Content area
Full Text
After Samantha Rebovich digs in the dirt all day in Queens, she takes the train home to Manhattan. She often gets a lot of stares. "Someone said, 'You don't look like you're in construction,'" said Rebovich, 20. "I'm going to get a T-shirt that says "Not Homeless.'"
Sharon Jacobson, 27, weathers her father's taunts.
"He says 'Did you have fun playing in the mud all day?' But we went out to dinner, and he was fascinated by what we've discovered," she said.
The women are taking a summer archaeology course at Hofstra University that is conducting a field study on the grounds of the King Manor Museum in downtown Jamaica.
Digs have taken place around the large house since 1990, but excavations have been determined by construction demands, said Mary Anne Mrozinski, the museum's executive director.
Archaeologists working alongside crews laying drainage pipes and placing fences have extracted 4,000 artifacts, she said, including a drinking glass stem, two oyster shells and a ceramic plate depicting a child leaping over a wall to escape a dog. The...