Island Field site archaeological work in late 1960s

Nick Roth’s article, “Unearthing the past,” detailed historic gravesite finds at the 17th century homestead called Avery's Rest near Rehoboth Beach Country Club. Smithsonian Institution officials described the finds as among the finest in the Chesapeake region.

The story and photos of skeletal remains put us in mind of the Island Field archaeological site near South Bowers in Kent County. This photograph shows archaeologists at work in the late 1960s on graves in the extensive cemetery there.

The cemetery was associated with a Native American village dating back to the ninth century AD (800s). The cemetery and its gravesite were considered so notable that the state of Delaware constructed a museum in about 1973, with the Island Field name over the revealed remains. The site drew thousands of visitors including school children studying Delaware history.

But in 1986, members of Delaware's Native American Nanticoke tribe protested the open display of graves in a sacred site and asked that the facility be closed, out of respect to their ancestors. State officials listened and agreed, and the Island Field museum site is no longer open to the public.