A team of archaeology graduate students from Virginia's William and Mary College have just begun to scratch the surface of what life must have been like in the historic heart of old St. George's.

The team, supervised by the College's history PhD. candidate Michael Jarvis and under the auspices of Bermuda National Trust, yesterday began two digs in the old capital.

The largest of the two is taking place behind the Town Hall while a second site is being unearthed in the garden of the old Globe Hotel.

With volunteer muscle from the National Trust and conservation expertise supplied by the Bermuda Maritime Museum, the team hopes the main site will yield a treasure of old pottery and other daily detritus from 17th Century St.

George's.

In particular, says Mr. Jarvis, the main excavation hopes to determine what St. George's original waterfront looked like and determine where it was located. To do so the team must dig well below the waterline, some six to eight feet, in the hopes of exposing its rockface.

St. George's, despite being the oldest continually inhabited English settlement in the western hemisphere, has been virtually untouched by the archaeologists' trowel, said Mr. Jarvis.

As such it's a town of major international historical importance. While many of the town's earliest structures have been lost, including its first wooden dock -- to termites, many of its early buildings -- thanks to renovations by the National Trust -- still survive.

The excavation of the Globe Hotel's garden is designed to uncover the past of one of the oldest slave quarters in the British colonies. A building nearby housed black and Indian slaves belonging to the Somers Isles Company from around 1620 until it was destroyed in 1699 to build the hotel.

The excavations, which are open to sidewalk spectators, are expected to last about five weeks.

DeShields take part yesterday in groundbreaking ceremonies kicking off two archeological excavations in St. George's.

BERMUDA MARITIME MUSEUM MUS NATIONAL TRUST ENV