U.S. Navy photo by Doug Davant Dr. Patricia Samford, director of the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab, and Thomas Wright, cultural resources officer for Naval Support Activity South Potomac, review a display of 17th century Native American artifacts excavated from Naval Support Facility Indian Head, Md. after an explosion at the installation in 1957 revealed evidence of early Indian settlements. The exhibit, developed in partnership with the Navy, was unveiled today at the Charles County Government Building as a pilot for a project by the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab to showcase local historical artifacts in every county in the state.

A chemist at Indian Head, the late Calvert R. Posey, was the first to discover this fact in the early 1960s. Posey was an amateur archeologist and very interested in the history of early European settlement around Indian Head. But what he found would come to jar long-held beliefs about where European and Native American societies first came together in the New World.

‘‘He (Posey) first began poking around the place during his lunch breaks with a few friends,” said Sara Rivers Cofield of Maryland’s Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, part of the Old Line State’s Department of Planning activity that excavated the site. ‘‘He began finding stuff such as iron nails, copper, buttons, glass beads, lead shot and clay items such as pipes and pottery. It was determined to be one of the first contact sites (between the European settlers and Indians) where trading took place.”

In 1985, the site was tested by William Barse as part of a much larger archaeological survey of NSF Indian Head. The site was investigated more extensively in 1996 by staff from Rivers Cofield’s Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, under the direction of Julia A. King and Edward E. Chaney. The location was estimated to be more than 300 years old meaning that about 1650 American Indians and whites were getting along fairly well in their relationships and doing spirited trading with one another as whites were improving Indian life with technological advances and Indians were teaching Europeans how to survive in the wilderness, living off of Maryland’s abundant agricultural, game and fish bounties.

Rivers Cofield said that archeologists can determine a lot about the early societies from the ancient remains, such as their dietary habits.

‘‘They ate a lot of fish and animals such as deer because there were bones found,” she said.

Also learned was how Old World technology was affecting Native American culture.

‘‘What is also interesting is that (the Indians) were taking in copper from the Europeans...

probably and old pot or a kettle that had a hole in it, and remaking it into tools and projectile points (arrow heads),” she said.

‘‘There was only a small group of families living there,” Rivers Cofield noted, ‘‘not many at all really, so it is remarkable that they were so adapt (at making these items).”

She noted that copper, ‘‘probably obtained from the settlers as trade for pelts, hides or food items,” gave the Native Americans at the Posey site particular status as it was a rare item indeed in the New World. Not only could copper be made into weaponry and tools, it could also be ornamental and worn on clothing.

Rivers Cofield also said that the variety of copper point types recovered at the Posey site indicates that there was experimentation made with the metal. In one case, she noted in a review written about the site, two scrap fragments were folded over each other to make a barbed point. Other points were made by snipping sheet copper into isosceles triangles or small equilateral triangles. She pointed out that while some of the points have holes in them, others do not. Other archaeological examples indicate that once completed, these copper points were then probably attached to hardwood arrow shafts with fine sinew and glue they manufactured from game killed.

According to a comparative study of colonial Chesapeake culture (‘‘www.chesapeakearchaeology.org”) research ‘‘suggests that the Indians living at Posey were likely members of the Mattawoman petty chiefdom, a component group of the Piscataway Indians.”

The research found that, although there is no evidence any Europeans were living in the area by the mid-1600s, ‘‘Nancotamon, one of the great men of Mattawoman, came before the Maryland Provincial Council in October 1665 and asked what his people should do, whether they should ‘remove further into the woods or to remain upon the land where they now or lately lived,’ presumably in this portion of Charles County.”

In response, the council ‘‘ordered the metes and bounds of the ‘‘ould (old) habitations” of the Mattawoman Indians surveyed, and, in the interest of peace and safety, forbade any Englishman from taking up lands within those boundaries. The Council further declared that any Englishman so settling risked imprisonment.”

Apparently, the governmental council worked hard for awhile in protecting their host’s lands and preserving peace between the white settlers and the Indians. But that all changed when, what would become ‘‘Maryland Gold,” became in demand back in Europe and tobacco became a way to prosperity for New World fortune seekers. In 1695, the council began trying to persuade the Indian inhabitants to allow more production of tobacco and by 1700 the Posey site is believed to have been abandoned by the Indians. The eventual fate of the American Indians like the ones inhabiting the Posey site and their culture is pretty much summed up in the annals of American history.

There is, however, now a concerted drive in many of the American localities where they once lived to recapture their history. Last week the state of Maryland officially displayed the artifacts of the Posey site as Charles County cut the ribbon on an installation of the new archaeology exhibition in the lobby of the Charles County Government building, at 200 Baltimore Street in La Plata.

The new exhibit was developed in partnership with the Maryland Historical Trust, the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab, the Naval Support Facility Indian Head, and Charles County's Department of Economic Development and Tourism. A grant from the Institute for Museum, Preservation, Archaeology Research and Training (IMPART) provided a stipend for a St. Mary's College of Maryland student intern to research artifacts and to work with museum staff to develop and install it for Charles County's citizens and visitors.

“The Maryland Historical Trust and the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory were pleased to work with Charles County on this exciting project that highlights some of the county's buried past,“ said Dr. Patricia Samford, Director of the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab. “Our long-term goal is to place archaeological exhibits in every county in Maryland, and we are delighted that Charles County was willing to be our pilot for this statewide project.“

Charles County Board of Commissioners President Wayne Cooper said, “We are happy to bring a chapter of Charles County history to light in this exhibit for our citizens and visitors, and to be the first project of this type in the state of Maryland. We know from archaeological digs at Port Tobacco, Moore's Lodge, and other areas of Charles County that much of our County's rich history can be uncovered through archaeology, and we hope to be able to discover more of it this way in the future.“

This exhibition, meant to be a model for other Maryland counties, showcases local and state history through artifacts that the public does not usually have the opportunity to see. People are welcome to view the exhibit in the Charles County Government Building Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.