Glass trade beads, colorful pottery and musket balls belonging to residents of a 19th century Fort Vancouver village have been uncovered less than a foot below the earth’s surface.
Archaeology students digging at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site first unearthed the artifacts earlier this summer and recently completed the site profile.
The excavation site, which is about 6.5 feet by 6.5 feet, is believed to be in the middle of what was once the dirt floor of a home in the village, said field school leader Doug Wilson, a National Park Service archaeologist and faculty member at Portland State University.
The site of the recently discovered home is just south of the two reconstructed houses at the national historic site.
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A small sample dig a few years ago yielded numerous artifacts, leading Wilson to believe the site could be the location of a former home. Until this year, though, there was no evidence to support his suspicion.
“Finding a wealth of items really has confirmed that,” he said.
The fort has hosted a field school for Portland State University undergraduate and graduate students since 2001, with the exception of last year. In 2003, students from Washington State University Vancouver began joining the school.
Shedding more light
This summer’s discovery will shed additional light on how the diverse residents of the village lived, Wilson said. From about 1827 to 1860, the village was home to 600 to 1,000 Hudson’s Bay Company employees, their families and visiting traders and travelers during the fur trade period.
Historical documents suggest the village had 40 to 60 homes, Wilson said. So far, archaeologists have unearthed the sites of about 18 homes, he said.
Members of several American Indian tribes from the Pacific Northwest and as far as the East Coast lived in the village, as did native Hawaiians, French Canadians and Europeans.
“It must have been a really fabulously diverse group of people,” Wilson said.
Many of the residents were trappers, farmers and other support staff that kept the fort — a commercial enterprise, not a military outpost — operating. The majority of residents were illiterate, though, and left no written record of their history. Discovering these homes recovers bits and pieces of how the people lived together harmoniously, Wilson said.
In addition to the artifacts inside the 20-by-20-foot homes, archaeology students uncovered items in the landscape around the house. Because garbage service was nonexistent, residents would dispose of their trash by tossing it out windows and doors, Wilson said.
“There’s this halo of refuse that surrounds these houses,” he said.
By digging deeper into the landscape of the homes, Wilson said he and the students hope to learn more about what activities the residents did outside of their homes and what types of food they grew in their gardens.
The students will be at the site from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today through Saturday. The public is welcome to visit the village site west of the Fort Vancouver reconstruction and north of the land bridge.
