From the May 30, 2008 issue of The Cape Codder

Student sleuths hit the rocks

By Steve Desroches
Photos by Daniella Garran

ORLEANS - According to Indiana Jones, "X" never marks the spot when it comes to archaeology. But a classroom of students in Orleans begs to differ.

A group of middle school students at Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School is working with the Cornerstone Project, an effort spearheaded by Michael Farber of Chatham to locate stone markers and boulder clusters that might have been used by the Pilgrims as part of a land survey of Cape Cod marking old town boundaries and property lines. The work is part of many community partnerships the school forms with community members.

In an exciting development for these student archaeologists is a large rock in Orleans on the Sea Call Farm property with an "X" on it. Whether the "X" is hand carved or a strange natural coincidence remains to be seen, but the class is eager to find out.

"The Pilgrims might have used this rock between the towns," said eighth-grader Rachel Montoya.

"It was in front of my house," added Henry Von Thaden, also in the eighth grade at the charter school.

The project the students are working on is based on the theory that the Pilgrims drew boundaries on Cape Cod based on the center point in Cape Cod Bay on the magnetic north line in 1639. That line goes from Race Point in Provincetown to Bound Brook at Quivett Creek at the Dennis/Brewster town line. H. Morse Payne, who was the architect that designed Nauset Regional High School, said that a "system of radiating lines" was used to lay out the towns of Sandwich, Barnstable and Yarmouth. And that in 1644 seven families moved from Plymouth to Cape Cod and that what is now Eastham was divided into seven tracts by drawing a line at a 90-degree angle from the magnetic north line. The rock at Sea Call Farm might be one of those markers, say the students and Farber.

"You have to prove that you found 'something,'" said Farber to the classroom of students at the Charter School on Tuesday, where teachers Daniella Garran and Paul Niles are supervising and leading the students' work.

And that's just what the students are trying to do now. The class, with Farber, submitted a special use permit application to the Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources at the Office of Coastal Zone Management seeking to continue research on the site over the summer and next fall. While the application was only submitted this week and no official word from the state, director and chief archaeologist Victor Mastone said that the project needs an approved archaeologist to supervise any excavation on the site. All artifacts, both confirmed and suspected, are the property of the people of the commonwealth and are considered a public resource. That's why an archaeologist needs to supervise the work to make sure that no historic resources are damaged, said Mastone.

However, Mastone said that many of the research methods proposed in the application do not require approval and commended the students on their work thus far.

"I think Payne's theory is a good one," said Mastone. "It's certainly an interesting theory if you can prove it."

The students are already hard at work trying to do just that.