voc ep: 40 C. Jane Cox

Field excavation of the Leavy Neck skeleton in 2001 by archaeologist Jane Cox. This person was buried ca. 1665-1670 in what is Anne Arundel County, Maryland today. Smithsonian photo

Sculpted figure by StudioEIS based on forensic facial reconstruction by forensic artist Joanna Hughes. Smithsonian photo

Our guest for this episode of Voices of the Chesapeake Bay is Jane Cox, the Chief of Cultural Resources for Anne Arundel County. Working with former county chief archaeologist and head of the county’s Lost Towns Project, Al Luckenbach, when this interview was recorded in 2009, Jane Cox remembered the story of an unexpected and monumental find. Former project lab director Erin Cullen unearthed a skull in a 17th-century cellar at Leavy Neck, the Lost Townes Project site believed to be the location of the pre-Annapolis settlement known as Providence.

“Providence, the first European settlement in Anne Arundel County, was established on the shores of the Severn River and Whitehall Bay in March of 1649.  It was settled by a group of about 300 non-conformist Puritans. These pioneers came to the shores of Anne Arundel County at the invitation of the Catholic Lord Baltimore. They established their homes and tobacco plantations on the shores of the Severn River and the Chesapeake Bay, a community that would soon transform into the colonial Capital of Maryland: Annapolis. Providence was also the location of the Battle of the Severn in 1655; the only engagement of the English Civil War to occur on North American soil. The Providence settlement is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, an honorific title that demonstrates how important Providence is to both Anne Arundel County and to the Nation’s history. Seven of the eight known sites of Providence have been investigated since its discovery in the late 1980s including Leavey Neck. While the Lost Towns Project has excavated more than two dozen similar trash pits, dating from the 1660s through the 18th and 19th centuries. This was the first in which any of the team members had encountered human remains in a trash pit.”

“The mission of the Lost Townes Project is to promote, facilitate, and enable the preservation, discovery, academic study, appreciation, and stewardship of public and privately-owned cultural resources, historic structures, and archaeological sites in Anne Arundel County, the State of Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic region by supporting the technical, scholarly, and intellectual work of academics, professionals, and students, in activities related to the mission.”

“Excavations proceeded very slowly, methodically, and with great care. Once the majority of the skeleton was exposed, Dr. Doug Owsley, a human osteologist from the Smithsonian and his team came to document the body in situ and advise on its ultimate removal.” SI CSI-type exploration of the find, more photos, and a “webcomic” are accessible from the website address below:

https://naturalhistory.si.edu/education/teaching-resources/written-bone/forensic-case-files/body-basement

Quoted text excerpted above from the www.LostTownsProject.org website.