(Image to the right - Students carefully clean the archaeological ruin of an 18th century house in the Historic Town of Salem.  Excavations are conducted each summer by the OSI-UNCG field school for graduate and undergraduate students.)

The Old Salem Museums & Gardens Department of Archaeology, an arm of the Restoration Division, conducts an active program of research and exploration into the material and cultural evidence of the Moravian experience in North Carolina. The Moravians, a protestant religious group, have been present in North Carolina on land purchased from Carolina Proprietor Lord Granville since 1753, on a tract of land totaling nearly 100,000 acres. They named their 100,000 acre tract of land Der Wachau and it soon became known as Wachovia. By the end of the colonial period Wachovia had six Moravian settlements with individual congregations, three of which were formal towns. The first two towns were Bethabara, 1753 and Bethania, 1759. Salem, the third formal town of Wachovia, was laid out in 1766 to be the spiritual, craft and administrative center of Wachovia, and was formally occupied in 1772.

(Image to the left - Outlying structures such as this surviving 19th century slave cabin near Bethania are a source of information about the people who occupied it as well as the relationship between above ground and below ground remains.)

Research conducted by the Old Salem Museums & Gardens’ Department of Archaeology focuses on the archaeological resource within Salem as well as the relationship of this central town to the broader tract of Wachovia and its Moravian population through time. Work of the Archaeology Department includes documentary research, survey of the historic resource, site evaluation, and excavation. Recovered artifacts are processed and analyzed in the Archaeology Department's laboratory, and reports and articles prepared.

Work is conducted to protect the known resource and to develop new information and understanding through careful study. The Department also curates and maintains files, records and artifacts of more than fifty years of archaeology in the Historic Town of Salem and Wachovia.

Newly developed information is applied to insuring accuracy of the restoration in the Historic Town of Salem Museum, contributing to the educational presentations of the Museum, and in the preparation and dissemination of scholarly information. The archaeology laboratory also provides work and learning experience for Interns and Independent Study students.

Be sure to visit the Field School page and learn about the exciting Summer Field School Old Salem Archaeology is conducting in association with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.