WOOLWICH

Monday marked the beginning of the second week of an archaeological dig at Thwings Point in Woolwich, where volunteers and members of Friends of Merrymeeting Bay worked at the site where English settlers had lived, the first settlement being the home and trading post of Thomas Ashley in the 1650s.

According to Lee Cranmer, a retired historical archaeologist at the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, in 1654, about 24 households and landowners along the river met at Ashley’s trading post to discuss how they should govern the region.

Exploration of this particular archaeological site began in 2007 by FOMB and volunteers at the MHPC staff, and continued through 2009, 2011 and 2014 as they excavated artifacts, discovered the original building site and mapped out foundations.

This year’s summer volunteers began digging at the historical site along the Kennebec River, where a pair of cellars — distinguished as 17th and 18th century cellars — remain after periods of resettlement.

The site is also surrounded by sumac trees, a sign of resettlement since sumacs tend to grow where land has been disturbed, according to Cranmer.

This year, his goals were focused on finding out the dimensions of the second cellar and discovering some of the details of the wall structure.

“We pretty much have accomplished what I wanted. It would be nice to find a privy or some another outbuilding outside the cellars,” he said.

Nails, ceramic pieces, shards of glass, coal, a child’s thimble and even a musket ball were some of the items discovered at the site this year.

Cranmer himself will take the artifacts home to clean, catalogue and analyze before they are eventually taken to MHPC in Augusta. He hoped that someone else might come along and do further research on the site.

Cranmer said it was likely that they would not revisit this particular site again.

“We’ve worked here several years and right now, I’ve answered most of the major questions I’ve wanted to answer. There’s a theory in archaeology that you leave some behind for future generations — they have better questions and better techniques,” he said, “so unless we come up with some pressing questions, we probably won’t come back to this site again.”

For University of Maine student Hilary Warner- Evans, who participated in this year’s dig and the 2009 survey, she said the experience helped her learn about the community and its past in a hands-on way.

“I think it’s really important to know your local community and part of that is knowing about the history of it too, and I feel like that gets ignored a lot in terms of curriculum and school,” she said. “I feel like it’s much more engaging to learn about things that are right around the corner from you.”

Claire and Michael Robinson, who co-hosted the survey with FOMB, also participated in Monday’s dig, and Claire shared that she was especially drawn to the history of the site.

“It’s interesting to imagine how adventurous these people were and how they came to live here in the 1600s,” she said. “I find it a fascinating period and then to have a site like that in your own backyard, I just feel happy to be able to participate in investigating and documenting it.”

EXPLORATION OF this archaeological site began in 2007 by Friends of Merrymeeting Bay and volunteers at the Maine Historic Preservation Commission staff, and continued through 2009, 2011 and 2014.