NORTHAMPTON -- This week a team of archaeologists will embark on their attempt to answer a query of interest to area historians: What was life like for women and children in Northampton in the 1700s?
Community members are being asked to dig into that question, too -- quite literally.
"Digging Northampton" is a community excavation project taking place at Historic Northampton's Parsons House on Bridge Street from May 19 to June 6. Schoolchildren will be bused in to participate in the process, which will involve uncovering, washing and cataloging whatever might lay hidden in the dirt.
The work will mostly be completed by University of Massachusetts graduate archeology students led by Linda Ziegenbein, who works for Archaeological Services at UMass.
Ziegenbein said what will be found during the dig is anyone's guess. But she's hoping the team will be able to glean some information about how Colonial residents, particularly women and children, got by when the town was in its infancy.
The home, built around 1719, will soon undergo an extensive rehabilitation that requires expanding its basement. But the home has a historical preservation restriction that stipulates removing artifacts from the area before laying a new foundation.
The areas of interest are inside and beneath a lean-to that was added to the back of the house around 1785, as well as the yard behind it. The lean-to, a common New England way to add space to a home during that time, acted as the kitchen and was built over the former backyard. The structure's floor will be removed temporarily for the excavation.
It's what residents threw out the backdoors of both the old and new kitchens Ziegenbein is interested in. The trash heap was called a midden, which Nancy Rexford, acting director of Historic Northampton, called a "treasure trove" for an archeologist.
"There could be animal bones from food, broken crockery," Rexford said. "We're looking at places where those things would be plausible, but there's no guarantees."
While laying down the grid for the excavation site, Ziegenbein already found the top of a canning lid, a 1905 Boynton soda bottle and what appears to be the bottom of a small liqueur glass.
The home was built by Nathaniel Parsons, grandson of Joseph Parsons, who arrived in Northampton in 1655 and was one of the city's founders. At one point, there could have been as many 16 people in its four rooms: five adults and eleven children, only two of them men.
Ziegenbein said the most valuable part of the dig is getting people interested in that history.
"My interest is creating people who want to be stewards of historic sites," she said. "They way you get this is to bring people in to see how important the work is."
Students from Leeds Elementary School, the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in Hadley and R.K. Finn Ryan Road Elementary School will be helping with the excavation.
The site will be open to visitors on May 23, May 30 and June 6 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., during which guided site tours and activities for children will be available. Visitors can also stop by the house between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays to check out the progress.
The project was made possible through $3,500 raised by Historic Northampton through Valley Gives and a $5,000 grant from Mass Humanities.
To volunteer for the project, contact Ziegenbein at firstname.lastname@example.org. Limited spots are available.
Read more about the project on the Digging Northampton blog.