The aim of the exhibit is to interest local and regional residents in Palatine history and in the contributions that archaeology can make to its understanding. Another goal is that the schools and community will become involved in long-term efforts to locate forgotten historic resources, to preserve known resources, and to develop educational programs about them.  

    For information about this summer's field school at the Parsonage, open to high school students with scholarships for college credit, please visit Bard Archaeology Field School.

     Excavations offer the most valuable information to interpret daily life among Palatine immigrants, their descendants, and their neighbors from 1710 onward.  Humans unintentionally leave behind traces of their lives.  By analyzing the things people discard and the things they preserve for others, archaeologists recover the culture of those who came before.  For other local archeology projects please visit at The Bard Archaeology Program

    The exhibit will include results of a project done last summer for the Germantown 300th Anniversary Committee to superimpose maps of the 1700's and 1800's on  recent topographic maps and current aerial photographs, by geographic information technology.

     In November of 2009 the excavation began. We were hoping to find evidence of the original architecture.  We began the dig below the window looking for the original entrance.   The south face of the Parsonage was built in two parts.  The left end was constructed about 1743 and the right side about 1767.

Prof Lindner sets up a level line

to measure depths in the trench out from the window.