Summer dig by Longwood Archaeology Field School to again be open to public

The work this summer by the Longwood Archaeology Field School at Staunton River Battlefield State Park, which is open to the public, will run from May 18 through June 10.

The dig site will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday, June 6, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Some 14 Longwood students will work in what is the 12^th season of excavation at the so-called Wade site. The work is directed by Dr. Brian Bates, associate professor of anthropology at Longwood, who directs the Archaeology Field School.

"The site was the location of an Amerindian village occupied from about 950 A.D. to 1425 A.D.," Dr. Bates said. "Excavations have provided evidence of the day-to-day lives of the ancestors of the Sappony Indians who live in North Carolina. Our focus this year will be to try and locate where their domestic structures may have been."

The site can be accessed from the headquarters to the park, which straddles the Halifax County-Charlotte County line. Visitors enter on the Halifax side, and the dig is on the Charlotte side. For directions, call the Park at (434) 454-4312, and for more information on the dig, call Dr. Bates at (434) 547-9670.