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Oldest colonial structure found in Williamsburg
The foundations of a 17th century house that was built in Williamsburg, Virginia, before it was even Williamsburg have been unearthed during construction of a new archaeology center, appropriately enough. If the preliminary dating proves correct, this is the oldest known colonial structure in Colonial Williamsburg.
The ground-breaking ceremony for the new Campbell Archaeology Center began on April 21st, 2023, and an archaeological excavation at the site began in advance of construction. The site had been a parking lot since the 1960s when a hospital stood there, but under the asphalt was an unexpected treasure: a 32- by 24-foot brick foundation with a cellar and a well 40 feet away. Preliminary dating indicates the home was built in the late 1600s when Williamsburg was still known as Middle Plantation. (It would be renamed in 1699 and become the colony’s capital.) The building was demolished in the 1720s or 30s.
The artifacts found including fragments of plaster wall, diamond-shaped glass window panes, casement windows, the handle of a silver teaspoon, wig curlers and imported ceramics. These are indicators that this was a wealthy household that could afford the finest, most expensive features in constructing and furnishing their home.
The excavation is ongoing. When it is complete, the site will be covered over for its protection, but the design of the new archaeology center has been altered to include a glass floor so visitors will be able to see the foundations of the house as they walk.
[Jack Gary, Executive Director of Archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg] estimates it will take his team of almost 30 archaeologists about two more weeks to excavate the site, but he said physically digging the artifacts out of the ground is only about 40% of the work. The other 60% takes place in the laboratory.
“So all these artifacts that we’re uncovering, which are going to be literally thousands of artifacts,” Gary said, “will come back to our laboratory, where we will wash them, catalog them, start to fit broken things back together to get a sense of what they were. So the study of that on the site will actually continue on for weeks, if not months after, after the actual excavation is done.”
Everything they find will be turned into exhibits to go into the new archaeology center, where visitors will have the opportunity to see the artifacts that came from the site underneath the new building. The construction team is also exploring ways for visitors to be able to see the site itself from the hallways, which will be directly above it.
The new Campbell Center will not only exhibit and store Colonial Williamsburg’s vast collection of archaeological material, but will contain laboratories with state of the art equipment that will be open to the public so they can observe the research, cleaning and conservation of artifacts in real time and interact with the archaeologists at work. There will also be a public teaching laboratory where guests can learn about archaeology and get hands-on experience doing what they’ve seen the professionals do. The new center is scheduled to open in 2026.
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