Page 8 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

PREFACE
This volume is an outgrowth of a much larger project. In 2007, fresh out of graduate school, I took up the post of research archaeologist at the Maryland Historical Trust (MHT). At the Trust, my primary responsibility would be an endeavor known as the Maryland Archeological Synthesis Project. At its heart, the Synthesis Project is an initiative to make the archaeological data amassed at the Trust over the 50 plus years since passage of the National Historic Preservation Act more relevant and more accessible to the general public. Plentiful research data had been amassed between 1966 and 2007, but most of it sat on the shelves of the MHT library, where it was largely inaccessible to the outside world.
Three major goals were set forth for the Synthesis Project. The first was to establish a database of the archaeological sites in Maryland that have been assessed for their potential to contribute meaningful information about the prehistory and history of the state. As of this printing, MHT has recorded over 14,000 archaeological sites throughout the state, but less than 10 percent of those have ever been subject to sufficient archaeological sampling to make such assessments. The database would focus on that subset of sites and would generate capsule summaries of that information and make them available to the public (you can read more about the database on pages 72–73). Distilling that ten percent sample down into something digestible would consume the next decade of my life.
The second goal of the project was to begin using the database to drive research. First and foremost, the database would be used by other staff at MHT to make policy decisions when public money was being used for development projects. The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, and related state laws, mandate that cultural resources such as archaeologi- cal sites be taken into consideration when public lands, permits, or monies are used for development and infrastructure. The Synthesis database could be used to identify ‘gaps’ in our knowledge about the past, and to make more informed decisions about how archaeological sites threatened by such development should be treated. Likewise, MHT’s own research priorities could be driven to fill these ‘gaps’ where possible.
Finally, the Maryland Archeological Synthesis Project would incorporate the decades of research on Maryland’s vast archaeological resources into compelling narratives of the state’s past and produce books geared towards the general public. This book is the first offering of such a volume. With a focus on the archaeology of the colonial era, this book consists of five essays by researchers who have dedicated their lives to understanding life during the 17th and 18th centuries in Maryland. Each author focuses on a slightly different aspect of the colonial story, but all use archaeology as the primary means of story-telling. The use of extensive illustrations and artifact images is meant to immerse the reader in “our world” of potsherds, archival snippets, and past places and times.
Matthew D. McKnight, Ph.D.
Chief Archaeologist — MHT
Crownsville, Maryland
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