Archaeologists associated with the preservation organization Historic St. Mary’s City have just announced a major discovery, which they recently unearthed at one of the most heavily explored sites in North America. At the location where Maryland’s first colonial capital (St. Mary’s City) was founded in 1634, the archaeologists have excavated what was for them the equivalent of the Holy Grail: the remains of the original St. Mary’s Fort , the secure structure erected by the first group of European settlers to reach the western side of Chesapeake Bay. Excavations have been ongoing at the St. Mary’s City site, which is now a registered historic area, for several decades. In the past 30 years approximately 200 excavations have taken place in the surrounding region, but no trace of the legendary lost St. Mary’s Fort had ever been found.
That all changed in 2018, when Historic St. Mary’s City director Travis Parno contracted Tim Horsley, an archaeological geophysicist, to complete a comprehensive survey of the St. Mary’s City site. Using ground-penetrating radar , Horsley discovered the distinctive rectangular footprint of the long-lost fort, which he and Parno recognized based on the description of its characteristics that had been preserved in the historical record.
