A backhoe bit into a building last week at Aberdeen Proving Ground that had stood since World War II, clearing the way for construction projects that will reshape the look and mission of the base over the next few years.

As the Army at APG undertakes its biggest expansion since that war as the result of the federal Base Realignment and Closure process, engineers have cautioned that moving roads, tearing down old buildings and creating new ones could disrupt artifacts and archeological sites ranging back to the earliest European settlement of northern Maryland.

But some historians argue the area’s history is safer in the hands of the military.

“I can be fairly critical when archaeological sites are threatened, but I’m never worried about Aberdeen,” said Sara Rivers-Cofield, curator of federal collections at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory.

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According to the “environmental impact statement” released by the Army in preparation for the BRAC construction, construction areas around the base have a “high potential for archaeological sites” ranging from prehistoric camps of native hunters to the buried remains of Cold War munitions tests.

If a suspected historical site is found during construction, work stops for an evaluation and, if possible, recovery of any artifacts begins — a job that often falls to Garrison Historian Mark Gallihue.

“It’s not always the simplest matter to just stick a shovel in the ground,” Gallihue said.

The first Baltimore settlement and county seat was established in 1661 along the Bush River but was abandoned after a few decades when accumulating silt made the river impractical for shipping, according to the Historical Society of Harford County. An excavation in 1999 found the remains of a tavern there that once belonged to a wealthy merchant — and also found a few surprises.

“The whole [Old Baltimore] site was once downrange of a live firing range. They even found a couple of unexploded 500-pound rounds there,” Gallihue said. “Sometimes you can move it, other times you just have to leave it there and move to another area.”

Ordinarily, waterfront property such as the Old Baltimore site would have been developed over the years and its buried history lost, Rivers-Cofield said. But even though the Army took over the land 90 years ago and used it as an artillery testing range, the site remained undisturbed beneath the surface.

“I know it’s going to be preserved because people can’t get to it,” Rivers-Cofield said. “It’s not going to be looted; it’s not going to be developed.”

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com