16
| May/June 2016
MY DAVEY
Archeologists from Wetland Studies and Solutions, Inc.,
(WSSI), a Davey company, found a needle in a haystack
when they unearthed a 300-year-old ship at a construction
site in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia.
For years, the city of Alexandria has considered a major
renovation to its historic Potomac River waterfront. In 2014
real estate investment advisory and asset management
company Carr Hospitality envisioned turning a piece of this
untouched waterfront into a trendy, new hotel.
Making their vision a reality required some digging.
Alexandria requires all new construction thoroughly
researched and surveyed by an archeological team.
Carr Hospitality hired Thunderbird Archeology, a division
of WSSI, in 2015 to research what would later reveal some
of the city's most influential archeological finds to date.
John Mullen, principal archeologist at Thunderbird Archeology,
spent months before construction started in November
2015 researching the construction plot. Mullen and his team,
including Dan Baicy, associate archeologist at Thunderbird
Archeology, examined archived maps, old city records and
documents to foresee what they might unearth.
"We knew we could find a warehouse and a ship," Baicy
says, based on the research. "But we didn't think we would
actually find them."
Mullen and Baicy developed a plan to work alongside
construction crews to save time and expense–a benefit to
the client.
In November 2015, construction and archeology work
started. Baicy and his team started excavating 4 feet deep
SEARCHING FOR BURIED TREASURE
Members of the archeology team stand
amidst the remains of an old warehouse.
test trenches, required by the city, to survey and document
every inch of the site.
The crew struck gold when they exposed the 1775 Carlyle
Warehouse, which is said to be the oldest public building in
Alexandria–but that was just the beginning of their discovery.
"We were less than a foot off the exact location we
predicted the warehouse to be," Mullen says. "It was
pretty exciting."
The team was surprised how well the 18th century ware-
house held up after centuries buried deep under the city's
surface. The archeologists found, due to the high water
table in the soil, oxygen was unable to break down the wood
floor boards and foundation. That kept the warehouse in
impeccable condition.
Mullen, after three-plus weeks working with his crew
to unearth the historic warehouse, joked with his team,
The remnants of a 300-year-old ship's hull unearthed by
Thunderbird Archeology, a division of Wetland Studies and
Solutions, Inc., a Davey company.
