Governor Martin
O'Malley has proclaimed April Maryland Archeology Month, and the Maryland
Historical Trust is pleased to be leading the celebration! With its many
treasured sites, including Fort Frederick, the U.S.S. Scorpion, St. Mary's
City, Piscataway Park, and the recently located Zekiah Fort, Maryland is truly
rich archeologically.
This year's Maryland
Archeology Month theme, Points
in Time: Formal Biface Typology in Maryland, focuses attention on
certain artifacts rather than the sites on which they are found. Of all the
bits of antiquity strewn across Maryland over the past 13 millennia perhaps
none is more iconic that the arrowhead. Yet only a tiny fraction of the items
popularly termed "arrowhead" ever tipped a bow-shot arrow. Most were
spear points, and many were hafted knives. While differing in function, all
projectile points (as archeologists commonly refer to them) have something
important in common; each reflects a style that was used for a restricted
period of time, ranging from several thousand to several hundred years. As a
result, the classification of these artifacts has been a favorite endeavor of
archeologists for many decades.
This year the Maryland
Archaeological Conservation Laboratory launched the latest addition their
wildly popular diagnostic artifact website
on Maryland Projectile Points. This new module pulls
together defining attributes, the initial reference in the literature,
photographs of typical specimens, and published radiocarbon dates on Maryland
point types, and also contains essays on pertinent topics, such as manufacture,
use, and typology.
To view the Maryland
Archeology Month poster, with interactive links to the projectile point module,
please visit the website of the Archeological Society of
Maryland. While you're there, explore the calendar of Archeology Month
events (lectures, presentations, workshops, and fieldwork opportunities). There
are opportunities get involved in the archeological exploration of Maryland's
past throughout the state, and throughout the year as well.
For more information about
Maryland Archeology Month, or about volunteer opportunities, contact Charlie
Hall, and keep focused on "the point":
Maryland's
archeology belongs to us all!
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