UNC archaeologists uncover artifacts from 1800s dining hall

Just outside of New East Hall, the University’s archaeologists and students are uncovering one of the first buildings constructed on campus. 

University researchers Heather Lapham and Mary Elizabeth Fitts are leading the excavation to discover remnants of Steward’s hall — the University’s first dining facility.

Steward’s Hall, built in 1794, was the second building completed on campus. It served as a dining hall and commons area for students until 1816, when it was repurposed as a private boarding house. By 1847, the structure had been dismantled, leaving behind buried remnants. 

Fitts said the current excavation was spurred after plans for a new park bench in the area began and bits of artifacts were discovered.

Ben Arbuckle, associate chair of anthropology, said archaeology is getting the ruins of something and piecing together a story from that. 

 “Archaeologists will take historical texts when they're available, and then also do excavations, and look at the physical remains in the ground to reconstruct how people were living, what they were actually doing,” he said.

Although most structures around Steward’s Hall have remained over the centuries, such as the Old Well and South Building, the former dining hall has largely faded out of memory. According to Lapham and her colleagues, the food was not very good and quite unpopular among students at the time.

Some accounts of Steward’s Hall include complaints that there was “invariable service of mutton and of bacon too fat to be eaten.”

Lapham said that among the discoveries are pottery shards, window glass and animal bones.

“We have a bag somewhere with a number of pig bones in it,” Lapham said. “And we had a pig tusk come out [Tuesday].”

Fitts said that it is impossible to recover every artifact in an archeological dig. Soil samples from the initial dig are sieved — or sifted —until the artifacts can be collected before they are washed, studied and kept for future exhibits or collections. 

“We're very easily careful digging where we did because we know we're keeping a permanent record. We're keeping all the things forever, and the permanent record of all the photos and all the information we generate,” Fitts said.

Campus archaeology has contributed to at least eight sites in the past decade. Previous excavations have uncovered artifacts around McCorkle Place and the site of the old Eagle Hotel, now Graham Memorial. 

“We have everything washed up, so probably, I'm guessing, three to four weeks with everything else we have going on is [when] we'll invite folks back and they can see all the artifacts that came out and we'll have more interpretations,” Lapham said.

Some of the artifacts discovered from the site are currently displayed at Ancient North Carolinians, a virtual museum that shares aspects of N.C. history, as a part of the UNC’s Hidden Campus greater exhibit. 

The dig is also a way for volunteers at the UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology to gain hands-on experience.

Snow Liu, a junior studying communications, and a volunteer at the Archeology Laboratory, said he looks forward to developing his archeology skills. Liu began working on the site on Friday, following an email sent on Thursday about the opportunity.

Liu said volunteers learn skills such as washing and categorizing the artifacts, saying he was looking for pottery shards and metals and trying to avoid unnecessary, irrelevant discoveries like rocks and plastic.

Arbuckle said archeology finds the remains revealing the lives of regular people, not just elites, telling their real stories. 

“[Archeologists are] relevant to both ancient, the modern and new world, the old world," he said. "It's just another way to know more about the world through its either recent or distant past."

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