810-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, September 18, 1993
Mark searches through the dirt looking for pieces of pot
tery or pipe that tells a history of the people who lived in the
area.
Eleven-Year-Old Participates in Archeological Dig
Mark Graybill uses a trowel during the archeological dig.
Arya Portar it the arcl
supervisor.
leologist dig
s A
LOU ANN GOOD
Lancaster Farming Staff
While other kids his age were
swimming and fishing this sum
mer. Mark Graybill was digging
dirt
The 11-year-old son of Dale and
Joyce Graybill of Mount Joy was
part of a team participating in an
archeological dig at the Hans Herr
House in Willow Street
The Hans Hen- House is the old
est house in Lancaster County that
has been preserved and is open to
the public to tour.
With spades and trowels, the
team chipped away at the soil and
sifted through it looking for clues
to the past The bits of pottery that
they found enables archeologists to
tell how old the pieces are.
“It’s pretty interesting.” Mark
said. "If the pottery is glazed on
one side it is very old, but if it is
glazed on both sides, it is not as
old.”
The purpose of the dig was to
locate remains of the exterior
entrance that once led into the cel
lar of the 1719 Hans Herr House.
“You can only dig one layer at a
time. You must be careful because
some pieces break and the pieces
are very fragile,” he said.
He was most impressed with the
ox shoe he found while digging in
the soil.
After a summer of digging,
Mark thinks he would like to con
tinue work as an archeologist He
said that he watched a movie that
taught him how to tell how old the
pieces of pipe were that was found
while digging.
ms Herr House was bum In 1719.
Mark looks at a trench In front of the Hans Herr House.
duos to th« past.
historians