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by Lucy Littleton-Rich, age 13, Auburn
This summer, instead of swimming in a pool or lying out at the beach, I am in up-state New York living in a 1704 Dutch farmhouse. This Farmhouse sits on the countryside across the street from the Esopus River. The countryside and river are absolutely breathtaking. Yet, my sister and I both feel that the most beautiful and interesting things about this countryside is what lays just underneath the Earth’s surface.
Pieces of history are found just about two inches below the surface of the ground. In order to uncover these ancient artifacts, my sister and I used a metal detector. Thankfully, it does not take much to see below the surface when you have a metal detector. In addition to the detector, all my sister and I needed was a shovel, and two pairs of gloves. We then walked out into a section of the yard that we believed was either a garbage dump of the original settlers, or a possible area of ruins of once-built cabins. We would then put on the gloves and slowly run the metal detector over the ground. If the metal detector picked up something, we then began the tedious process of digging and unearthing the ground. It takes a lot of patience and a good eye to find the tiny treasures.
After my sister and I had collected a sizeable amount of treasures, including a shoe buckle, a knife/saw/razor, a bunch of very old nails, a cigar case screw-on lid, a wedge that splits wood, and a few other objects that we’re not quite sure what they are, we then took these treasures to a local archeologist. This archeologist tried to estimate how old our artifacts were. He said that one can usually tell the age of an object by how deep in the ground it was, but unfortunately he said that he could not tell how old our objects were by just looking at them.
Even though we could not get an estimate on the age of our discoveries, our effort was not discredited. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. The objects that we found were average every day life components for them, but it’s amazing to modern day people because we could not imagine living in a world like that. Present day is completely dependent on so many different technologies that we take for granted. Can you imagine not having a cell phone, an iPod, a computer, movies, or even cars? No electricity at all, and most of all, no indoor plumbing?! Just to be able to see what people of the 1700s used was worth every minute. And to be honest, it is more fun to look at ancient artifacts and imagine how people used to live in those primitive times rather than having to use the objects.
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by Annie Littleton-Rich, age 10, Auburn
This winter, my family and I bought a new vacation home that was built in the year 1704. There, we enjoyed the many things to do which include swimming in the backyard pool, hiking, bike riding, and rock climbing. But the most enjoyable activity we did this summer was digging for buried treasure.
As my sister already told you, we found many things that would interest a big handful of people that we discovered about two or three inches below the surface of the ground. To find Native American spears and other Native American artifacts, we would have to dig nearly two feet in the ground! Once, we tried to do this, and actually made a very big hole, yet all we found were old nails.
The thing that surprised me was that while digging we found a piece of metal, as well as something that appeared to be a big rock. As you can imagine while we were digging, we found many rocks. So I was surprised when my mother took it inside with our latest treasure. I asked why. She said it looks like a rock, but it does not feel like one. When we took our treasure to an archeologist, he said something that surprised me. He said that it was a bone. That day, we found out that when the owners were done with their meals they would use the left-over scraps to feed the pigs. After the pigs were finished with it, the owners would dump the rest. And because there is a little hill near our house, whenever it rained mud would slide off the hill and cover the trash. That’s why we found so much stuff.
Would you like to live in the past? If you said yes, think about the many conditions you would have to live under.
Have you seen ICue.com, NBC’s student friendly, video log that can be used to study for tests or learn about American and International History? Are you a budding Cub Reporter who would like to do a story on ICue.com? Surf through the site and tell us a little bit more about how it could be used and what you think of it. E-mail me at
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By: Savanah Eve Stewart, age 12, Auburn
This is my continued story about Alabama sea turtles. I thought you might be interested to know what other sea turtles that are native to the Gulf Shores area in Alabama and that might have laid the eggs instead of the Kemp’s Ridley. The three most common sea turtles are the green, loggerhead and the Kemp’s Ridley.
The green sea turtle is threatened and has been since 1970. The reasons the green sea turtle and its eggs are threatened are that they are considered a source of food in other countries and they were once at a greater risk of being caught in shrimp nets. Fortunately now, shrimp boats have a machine called a “Turtle Excluder Device” which reduces the risks of them being trapped and killed. If these turtles grow to adulthood they can be as big as 55 inches and weigh up to 850 pounds! They have been known to live up to 30 years but they can live 50 years or more. The laying of their eggs in the Gulf of Mexico usually occurs between the months of June through August. The green sea turtle can lay up to 145 ping pong ball size eggs.
The Loggerhead sea turtle is also threatened and has been since 1978. It too, has been killed for its meat and eggs causing a rapid decline in its population. There have been only a few nesting sites recorded along the Gulf of Mexico. Loggerheads can grow to be between 170 to 500 pounds and 45 inches in length. If they are fortunate, they can live to be 50 years old. One really interesting fact about loggerhead sea turtles is that in the winter they become dormant. They bury themselves in the mud at the bottom of the bays and sounds. They nest between the months of April through September and can lay up 190 ping pong ball size eggs.
It will be interesting to see in August which one of these sea turtles laid the eggs on June 9, 2008.
If you would like to follow or adopt this nest then please go to alabamaseaturtles.com.
26 days and counting until August 3, 2008!