No doubt crickets chirped and birds warbled in Maryland fields in August 1814, but underneath the lazy sounds of deep summer there was tension and confusion. The British had opened a new front in the war that started in 1812: predatory raids around the Chesapeake region to disrupt commerce and create alarm among the people.
A new book is being published that alerts us not to the written history of the War of 1812 but to what we can learn from the physical remains, the lay of the land, the artifacts. what archeology can add to the narrative we thought we knew. The book is called "Archaeology of the War of 1812." Sheilah talks with its co-editors, Julie Schablitsky, Chief Archaeologist of the Maryland State Highway Administration, and Michael Lucas, who just left the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, where he was research director for archaeological field projects. He's now Curator of Historical Archaeology at the New York State Museum.
