Digging into Kent Island’s Past HOW LOCAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPERTS AND ENTHUSIASTS ARE KEEPING NEARLY 400 YEARS OF HISTORY ALIVE BY ANNE MCNULTY | PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEPHEN BUCHANAN
rchaeologist Dr. Darrin Lowery sits behind his desk in his office lined with display cases of artifacts he’s found during his career. Affiliated with the University of Delaware, where he works with graduate students, and working as a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution, he has a wealth of knowledge about geology, archaeology, and history. Born in Easton, Maryland and raised on Tilghman Island, his story begins while growing up in the ’70s, when he tagged along with his father to look for artifacts on Tilghman and Poplar Islands. “My spark came when I was 13,” he says. “I was watching a program on PBS called Odyssey, which would be called Nova today. The subject dealt with [wooly] mammoth remains found in New Mexico, which were about 13,000 years old.” That program greatly influenced him. “What hooks you,” he says, “is the question—‘Why?’ Then that cascades into many ‘Whys.’” After he received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Delaware, he was ready to begin answering some of those Why questions. “I was a newbie fresh out of school in 1990, when I began working with some of the Kent Island Heritage Society members—Bill Denny, Audrey Hawkins, Marty Gibson, and Mary White.” They explored the fields and shores of the island looking for tangible evidence of its history. He knocked on property owners’ doors and convinced them to give him permission to walk their fields and farms, and he managed to explore about 100 acres daily. He walked up the fields and then back down, which averaged 15–18 miles a day. whatsupmag.com | March 2020 | What’s Up? Eastern Shore
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