Archaeologist digging not far from St. Peter's church yard in St. George's have discovered the remains of centuries-old farm animals.

Archaeologist Dr. Marley Brown III, Boston University doctoral candidate Brent Fortenberry and a team of field school students from the College of William & Mary are conducting a dig in the yard of Whitehall, on Clarence Street, across from St. Peter's Church.

The dig is part of the St. George's Archaeological Research Project, a collaboration between the National Museum of Bermuda, the Bermuda National Trust's Archaeological Research Committee, and the College of William & Mary.

The team came across the bodies of two cows after digging several feet down on the Whitehall property belonging to Dr. Erskine C. Simmons, chairman of the Friends of St. Peter's.

When the first cow was uncovered it was thought to be the body of a horse.

Later, another animal was found beneath it.

On Friday, a veterinarian identified the remains as that of cows.

"He identified them as cows from their hooves," said Dr. Brown, research professor at the department of anthropology at the College of William & Mary.

"Cows are cloven hoofed and horses are not. Otherwise, it's not that easy to tell the difference between cow and horse skeletons."

Dr. Brown said even though the skeletons were cows, the find was still of scientific interest.

"It is not any more common to find the full articulated bodies of cows, than it would be to find horses."

It is unsual because dead cows are usually butchered and consumed.

"Why would you throw two whole cows into a trash pit?" said Dr. Brown.

He said that there were many theories, one being that the animals had died of disease.

The dig is being coordinated by Mr. Fortenberry as part of his doctoral dissertation at Boston University.

The aim of the dig, which is going on for the next several weeks, is to find evidence of a building that sat on the property in the late 1600s.

A bowl was unearthed with the cow remains, putting their burial solidly in the 1780s, meaning they were buried just after the American Revolution.

The dig was not undertaken in search of cattle or horses.

"We are trying to answer the question, what did the earliest houses in St. George's look like," said Dr. Brown.

He said that people in Bermuda did not start to own their own land until the late 17th century, when the Bermuda Company was dissolved and Bermuda became a Crown colony.

"The Bermuda Company tried monoculture such as growing tobacco, and they tried other things like suppling things to the West Indies later in the 17th century," said Dr. Brown.

"None of these experiments really worked.

"In the 1680s the Bermuda Company was in trouble. They had all these investors who were tenants on farms.

"Bermuda was still a company owned town. Ultimately, the charter for the Bermuda Company was revoked, the company was dissolved and it becomes a Crown Colony."

That gave people the opportunity locally and abroad to own a piece of the rock, for the first time.

Whitehall has quite a broad lawn compared to other properties in the town of St. George's. This extra space, made it a good place for archaeologist to study what people did in the town, once they had the opportunity to own property.

The area being dug shows signs that it was used as a trash pit for a long time.

Dr. Lowry said from his research, it was more traditional for farmers to float the carcasses of dead farm animals, such as horses, out to the reefs, to use them as lures for fish.

Dr. Brown said it was strange that a valuable piece of property in the middle of a town, had been used for the burial of two cows.

Before burial, the legs of one of the cows were removed and laid alongside its body.

This was possibly because it didn't fit into the hole that had been dug for it.

Dr. Brown said there was a possibility that DNA tests would be done on the remains, to discover the cows' breed and origin. Tests could also be done to examine the composition of the bones to reveal what types of plants the animals ate.

This information could provide clues about whether they were bred locally, or brought over from England or Virginia.

"We have found other things such as parts of teapots from the early 18th century," said Dr. Brown. "They are very fine and suggest that their owners were of substantial economic means."

Part of the property, which was once four lots, seems to have been in the Jenour Family in the 1690s, moved to a Miriam Bailey then granted to John Trimingham in 1713.

He sold it to Robert Dinwiddie who was later governor of Virginia in the 1750s.

Some 80 years later the property belonged to John Van Norden, who built Whitehall in 1815. "Most of the owners were absentee landlords," said Dr. Brown.

"The likelihood is that the property would have been a high-end rental property for a long time.

"Dinwiddie owned a number of properties and ultimately went away and made a name for himself somewhere else."

Originally, a road ran across the middle of the current Whitehall lawn as an extension of Broad Alley and another road ran between Whitehall and the Old Rectory lots.

Mr. Van Norden had the road diverted to become the Clarence Street of today, because he did not want people traipsing across his lawn. "This is a wonderful opportunity," he said.

"Such discoveries of entire animals buried on domestic sites are extremely uncommon."

Dr. Brown said this summer's field school excavation is the first of several seasons of planned cooperative fieldwork between the College of William & Mary's anthropology department, the National Museum, and the National Trust.