From Cape Cod Times:
Cape Cod’s oldest town is in the midst of its 375th anniversary celebration, but evidence that it has been inhabited for much longer is being dug out of the soil at Spring Hill.
On Monday, Craig Chartier of Plymouth Archaeological Rediscovery Project and his volunteers sifted through soil at the Wing Fort House, the 1641 homestead of Stephen Wing.
The group already has made some fascinating finds outside, said David Wheelock, caretaker of the historical home, owned by the Wing Family of America Inc., descendants of Stephen Wing. They have found Indian arrowhead and spear points, colonial spoons and pottery shards, and the post-molds of what is believed to be a summer wetu of a Native American family, exciting discoveries that provide a window into those who walked the land hundreds and, perhaps, thousands of years ago, Wheelock said.
“The same thing that attracted Stephen Wing to this land – a knoll overlooking the wetlands – is likely what brought Native Americans here,” Chartier said.
Last week Chartier and Wheelock were on hand as an employee of New England Geophysical used ground-penetrating radar to consider a theory Wheelock has had for years – that members of the Wing family whose grave sites are unknown may be buried on the property.
The radar came up with three anomalies inside the house and beneath the floor in about the size and shapes of bodies, Chartier said. “We call them anomalies because we won’t know what they are until we dig them up,” he said.
Chartier and Wheelock are in the process of getting permission from members of the Wing Family Board of Directors to do a dig inside the house. If they do uncover human remains, they would like to have them analyzed by forensic experts, perhaps with the Smithsonian Institution, before they are buried again, Chartier said.
“There’s a huge potential of what we could learn,” he said, ticking off a list that includes diet, health and burial habits.
Read More: Digging deeper: Artifacts found in Sandwich
