Members of the University of Vermont’s Consulting Archaeology Program in Milton
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This summer, drivers along Route 2 past Sand Bar State Park in Milton might have noticed a large mound of dirt in the parking lot and a group of people digging beside it. Members of the University of Vermont’s Consulting Archaeology Program made up this excavation team, and they uncovered Native American artifacts that date back hundreds of years.
This site on Lake Champlain has changed significantly over the centuries. The Lamoille River once emptied here, and the location was likely a seasonal campground for Native people. In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps added many thousand yards of fill to the marshy swamp that became the state park — inadvertently preserving the artifacts below.
In 2022, the UVM team conducted a dig at the site and found several large pottery sherds exhibiting St. Lawrence Iroquoian style decoration. They were 400 to 600 years old. Also unearthed: stone remnants from the process of making tools. Some of the stone flakes, like flint and quartzite, were local; others came from Pennsylvania, Maine and Northern Labrador in Canada, indicating that the Indigenous residents were trading and connecting with people from far-off places.
This summer’s low water levels made a final dig possible, and the UVM folks spent about four weeks meticulously combing the site. They found a large pottery fragment, a glass bead, a piece of a clay smoking pipe, more stone flakes and a smaller pottery sherd that dates back 1,000 to 1,400 years. This was their last dig at the site, as a stormwater basin will be built there.
In the latest episode of “Stuck in Vermont,” Seven Days senior multimedia producer Eva Sollberger met the crew and watched them dig into the past.
Filming date: 9/2/25
Music: StayLoose, “Flutes”
This episode of “Stuck in Vermont” was supported by The Vermont Community Foundation.
The post Stuck in Vermont: An Archaeological Dig Uncovers Native American Artifacts appeared first on Seven Days.