Archeological assessment at Officers' Square digging up a lot of history

The archeological assessment at Officers' Square is about halfway to completion and provincial archeologists have already found things no one knew existed. 

Brent Suttie said it's not surprising they're finding so many items but the dig has been providing evidence of pre-military occupation. 

"We have a coin that potentially dates back to the French occupation of St. Anne's, so likely 1720 to 1750. The coin is still being cleaned but we know it's a Spanish coin which happens to most likely have been used during that era," he told Information Morning Fredericton. 

They've also discovered some lead bale seals which are put on goods to be shipped.

"Because they're lead they're largely broken during that and some of them are stamped with the makers, some of them have dates on them."

The dig is entering it's second phase. The first phase was to complete an assessment of the entire area down to a metre of depth. The second phase is to go and dig deeper in areas where they've determined nothing will be disturbed.

He said he's hopeful the features they find as they dig deeper will be associated with the recently discovered artifacts.

They've found remains of buildings no one knew existed and military uniforms.

"We have a lot of plans for what the British… had built on the site, but there's some gaps in there and we found some buildings that we didn't anticipate finding."

Last week some Indigenous artifacts were also discovered. Those artifacts were disturbed by the late 18th century construction of the married quarters. 

Suttie said the most surprising thing they've found is part of a defensive fortification called a palisade. In research and witness accounts, the palisade was described as being 14 feet high and running all the way around the grounds. 

He said it's too early to say if his findings will have any impact on the revitalization plans for Officer's Square.

"We certainly have found significant things. We don't have a full idea of the distribution of those yet so it's really a little too early to say that."