A study in 2003 along an area of Fuller Road aboard Quantico was conducted to decide if drainage upgrades would pose a threat to archaeological deposits. During the study, evidence of the Marine Corps’ refuse dump from the early 1900s was found including an incinerator used to burn trash.

The curation facility is located at Fort Lee, Va., Army base. It is the regional curation facility that handles all the military installation artifacts in Virginia.

Currently a case of artifacts is on display at the Gray Research Center; however said Kate Roberts, base archaeologist, plans to have two display cases at Lejeune Hall and one display case at Harry Lee Hall. Roberts plans to rotate artifacts between the display cases for about a year, before sending the artifacts back to Fort Lee.

“I have 10 boxes of artifacts from an incinerator that was here on base when Quantico was first established,” said Roberts. “There was a big problem with trash back then and they were trying to burn it. The incinerator they had at that time wasn’t burning things properly. It just was not big enough.”

Roberts said, since the incinerator was not equipped to handle the large amounts of trash, or things like ceramic, glass and metal that did not burn. People started throwing garbage into trenches.

Artifacts including perfume bottles, pill bottles, a KA-BAR,  gun oil containers, gun parts were found during the search. Two ironstone dinner plate fragments labeled “U.S.M.C. 1911” on one and the other “U.S.M.C. 1915” were among the items. Some of the dishes discovered were from the enlisted quarters and some were from Harry Lee Hall in the early 1900s.

“There are far more artifacts out there than what I have here, but instead of having the artifacts lie around the curation facility, I want to get them out there in the public realm so people can see the kind of archaeology we have on base,” said Roberts.

— Writer- twertz@quanticosentryonline.com