LEARN NC

North Carolina History Digital Textbook Project

Excavating Occaneechi Town: An archaeology primer

From the UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology

2 An archaeology primer

Photograph of an excavation block at Occaneechi Town, with plowed soil removed.

An exavation block at Occaneechi Town with plowed soil removed. The dark stains are archaeological features. (Photograph courtesy of Research Laboratories of Archaeology. More about the photograph)

This primer will introduce the methods of archaeology, so you can better understand how Occaneechi Town was excavated and how the Electronic Dig works. All the examples and photographs you’ll see come from the actual excavations at Occaneechi Town (also called the Fredricks site) and nearby sites in Hillsborough, North Carolina. The real digging was done by archaeologists and students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill between 1983 and 1995, with the active participation of members of the modern Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation.