A working partnership between the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology, the Phillips Academy Summer Session, and the Danvers Alarm List Company is providing a unique opportunity for students entering grades 9 through 12 to participate in an archaeological dig at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead.   This program is offered as a major course in Phillips Academy’s Summer Session, held this year from July 1 to August 6, 2008.

The Nurse Homestead is well-known for its most famous resident, Rebecca Nurse, who was hanged as a witch in 1692. Her husband Francis purchased the property in1678 and may have built the existing house during the late 17th century.  Seven generations of Nurse and Putnam descendents owned the property until it was taken over by the Rebecca Nurse Memorial Association in 1908, and later by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. It is now owned and operated by the Danvers Alarm List Company.

The house and family burying ground have been maintained as a historic site since 1908.  Prehistoric and historic artifacts recovered on the present 27-acre parcel suggest that its culture history spans the 5th millennium BC through colonial times and right up to the present day.  As such, it offers student participants an incomparable hands-on view of land use and social history over a period of about 7,000 years.

The past two summers the Robert S. Peabody Museum and Dr. Nathan D. Hamilton and his crew from University of Southern Maine have conducted archaeological work at the site.  Excavation at the front of the house yielded cord-marked pottery and stone tool fragments from the mid-to-late prehistoric period in addition to 17th and 18th century ceramics, metal and glass.  Refuse deposits attributable to l9th century Putnam families and more recent 20th century caretakers of the property were also sampled.  The quantity and quality of the resulting data firmly establishes the rich potential of the Homestead for research and teaching. 

This Summer Session course offers the benefit of small group size and individualized instruction from experienced professionals.  Among instruction topics are an introduction to remote sensing and GPS mapping technology and procedures, as well as artifact identification and post-excavation curatorial procedures such as cleaning, numbering and entry of the data into an electronic format.  It is an incomparable opportunity for young people who enjoy being out of doors and who have an interest in science and archaeology to learn about the exciting field of archaeology.