The Curse of Oak Island: It’s goodbye to the archaeologists but hello to the treasure hunt at the Money Pit

This week on The Curse of Oak Island, there was an unfortunate development as the team said goodbye to the Oak Island archaeologists. But not before they revealed a stunning revelation.

The last couple of years have seen a lot of work put in by a rapidly increasing number of archaeologists on the island, and they’ve had some fantastic results. The key discovery was the stone cobbled road which was first uncovered last year in the swamp.

This ancient road is believed to have been connected to a ship’s wharf at the edge of the swamp and to have led right up to the Money Pit. The current line of thinking speculates that ancient ships unloaded treasure at the wharf before the loot was transferred up to the Pit. This roadway is a crucial piece of evidence, but it seems as though further exploration will have to wait.

Ever since Laird Niven and Liz Michaels unearthed a piece of First Nation Mi’kmaq pottery, the work of the Oak Island archaeologists has been under threat. Nova Scotia’s Dept. of Communities, Culture, and Heritage (CCH) and the Acadia First Nation Council ordered that all work ceases in a large area surrounding the swamp until they can get their own people in to investigate the site.

Oak Island team don’t want to lose anymore ground on their island

The guys were angered and frustrated that despite them playing by the rules, a large section of their island was now off-limits. Marty lamented the fact that the more they complied with the authorities, the more of their island they lost.

The Laginas gathered all the archaeologists in the War Room and told them that they had decided “to back down on archaeological methods for the time being.” That meant that Miriam Amirault, Liz Michaels, and Helen Sheldon would be leaving the island at the end of the week. Long-time regular Laird will still remain in his role as advisor.

Marty summed it all up when he said that the current regulations as to what they can and can’t do were too confusing. He said it was a big disincentive to find any more artifacts “that would lose [them] the right to explore [their] own island.”

So that’s that for now—no more uncovering of artifacts. But as Rick stressed, “This is a treasure hunt,” and they can use plenty of other “non-archaeological methods” to uncover the loot.

The archaeologists had a parting gift for the team. They had recently uncovered a tree root that was embedded on the cobblestone road, which could be carbon-dated to indicate the age of the structure.

Money Pit and stone road were likely built at the same time

Craig Tester triumphantly revealed the time span was from 1474 to 1638. Ian Spooner suggested that give or take about 50 years, that’s a very clear indicator as to the age of the road, which is well before the initial discovery on the Money Pit.

It’s also a very similar timeframe to the wood recently found in the Money Pit that was dated from1488 to 1650. This all suggests that the Money Pit and the cobblestone road were built at the same time, probably by the same people and for the same function. This gives real credence to the above theory.

The next few weeks are going to be super exciting as the team channel all their efforts into the Money Pit and digging up that lost treasure. Fingers are crossed that the archaeology guys can make a comeback in the near future, but as Rick said, “This is a treasure hunt!”

The Curse of Oak Island airs at 9/8c on History.