Digging Into the French and Indian War : Archeology: Professionals, students and amateurs are excavating artifacts. A developer with big plans is picking up most of the tab.

Wine bottle shards, musketballs and a pig’s skull, unearthed on a tiny island, are adding to knowledge of a seminal event in American history.

Rogers Island, in the upper Hudson River, has been raked over with everything from dental tools to construction equipment this year. Though the island is half overgrowth, for a time in the 18th Century it was a hub of activity. British soldiers and local fighters used Rogers--in the shadow of old Ft. Edward--as a military base in the French and Indian War.

Exposed layers of dirt are revealing that history: artifacts from soldiers who smoked tobacco from clay pipes, cast their own musketballs and bit down hard on them during amputations, and men who all too often died young of smallpox.

“This was the way they were,” said JoAnne Fuller, pointing to a carefully dug trench in an overgrown hillside. “They went down to the river and washed their clothes. When they were constipated, they took rhubarb.”

Fuller is a sort of historian-guide-cheerleader for an unusual project begun this summer, one that joins an unlikely cast of scientists, developers and the public to shed some light on an overshadowed period.

The French and Indian War (1754-1763) was a watershed in U.S. history; it cemented British dominance over the Colonies. This country could have been called Les Etats Unis had the British failed to drive out the French--yet the war remains much overlooked by the public.

It was the war that gave George Washington his first military experience and his first taste of defeat. In 1754, he was forced to surrender a makeshift fort, Ft. Necessity, and about 400 Virginia militiamen to a French force. He was allowed to march his surviving troops back home to Virginia.

Washington later aided the British in two costly attacks on Ft. Duquesne, at the site of present-day Pittsburgh.

The excavation is intended to alter historical perspective on the war.

“We’re telling people this is what your origins, your roots, look like,” said the project’s coordinator and chief archeologist, David Starbuck. “History does not tell the whole story of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. There are still things to be learned through the physical.”

Starbuck is piecing together the summer’s discoveries, which include everything from coins to bones. Building foundations have been unearthed, showing where British soldiers lived. Cooking and smelting pits have been found, too, yielding fire-cracked stones, animal skulls and freshly cast musketballs.

Next season, the diggers hope to find British barracks foundations and a field hospital that housed soldiers with smallpox when the deadly virus swept the area.

As a sort of unexpected bonus, diggers also found 1,800-year-old pottery and bones from the island’s earliest habitations.

“The archeological potential in this area is just unbelievable,” Starbuck said.

A buckle or button recovered from Rogers Island could have been from the uniform of Philip Schuyler, who cut his teeth on the French and Indian War and went on to be a general in the Continental Army. Future generals--and enemies--John Stark and Thomas Gage, a Briton, also passed through the area. A young Yankee named Paul Revere honed his skills here with Rogers’ Rangers.

The Rangers, a ragtag company encamped on the island from 1755 until 1758, are a focal point of the search. Named for their leader, Robert Rogers, the Rangers were “provincials” enlisted to fight beside the British and their mercenary forces.

Rogers and his men were a scourge against the French and their Indian allies. Half woodsmen, half warrior, Rogers led audacious commando raids against the enemy to the north. He is credited with refining methods of guerrilla warfare that were later exploited in the Revolutionary War--such as cutting down muskets to facilitate movement through dense woods.

“He was smart enough not to stand in one place and get his head blown off,” said Fuller.

The Rangers had low regard for the British soldiers and European mercenaries. They eschewed living with the British on Rogers Island and instead camped nearby.

“The provincials didn’t like the ‘Lobsterbacks’ but they hated the French and Indians much more,” Starbuck said.

Engaging characters such as Rogers and his Rangers all too often lose their luster buried under lists of dates and battles in textbooks, and this makes history seem dull, said Starbuck.

The dig was opened to outsiders early on so that a volunteer, say, unearthing a musketball, could taste the “physical thrill” of history.

Many archeologists keep mum about their discoveries, fearful that “potters” will loot the site. Not so at Rogers Island. Fuller gives tours of the site to help whip up interest in the project and, he hopes, to breathe life into the historical figures who passed through the island.

Perhaps the most unusual thing about the dig, though, is its hand-in-glove relationship with developers who intend to build a marina on the island.

While archeology and development often mix no better than oil and water, William Nikas and Robert Barber, who want to build a private marina on the island, are underwriting more than 90% of the project.

“We call it developers’ enlightenment,” said Nikas, who feels that money laid out for the dig was well spent. He sees it as a can’t-lose proposition. Money spent on the dig not only helps science and history, but should end up making the marina all that more special too.