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  Uplands Archaeology in
  the East Symposium,
  May 16-18, 2008


 
Anthropology Program

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Roanoke Times, New River Current, Tuesday, April 8, 2008
 
Clues to the past
A Radford University team digs into historic Arnheim's yard as part of plans to use the building as a museum, archive and public space.

By Tim Thornton, Roanoke Times
Photos by Justin Cook, The Roanoke Times
 
 












Radford University sophomore Jonathan Brisendine (left) inspects a shard of pottery with junior Mary Dunford (center) as freshman Mason Kennedy shovels more soil at Arnheim in Radford.










Radford University students sift through dirt at Arnheim.

   RADFORD -- Nick McComas ran his gloved hand across the dirt, sifting soil through wire mesh, looking and feeling for what stayed behind. A rock, a root, then something white -- a chip off a plate no one's used for 100 years.

"If you find one thing, one little thing, that's the hook," Kat Ward said.

Ward, one of the experienced archaeologists who supervised 10 Radford University students at they dug shallow holes in Arnheim's yard this past weekend, knows how sharp that hook can be. Once a biology major, she took an archaeology class and dug up signs of a palisade that guarded a long-gone American Indian village. She was hooked.

Now Ward holds a double degree -- biology and anthropology -- and is about to start graduate school to learn more about how to decipher the detritus and debris the past has left under modern feet.

Arnheim was the home of Dr. John Blair Radford and his wife, Elizabeth Campbell Taylor. The estate that once covered 1,000 acres -- bought from Taylor's father for $100 -- has shrunk to a one-acre patch of ground wedged between Radford High School and the city's library. The area was called Lovely Mount when the Radfords moved into their new home in 1840.
 


The house has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2005. The Radford Heritage Foundation plans to preserve the building and put it to use as a museum, archive and public space. Last weekend's archaeology was an early step in the process.

In addition to being a doctor and a farmer, Radford owned a tavern and a hotel, loaned out money, had an interest in Yellow Sulfur Springs resort and helped open the Southwest Virginia coal fields to the railroads. He was a justice of the peace and helped establish the Episcopal church in Southwest Virginia.

Probably the most important thing he did for Radford was to help bring the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad through Lovely Mount. The village's population more than tripled in two years, and the community's name changed to match to railroad station: Central Depot. In 1892, the area was incorporated as the city of Radford.

Radford's house, perched on a hill overlooking the New River, was built by slave labor from brick formed and fired on site. Shelled by Union troops during the Civil War, legend says it was hit by a single cannon ball, but there's no visible evidence of that now. It stayed in Radford's family until 1930, when Radford's grandson sold it to the city. It became a home economics annex to the high school and had two small wings added to its classic Federal block architecture.

The house wasn't named Arnheim -- the name means "home of the eagle" in German -- until after the Radfords had lived there for awhile. But the Radfords weren't the first to live at the site. The weekend dig turned up fragments of prehistoric relics as well as the broken plates from Arnheim.

The weekend's work was what's called a phase one survey. Archaeologists lay out a grid, planting a flag every 5 meters. Then they come back and dig a small hole at each flag, sifting the dirt and recording what they find.

"It's just opening a small window into the ground," Ward said.

If something particularly interesting turns up, they may come back for phase two, digging 1-meter squares.

"If phase two indicates something's there, you go into a full-scale Monticello-, Poplar Forest-type survey," she said, alluding to the extensive research that's been done at Thomas Jefferson's home near Charlottesville and his summer retreat at Forest.

The people digging at Arnheim were hoping to find evidence of ancillary structures thought to stand east of the house. They found all manner of things, including a pile of coal debris. Jake Fox, a Radford University professor whose students were working the site for extra credit, hoped they'd uncover a trash pit. That's where archaeologists get their best information.

"Most of what people do," Fox said, "ends up in the garbage."

Toward the end of Sunday, the crew did turn up a dump site, unearthing pottery dating back to the early 1800s. They were opening only small windows into the ground last weekend, but the diggers may be back for a broader view.
 

Learn more

  • Radford University anthropology professor Cliff Boyd plans to report on his teams’ findings in a talk at Arnheim at 5:30 p.m. May 22.
  • Hanns-Peter Nagel, director of the Radford Heritage Foundation, also will present a wall exhibit about Dr. Radford and a new Web site dedicated to the preservation of Arnheim. For more information, contact the foundation at 731-5031.

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