The Herbein Pit :Mysteries of a Prehistoric Trashcan
by Amanda Lembesis, The Londonderry School, Harrisburg, PA , Grade 8
This project was presented at the 2000 Meeting of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, Williamsport, PA.
Hypothesis: the pottery shards will be located at the bottom of the pit, because they are of a denser material than the surrounding matrix.
After scanning the Cat Scan X-Ray films into a computer, the pit could be dissected to determine the location of the precious pottery sherds. It is believed that the sherds are some of the first attempts by Pennsylvania Native Americans to create pottery. They could possibly be from the Early Woodland Period, some 5,000 years old!
Using NIH Image, Image Processing Software to create density slices of the Cat Scan image. Objects with lower densities were highlighted and the pixels were counted in the analysis.
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