July 3, 2018
Mercado Consultants, Inc. has been providing archaeological monitoring services for the East Side Interceptor Rehabilitation project in the US National Arboretum. Construction and landscaping crews have been ground clearing and excavating to install access roads and these activities must be monitored by an archaeologist. The purpose of this oversight is to assess for the presence or absence of historic, or even pre-historic, human activity. So far, this project has yielded mostly late 19th to early 20th century refuse, such as pottery and glass bottles, with the exception of one piece of possible volcanic obsidian, which if identified as such would be exceedingly rare for this region of the East Coast. Monitoring is on hold at the moment, but is scheduled to continue in the upcoming weeks.