It Takes a Village to Raise a Fort: The Fort Halifax Rediscovery Project

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Public Lands, Public Sites: Research, Engagement, and Collaboration" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Fort Halifax Township Park in Pennsylvania is home to an eponymous French and Indian War site dating to 1756. A Juniata College archaeological field school in 2021 laid the foundation to receive an American Battlefield Protection Program grant from NPS in 2022. Using a combination of geoarchaeology, controlled metal detecting, and test unit excavation, the project located the frontier fortification by following artifact distributions to well-preserved archaeological features. Students from various colleges and universities worked to collect the evidence alongside military veterans and community members, learning the basics of archaeological fieldwork. The site is fortunate to be stewarded by a community that knows the value of historic preservation. For over a decade, archaeology at Fort Halifax has been supported by the local nonprofit Friends of Fort Halifax Park, by other nonprofits, by municipal government, and by state and federal agencies. The rediscovery of Fort Halifax has been a fulfilling, rewarding, and successful endeavor. It has also come with all the challenges inherent when multiple entities with sometimes competing views have to work cooperatively to preserve and understand an important part of our shared heritage. There are lessons here for any archaeologist working with locally owned and managed parks.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Public Lands, Public Sites: Research, Engagement, and Collaboration   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36263.0