Courtesy of Danielle Langloism, Wikipedia CCLSherlock Goat
Goats are being used as forensic tools in identifying a fragile brick-lined burial chamber on Maryland’s gated Gibson Island, settled in 1640.
Six years ago, a storm toppled an ancient tulip poplar, exposing the tree’s root ball and several entangled handmade bricks. This year, at the same site, a dog out for run brought his owner a handmade brick from beneath the thick vegetation.
Members of the Gibson Island Historical Society and an archaeologist recently spent three days scouting the grave, which is about 10-feet long with the coffin about 4-feet down. It’s yet to be determined if the grave is alone or surrounded by others.
“When we discovered coffin nails we stopped,” said Jim Morrison, a retired NASA official who is president of the island historical society.
Pottery shards and bits of glass found at the site have been dated to between 1770 and 1819. The grave conceivably could be the burial site of John Gibson, who died in 1819, and for whom the island is named, or the grave of William Worthington, who owned the island and died in 1770, The Baltimore Sun reported.
The site, about an acre which needs to be gently cleared, is dense with poison ivy, kudzu, ticks and chiggers, making excavation by humans difficult, if not impossible. So the society has brought in 29 goats owned by Eco-Goats, a Davidsonville, Md. company.
The goats weigh no more than 120 pounds each and will take the vegetation to the ground without rooting up and disturbing the fragile site. “We don’t know what we’ll find once they’re finished,” Morrison told the Sun.
