I tried digging a test pit in my backyard and hit a buried stone wall

Last month I finally got around to digging a small test pit in my backyard near Richmond, VA, just to see if anything was in the ground before I put in a garden. I picked a spot about 3 feet from the old fence line and went down maybe 18 inches. Right as I was about to give up, my shovel hit something hard that sounded hollow when I scraped it. I cleared away some dirt and found a roughly stacked fieldstone wall going deeper. I got excited thinking it might be an old foundation from the 1800s, but after checking with a local archaeologist I know, he said it's probably just a collapsed retaining wall from the 1950s when they built the neighborhood. Still, I learned how easy it is to misread a basic stone feature as something ancient. Has anyone else here thought they found something major only to have a reality check?

2 comments

2 Comments

bethj445d ago

Classic. Thought I found a colonial well once. Just an old trash pit.

oliver_anderson5d ago

Wait, you actually called an archaeologist for a rock wall? That's a pretty big swing for a homeowner. I guess it's better than that guy last year who thought his cracked septic tank was a civil war bunker.