Very unlikely to have lots of early artifacts. Falling Creek was only  
in use from 1619-22. Jamestown had Europeans living there from 1607  
on. There have been a number of limited excavations on the site to  
date including Howard MacCord (Archeological Society of Virginia),.  
Roland Robbins (archaeologist for the Saugus Ironworks), and William  
and Mary. Nothing from the 17C has been recovered so far. Wm & Mary  
got a few 18C artifacts, and for some reason collected lots of 20C  
glass fragments. The site has also been used for years as a place to  
dump trash. Which actually may be a good thing. Using a metal  
detector is just about impossible. The site is part of the  
Chesterfield County Park System and is not open to the public. It is  
periodically checked by Chesterfield police.

James Brothers, RPA
[log in to unmask]



On Jan 20, 2007, at 22:37, Sunshine49 wrote:

> Thanks for all this, wow, quite interesting. I hope the site is  
> fairly well protected, once people see those timbers in the  
> newspaper pictures, I'd worry about souvenir hunters down there  
> cutting out pieces to take home. I was amazed to see how well  
> preserved they are. Might there be a full archaeological  
> exploration of the area, to find where the 1621/22 iron workers  
> lived? Were they buried at the site? Is it possible it might be as  
> rich with relatively untouched artifacts as they have been finding  
> at Jamestown? Aside from finding the ironworking technology at the  
> site, I would think finding how the ironworkers lived would be very  
> unique. Not merchants or farmers or the wealthy, but ironworkers.  
> People like that probably aren't very well represented in the  
> records. I hope I can get down there one day to see it for myself.
>
> Nancy
>
> -------
> I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.
>
> --Daniel Boone


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