CORNWALL, Vt. – The replacement of a concrete bridge on a winding road through farm land has yielded a fascinating find. Archaeologists are unearthing spear points and remnants of fire pits that show that Indian populations used the river plains for at least the last 6,000 years.

“This is a multi-component Native American site. It means people came back here over thousands of years,” said Michael Brigham, an archaeologist with the University of Maine Farmington, which won the contract to excavate the site.

The discovery is delaying the project, but could help preserve the past.

Scanning what’s now farmland, it’s hard to tell that underneath the plow zone are fragments of burned rock and stone tools, or why the flat stretches along the Lemon Fair River – a tributary of Otter Creek – would have been favorable for early Americans.

Archaeologists, however, have long known that Otter Creek was a popular site.

“It so happens that the Otter Creek was very adaptable for early people, for people to live on,” said Duncan Wilkie, an archaeologist with the Vermont Agency of Transportation. “It has a lot of resources.”

Swampy areas yielded filters to clean water and bird and animal life, he said.

“If that’s your food source you’re going to be happy. You’re not going to be on top of Mt. Mansfield looking for it,” he said.

But scientists don’t yet know what drew people to the Lemon Fair River.

They probably settled there seasonally, said Brigham. But was it the river or the nut trees?

“We haven’t found many fish bones in the features we’ve found. And this is isn’t a river that you’d expect to find a seasonal fish run, really,” he said. “It may be nut trees. It may have been that. You can get in for the nut harvest and hunt deer. But that we don’t know yet.”

Once cleaned, analyzed and dated, the artifacts – fragments of burned rock and plant material, charcoal and stone tools – will offer hints to how people lived and what they ate, hunted and cooked.

But that doesn’t satisfy some in town frustrated by the delay, and the cost to taxpayers.

“There’s been talk of replacing the bridge since I’ve been in government, since the 1980s, that’s 20 years,” said Selectboard Chairman Roth Tall.

“It’s like a sore ankle. You bring it up and you don’t talk about it anymore,” he said of the bridge, which he said is still structurally sound.

Wilkie admits in recent years the project was held up by a financial issue over bidding for a contract, he said. And an initial plan to reroute a tight curve on Route 125 approaching the bridge was scrapped and replaced by t-stop at a side road entering the curve to reduce the impacts on the archaeological site, he said.

Also, excavations also been slow due to a clay in the ground and the vast amount of cultural material found.

“This site is pretty significant when you consider most of the archaeological sites in that area are only known for somebody finding something in the field. We’re finding stuff below that level. It’s a very different environment. It’s very time-consuming and very slow. That’s why I wanted the project to be minimized,” he said.

The site encompasses a far larger area than will be affected by the road construction. But archaeologists are focusing on the zone in the path of the bridge replacement and road realignment and removing any artifacts in the way.

Wilkie expects the bridge to be replaced in 2009.

The University of Maine at Farmington has been awarded a $600,000 contract to finish the archaeological work, on top of $100,000 for the initial excavations, Wilkie said. The federal government picks up 80 percent of the cost.

School groups will tour the site this fall and visitors are welcome anytime.

“My argument is this is scientific study. It’s like going to moon. You don’t know what you’re going to find,” Wilkie said.

AP-ES-08-11-07 1333EDT