#136 River Farm (Jug Bay)

River Farm Road, Lothian, MD 20711

Slow start this morning, so beach week will end with just one beach today but it's a very special one.

I'm at River Farm, a property that is part of the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary in Lothian, Maryland. Jug Bay is on the Patuxent River, and the sanctuary, which was established in 1985, is about 1,700 acres.

I first came to River Farm last year with my cousin for an archaeological talk hosted by Anne Arundel County. One of the speakers was kind enough to meet with me a few months later and review our collection of arrowheads and points, all tidal finds from Chesapeake shores. He was particularly impressed by three that are approximately 8,500 years old!

Just around the bend here from River Farm is Pig's Point, a 9,000-year-old pre-historic site, discovery of which has changed our understanding of migration of the Indigenous peoples of the Chesapeake.

Over a decade ago, The New York Times reported that Anne Arundel County's archaeologist, Al Luckenbach, realized Pig's Point was more than just a "feasting site," it was a ceremonial site, also known as a ritual site.

Human bones were found but it was clear that this was more than a graveyard. The small bones were altered or smashed, as were arrowheads and pottery--all deliberately smashed as if part of a prehistoric ritual. Some of the materials were sourced from elsewhere. They were carried here over hundreds of miles, evidence of Indigenous migration. The bones were small, perhaps easier for traveling and brought here from somewhere else. Even points from the Clovis era (13,000 years ago) have been found here.

A private property owner and amateur archaeologist found the first evidence of how special Pig's Point was and reached out to Dr. Luckenbach who began studying the site in 2009. Research continues to this day. 

Come and visit River Farm and Jug Bay. You will feel the history all around. Due to the ongoing research, this property is not open every day. I called the sanctuary this morning and explained that I'd like to take a walk at River Farm this afternoon. The representative gave me a code for a lock at the gate, and the most remarkable thing happened--it worked! I felt the weight of my civic duty to lock the place back up and not mess up! Public access to such a special place, and the collective civic trust that I felt, are a great way to end Beach Week 2024!

A few quotes about Pig's Point:

“Habitation sites are everywhere,” said Dr. Luckenbach, the archaeologist for Anne Arundel County. “Ritual sites — that’ll only be a few places. Boy, were we lucky to blunder into this one.”
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Darrin L. Lowery, a University of Delaware archaeologist and a former Smithsonian Institution research fellow, called the site “almost like a prehistoric funeral home.” But it is more than that, he said. “It’s a very sacred funeral home.”
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“Finding that is pretty rare — actually, virtually unheard-of in the archaeological record,” he said. “Finding the activities leading up to the burial preparation is a pretty unique lens into that moment in time."