In some of their final days of excavation at a Springfield dig site, these 20 undergrads helped unearth the foundation of the William Townsend house, a pioneer home built upon his arrival in the area in 1832.

Archaeologists and students from Missouri State University have uncovered one of the state’s earliest homesteads at the McKenzie-Townsend archaeological site in Springfield.

Two previous excavations at the site had unearthed Civil War-era buttons and other 19th-century artifacts, while the actual home these objects belonged to had yet to be discovered. Now, the exact location of the home, known as the William Townsend house, has been determined and its foundation has been uncovered.

Considering that this homestead dates all the way back to the 1830s, much of the archaeological evid

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