Students will have the opportunity to excavate the Rebecca Nurse Homestead in Danvers, Mass. this summer. The Chairman of the New England Chapter of the Massachusetts Archaelogy Society recently appointed Director of the Robert S. Peabody Museum Malinda Blustain, to head the excavation of the Rebecca Nurse homestead in Danvers, Mass. Ms. Blustain decided to open this opportunity to students by offering a summer course entitled “Introduction to Archaeology” in conjunction with Director of Phillips Academy Summer Session Paul Murphy. In 1692, 71-year-old Rebecca Nurse was hanged on charges of witchcraft along with eighteen others despite a petition pleading her innocence signed by forty neighbors. The course will run from June 28 to August 2 for six days a week. It will be the first archaeological dig the Peabody has participated in since the 1970’s. When asked about how she feels about this opportunity, Ms. Blustain said, “This is a very special opportunity, and it’s a real privilege to be invited to dig at this site.” Ms. Nurse’s 27-acre homestead in Danvers, MA has become a tourist attraction, but has never been open for excavation. While Ms. Nurse was involved in the Salem Witch Trials, Ms. Blustain does not hope to find much, if any, information on the Salem Witch Trials. Rather, she hopes to find out about seventeenth century domestic life in New England. “What’s really appealing about this excavation, in my perspective, is that it’s a very interesting period in American history, being post-colonial,” said Ms. Blustain. General archaeological classes and occasional guest lectures on the history of the dig will be held in the morning. Afternoons will involve fieldwork where the students will dig marked out “squares” and sift through the soil. The students will learn to process and catalogue ancient artifacts and create a database that links found objects to the data that surrounds them; all in addition to learning proper excavation techniques and how to extract clues from artifacts that reveal a story about the lives of the people being studied.
