About This Artifact
A large collection of pottery shards recovered from a dump site on Lot 12 during Season 5. Rick Lagina, Marty Lagina, Charles Barkhouse, and Gary Drayton searched the lot on Tom Nolan's property, targeting a location Fred Nolan had described on his survey maps as an ancient dumpsite. Jim Meagher, Tom's associate, operated a backhoe to cut a trench while Gary swept the spoils with a metal detector. Charles began pulling pottery shards from the cross section of the trench, quickly amassing a large collection.
The dump was exactly where Fred's maps indicated, confirming both the accuracy of his surveys and the old accounts that treasure hunters had historically used the area to discard debris. The pottery shards represented a mix of types and periods, consistent with a dump that accumulated material over an extended period of occupation. In the same area, the team recovered two decorative iron hinges that Gary identified as the type used on chests or boxes, similar to ones he had found on Spanish shipwreck sites in Florida. The chest hinges raised the possibility of a connection to the three missing chests of privateer Captain James Anderson and to the folding skeleton key that Fred Nolan had found on the island.
The Lot 12 dump site became one of the team's early successes in using Fred Nolan's maps to locate previously undocumented features. The combination of pottery spanning multiple centuries and chest hardware in a single deposit suggested that the site had served as a waste area for successive occupants of the island, from the earliest depositors through the 19th-century treasure hunters.
Historical Context
Lagina team
Where It Was Found
Found at Lot 12, 2 ft depth — Oak Island, Nova Scotia, Canada.
