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Time Team America

Home » Site Reports » Fort James

Fort James Gallery

Julie excavates a privy Colin sketches musicians give a trench-side concert excavating exposed wall reviewing the geophysics results backhoe opens a new trench Eric takes a soil sample GPS site mapping videographer lends a hand reenactor uniforms placing a stone monument to mark the location of Fort James group photo

Incident Room

Area Map

Site Updates

Final Thoughts
Site Update: July '09
Fort James Archaeology Report (PDF 13M)
Fort James Geophysics Report (PDF 2.5M)

Dig Diaries

Cutting-Edge Tools

Meg Watters Geophysicist Meg Watters talks more about some of the advanced technologies showcased at Fort James.

Archäologie Für Alles

Steve Find out what Chelsea Rose remembers most about the Fort James dig.

Behind the Scenes at Fort James

Steve Adrien Hannus shares his thoughts about his week at Fort James.

Fort James, South Dakota

In 1865, a unit of cavalry soldiers thought they had volunteered to fight in the Civil War. Instead, they found themselves sent west to keep the peace between incoming pioneer settlers and the Sioux Indians in what is now South Dakota. Upon their arrival, the soldiers built Fort James, one of the few stone forts on the American frontier. The fort's quartzite walls still peek out from under a grassy field that seems to have somehow survived intact. The site has never been excavated but experts believe that the fort's remains hold a time capsule of information about life on the early frontier. Time Team America traveled to South Dakota on a rescue mission: to find out how much of the fort survives and how big an area it covers so that the site's archaeology can be protected for future research.

Group Shot

Why We Went There
Preserving a piece of frontier history.

Group Shot

Historical Background
More about Fort James and the Dakota War.

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