Neville Archaeological Site - Site Excavation

Site Excavation

The New Hampshire Archaeological Society (NHAS) began excavating the site in 1967 with the help of a team of volunteers. The excavation of the site continued through 1967 and 1968. One of the volunteers was an archaeologist named Peter McLane who excavated much more of the Neville site than the NHAS had planned on. It was a very good thing, because the Neville site yielded a wealth of archaeological material dating well back into the Archaic period. At first McLane and his sons found only typical artifacts within the first few feet of soil. But as they proceeded to excavate further they found more artifacts. McLane chose to have one of the artifacts dated via charcoal sampling and found that it was 5,385 years old. The ancient date made this artifact one of the oldest artifacts in New England at the time that the sampling was dated. There were other artifacts found, both earlier and later, but these are believed to have been moved to the site from another location.

The excavators of the site had three goals that they wished to accomplish:

1. to demonstrate the validity of the stratigraphic sequence,
2. to describe and date the cultural sequence at the site, and
3. to define the patterns of the site utilization through time.

After the excavation, McLane had planned on writing the report for all of the artifacts and data recovered. However, soon after the excavation and before the outline had been completed, he fell ill and was unable to complete the report. He then sent all of the data that had been recovered to Harvard University, requesting that Dena Dincauze finish the report. Dincauze accepted the request, even though the site had already been destroyed, and completed the report with the information she had been given.