carried slowly, in procession, to a nearby car as everyone gathered on this old battlefield stood respectfully, hand upon their chest.

The soldier, one of 14 discovered here in recent months, surely died a miserable death. His bones, and the skeletal remains of four others hastily buried next to him, were reminders of war’s terrible violence and time’s indifference.

These young men had been lost to the sandy soil, their determination in the face of an overpowering enemy largely forgotten. The battle is known, but not the individual fighters — men of the 1st and 2nd Maryland Brigades, the Delaware Continental Army, Armand’s Legion, and Virginia and North Carolina militias. This archaeological and forensic work changes that. The human remains, tattered though they are, will go to the lab of University of South Carolina anthropology professor Carlina Maria de la Cova for extensive analysis that surely will reveal new information about the Battle of Camden, a disaster for Continental Army Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates and the men under his command on that hot summer day of Aug. 16, 1780.

A project that began as an effort to remove artefacts and prepare a historic battlefield for public access became something else when the bones were discovered. Thirteen of the dead appear to have been artlessly buried before the wild hogs could get to them. The corpse of a British fighter was set deeper in the soil and formally laid out, perhaps by friends who took extra care. One of the 14 dead found here appears to have been a Native American who possibly was part of the North Carolina Royal Volunteers, a Loyalist militia unit.

Embedded in the broken bones were musket balls. In one set of remains found across Flat Rock Road, the lead ball lodged in the spine of a teenager, perhaps 14 or 15 years old. Archaeologists know this because of the growth plates visible at the ends of long bones. The boy with the shattered spine was one of at least two teenagers found during this dig. It’s highly unusual to exhume human remains from a historic battlefield, and even more unusual to find this many in one place, Bostick said. Generally, if bones are encountered, an effort is made to minimize activities that disturb them.

But this time, thanks to the expertise of forensic anthropologists from the Richland County Coroner’s Office and support from the Department of Natural Resources, the team determined to scrutinize their find in order to glean new information about the Camden killing field in which 3,700 Patriots and 2,230 British fighters and American Loyalists faced off. Plans already are afoot for a grand reinterment ceremony April 20-23. The bones will be returned to their original resting places, enclosed by pine caskets made in an 18th-century style and protected by vaulted graves.

The battle

By the time the dust cleared, some 1,900 men — more than half of the American forces — were dead or wounded. Perhaps 290 injured Patriots were taken, prisoner. Many of the rest, the inexperienced militiamen, had abandoned the battlefield so quickly, just a few suffered injuries. On the British side, about 70 men perished and 245 were wounded, representing about 15 per cent of Gen. Charles Cornwallis’ total forces.

The British had the advantage from the beginning. In May, they had finally captured Charleston, and to support the occupation of the city, Cornwallis established satellite garrisons, staging grounds and supply depots in the South Carolina backcountry, including a significant installation in Camden. Many of his fighters, therefore, were local, rested and ready for action.

Gates, determined to push the British out, marched his troops from Greensboro, N.C., starting that July. When Cornwallis heard about the approach of the Continental Army, he hastened from Charleston to Camden and organized his men.

The face-off was a mismatch, with experienced British regulars confronting a motley assortment of novice militiamen on one side of the battlefield. Gates’ men were hungry and tired; some were sick with dysentery. In the absence of proper rations and rum, they had been fed green peaches and molasses. When the militiamen threw down their arms, turned and fled, the Patriot side collapsed, though the Maryland and Delaware divisions attempted to hold their ground against the dominant British side.

Steven Smith, research professor at the University of South Carolina’s Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, said he and colleague James Legg first started exploring the Camden battlefield with metal detectors in 1998. Over the years, they have found and plotted around 4,000 artefacts. During the COVID pandemic, they opted to spend much of the time in the open air with their equipment; it was an easy way to stay safe from the virus.

The site, several miles north of the city, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The S.C. Battleground Preservation Trust secured nearly 300 acres and transferred ownership of the property to the Katawba Valley Land Trust in 2019. In September, the archaeologists started excavating for human remains. Collectors had told them about eight known burials. Legg found three sites; Smith found one. Then they encountered another, and another, until they had identified one double grave, one triple grave, one quintuple grave and four graves that each contained the bones of a single person.

“It was a disposal process,” Legg said. “The Continentals fought like Vikings in this battle, but they were overrun.”

It’s said that every battlefield is a burial ground. And there is little time for reverence.

The excavation

Bill Stevens, Richland County deputy coroner and a forensic anthropologist, is kneeling in the shallow gravesite with his two colleagues, Madeline Atwell and Rachel Baker. Loblolly pines tower overhead, but their spacing allows plenty of sunlight to reach the ground. A few flying bugs run accidentally into human obstacles.

The trio have exposed a cluster of five skeletons, digging delicately through the compact sand several inches beyond the bones that now are elevated atop earthen pedestals. Some of the appendages are intertwined and it’s difficult to determine which arm bone belongs to which individual. The dig looks like a miniature Bryce Canyon, except it wasn’t erosion that caused these formations, but an odd combination of human conflict and a researcher’s tiny spade.

The coroners already have removed nine sets of remains; this is the last gravesite to receive their meticulous attention. Gently, they insert the small blade between the sand pedestal and the skeleton, dislodging enough material to free the bone. These shallow burial sites have been disturbed over the decades by wild creatures, loggers, wagons, road workers and farmers. It’s remarkable that the skeletal remains are intact.

Inside this grave, archaeologists find more than bones. A beautifully made arrowhead, thousands of years old, is lodged in the sand. Several musket balls, the cause of injury and death, are clearly visible. Pewter buttons embossed with “USA” lay among the other objects.

The number of interested spectators is growing. Charles Baxley, chairman of S.C. American Revolution 250th commission has arrived, along with Bonnie Moffat, state regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Baxter is overseeing an ambitious project to educate residents and visitors about the war and the founding of the nation. The work here will become an important part of the commission’s narrative, he said.

“These are America’s first veterans, and these veterans were unceremoniously dumped into a hole,” he said.

Moffat said her organization is arranging to install perhaps 10 historic markers at battlefields across the state in conjunction with the 250th-anniversary celebration. Each marker costs about $4,800, she said. One is planned for Camden.

The S.C. Battleground Preservation Trust has been busy in recent years securing several properties and arranging for public access. It has been partnering with the nonprofit American Battlefield Trust, based in Washington, D.C., to develop the Liberty Trail, a network of Revolutionary War sites in South Carolina. A website, https://www.battlefields.org/learn/maps/liberty-trail, features details about the various historic confrontations and provides maps for those interested in visiting these sites. Now the trust is raising money, as much as $250,000, to help pay for the Camden project and reinterment events, Bostick said.

The reinterment

Battlefield archaeology is a relatively new field of study, Legg said. The first big project took place in 1984-85 at the site of Gen. George Armstrong Custer’s last stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana. A grass fire ignited by a tossed cigarette had exposed artifacts and inspired scholars to investigate the area, Legg said. They found a lot: spent cartridges, fired bullets, personal items and human remains.

In 1988, Legg and Smith performed excavation work at a Civil War battle site on Folly Island where they discovered, and removed, 19 sets of human remains, including what was left of the Black soldiers of the 55th Massachusetts Regiment who died there. This was one of the first formally organized Black units to fight on behalf of the United States. Legg and Smith arranged for a reburial at the Beaufort National Cemetery. The Camden battlefield now is well-marked with stakes indicating the top of the head and the bottom of the feet of each skeleton exhumed so archaeologists know precisely where the custom pine caskets sealed with hand-wrought nails are to lay, Smith said.

This will be no ordinary reinterment.

After about five months of study in the lab, the skeletal remains unearthed at the old battlefield will lie in state at the Kershaw-Cornwallis House from April 20 until the morning of April 22, Bostick said. On April 21, reenactors will set up an encampment by the house. An outdoor concert is planned for that evening.

The next morning, participants will process a mile north to Bethesda Presbyterian Church for a joint Anglican-Presbyterian religious service honouring the fallen soldiers. That afternoon, people will gather at the battlefield for a secular ceremony and reburial. Organizers have informed Gov. Henry McMaster of the events, and they have reached out to the state’s congressional delegation and to British officials. Horse-drawn caissons already are reserved.

Bostick said he expects some or all of the events to be live-streamed.

The X-rays and strontium isotope analysis likely will shed light on exactly how these men died, their age at the time of death, and the precise circumstances of their death. The DNA analysis will take a bit longer to complete, perhaps returning results during the summer.

The Battle of Camden “is the outstanding symbol of a series of disastrous setbacks suffered by the American side in the South during The War for Independence,” the National Park Service noted on its National Registry of Historic Places nomination form. “These losses, the surrender of Charleston, the wipe-out at Waxhaws, and then Camden, represent the lowest point to which American fortunes sank in that struggle.”

It was a rout that prompted Gates, the commanding officer, to flee along with many of his men, abandoning the now outnumbered Continental regulars to their fate. Their commander, Maj. Gen. Johann de Kalb, was mortally wounded. Congress wanted an inquiry into Gates’ actions, but it never came to pass. Gates was reassigned and Gen. Nathanael Greene assumed command of the Southern forces. It was a consequential change of leadership, a turning point in the war. Over the next two years, Greene and the fighters he commanded succeeded in driving the enemy from the Carolinas and Georgia. On Dec. 14, 1782, the British completed their evacuation of Charleston, boarding ships at Gadsden’s Wharf and sailing off. The war was coming to an end.