A rare discovery -- Local archaeological dig unearths unique items

St. Augustine record photos by Daron Dean


A rare discovery -- Local archaeological dig unearths unique items

By ANTHONY DeMATTEO
Special to the Record
Publication Date: 04/24/09

Centuries ago, a child lost a doll like one the city archeologist has never seen before.

And others lost three Spanish reale coins, something archaeologists have only found in about 10 percent of the more than 600 digs in St. Augustine in the last 20 years.

The doll and the coins, as rare as they are, are not what excited City Archeologist Carl Halbirt from the dig this week at Spanish and Cuna streets in downtown St. Augustine.

A house foundation made partly out of broken glass, perhaps from a mid-1800s tavern, really caught his attention.

"This is the first time we've ever seen anything of this nature," said Halbirt. "It is unique in terms of people's adaptability and resourcefulness."

Halbirt and his team think a tavern might have been on or near the property at one time because it uncovered three coins, remains of hand-blown glass tumblers, rusted chains which might have hung cooking pots and smoking pipes.

"The hypothesis is that it is possible a tavern was in the area," Halbirt said. "People could easily lose coins at a tavern."

A couple of layers beneath the glass foundation is a scorched wooden post is from the early 1700s, near the time St. Augustine burned at the hand of South Carolina Royal Gov. James Moore.

An iron spike juts from another wall a few dwecades older. Halbirt estimates the dates from pottery, which he said plays an important role in many area digs because radiocarbon dating only narrows periods to about 350 years.

"We find weird things here," Halbirt said, palming an unearthed pipe stem, then a hinged jawbone of a doll skeleton he said is likely from the 19th Century.

The hinged mandible of the doll skeleton is probably from 19th Century, he said. It's the first piece of a doll skeleton he's ever found in St. Augustine.

Halbirt also dug up a tooth from the 19th century, indicating a family probably occupied the property although he was open to an idea from volunteer Lynne Ur that someone might have lost it in a bar brawl.

On Thursday, the team found what Halbirt estimates is a 1720 trash pit holding items including smoking pipes and more glass.

"That's really important because it gives us an idea of how these people lived," Halbirt said of the pit. "It's a wonderful source of information."

The property owner applied for an archeological permit to study how deposits would be disturbed by construction activity.

Ur showed Halbirt a broken piece of pottery covered in dirt. He dates it as machine-made Ellersware from after 1762.

"Carl's amazing," Dezendorf said of Halbirt. "His memory boggles the mind. Sometimes I just throw him stuff to see if he remembers it. And he does."

Halbirt said the team digs from a property's surface until finding "culturally sterile soil," a layer of yellow sand beneath which he said no more evidence of human occupation from the late prehistoric to the historic era is found.

The Cuna Street dig will run through today.

Halbirt said it's often hard leaving a site knowing there's more to find.

"We'd love to spend a lot more time here," he said. "But we have other things that we need to do."

Halbirt said some of the sites' early artifacts open a window into an important period in history.

"At that time, there is a lot of Spanish and Native American interaction going on," Halbirt said. "The synergism between the Spanish and Native American communities creates what St. Augustine is. It's really the United States first cosmopolitan city."

Halbirt's team includes assistant Melissa Dezendorf and a handful of volunteers.


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