On what is now an unassuming cow pasture about a mile north of Marietta, a vibrant building once teemed with activity. Now, thanks to the work of students in Timothy Trussell's Millersville University (MU) Archaeological Field School, the history of the site is coming back to life.

Students are spending the semester excavating what remains of the Galbraith Ordinary, Trussell said.

"It was likely the earliest tavern in Lancaster County," he explained. "We discovered the site through extensive historical research, and although nothing stands on the site today, we found maps and historical documents that led us to believe that the remains of the tavern could be located in that field archaeologically."

The ordinary - an old English word for a small tavern or inn - was built by a Scots-Irish settler named John Galbraith, who obtained permission from the Proprietorship of Pennsylvania to establish an ordinary in 1725, Trussell continued, noting that he believes the tavern was likely operating before that date.

"My students began test excavations to try and locate the site in late August, and we have been working at the site ever since," he shared. "Once discovering the original foundation, we have opened a large excavation block to uncover as much of the site as we could. The site has been extraordinarily productive, with tens of thousands of artifacts recovered to date."

Among the discoveries have been what he calls "an astounding number" of bones and bone types, mostly representing the remains of meals. Students have also uncovered ceramics, glass and metals, along with a significant number of personal items.

"For example, we found the remains of a handmade bone toothbrush; clay smoking pipe fragments; bone and glass buttons; a comb; and even small brass bells, like those on a Christmas sleigh," he shared. "The ceramics are particularly valuable, since they are easily dated and can be used as time-markers for us to discern when in time a particular soil layer or feature was created."

Many of the items found were expected, including the ceramics, he said, but others are rarer discoveries.

"Finding the brass bells that look exactly like antique sleigh bells was especially surprising," he said. "They likely date a bit later and likely were made sometime during the 19th century, but I have never found bells like that before. One was small, roughly the size of a quarter, while the other was quite large, just a bit smaller than a tennis ball."

The excavation has two goals, he said.

"The first is obviously to discover and study the remains of the tavern and to use the artifacts and information we recover to gain new insights into that early pioneering era of Lancaster County," he noted. "In particular, we hope to shed light on the small details of daily life that are often not discussed in the documents of the time, including lifeways, cultural practices, economics and trade, and other issues that the artifact assemblage may shed light on."

The second goal is to serve as professional archaeological training for the students.

"The MU Archaeological Field School trains our archaeology majors and minors in the practices and techniques of professional field archaeology," he explained, noting that the course includes mastering all aspects of field excavation, mapping and artifact recovery, along with basic archaeological laboratory training.

"Students get to perform every aspect of an archaeological dig, from the first shovel of dirt to the final artifact catalog entry," he said. "When they are finished, our students can join any archaeological dig in the country and perform at a high, professional level."

While the benefits of primary historical and archaeological research into local history are immense for the students, the project has a much wider scope, he said.

The site is considered an "Atlantic World" site, meaning it plays a part in a broader history.

"On this site alone, we have a Scots-Irish tavern owner selling food and drink to German and English settlers, serving them on plates imported from England, paying with silver coin minted in Spanish South American colonies, and serving rum from sugar plantations in the Caribbean," he said.

For every day spent in the field, students complete five days of laboratory work, so they are just beginning the process of analyzing their finds.

"Every artifact will be carefully cleaned, identified, labeled and entered into an analytical database," Trussell explained, adding that organizing the data helps to unearth more about the lives and culture of the people who used the items. "I usually tell my students that, although fieldwork is exciting, the most significant discoveries often happen in the lab when we conduct our analysis and find out things we didn't know before about the people, time period, etc."

But nothing beats the thrill of an on-site find, he said.

"It is genuinely exciting to hold something in your hand and know you are the first person to touch this item in nearly three centuries. One cannot help but wonder who last used this cup, how it was broken or what life was like for the person who used it."