ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 4, 1995 TAG: 9512040029
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: & Now This ...
Workers on the new Second Street Northwest project were finding old bottles and relics of the '20s and '30s in Roanoke last week as they dug trenches for utility lines in Gainsboro.
Archaeologists said the discoveries aren't particularly valuable and wouldn't justify stopping the project to conduct a professional excavation. But construction crews have found a Clover Creamery milk bottle with a picture of a baby on it, a big ink bottle, a broken 1936 RC Cola bottle, an English plate, old cold-cream jars and medicine bottles.
Craig Lukezic, an archaeologist for the Virginia Department of Transportation, was concerned when he heard about the finds. He looked at some of the items, as well as old maps of the area, and learned the construction area frequently had changed from residential use to commercial and industrial over the past century. "It's stuff that's just been trampled," he said. "I don't think there's anything of archaeological value out there."
As for workers hauling the stuff home, that is perfectly legal because the site is owned by the city, not the state, said David Dutton of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
Archaeologists with Preservation Technologies Inc. in Salem, who conducted a state-commissioned dig in another part of the Second Street right of way last year, will be watching as Branch Highways construction crews start work along Gainsboro Road. The Salem archaeologists found 30,000 artifacts at the site of the former Burrell Pharmacy last year and are curious to see what else lies nearby. Those artifacts are being given to the Harrison Museum of African American Culture.
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