A small but significant step toward refurbishing Pemberton’s Headquarters began this week, as surveyors with the National Park Service used technology to map some of the building’s past.

Charles Lawson, an archeologist with the Southeast Archeological Center, led a team of three other researchers in a sample dig of the grounds behind the historical site, which served as the center for planning for Gen. John C. Pemberton during the Siege of Vicksburg.

Lawson and fellow researchers Jessica McNeil and Steven Kidd dug two square-meter sized holes behind the house. Using a variety of computerized instruments in a process known as Ground Penetrating Radar, the rest of the land behind the house is sampled by detecting physical and chemical changes.

Readings are then mapped onto paper, with the color changes showing impulses likely to represent objects found in the dirt.

The idea, Lawson said, is to preserve history without destroying the physical landscape of the property by extensive digging.

&#8220We’re more into preservation now than excavation, so we use things like radar to sample what’s there,” Lawson said.

What Lawson and his team found were wall corners of the building’s original kitchen, with two boxes of fragments of small ceramic tools and appliances from the Civil War period. Another find was the outer shell of a barrel used to collect rainwater from a drainage pipe found underground.

They also expect the radar to detect the remains of the shed and outhouse in use during the Civil War era.

Whatever artifacts are found, Lawson said, will be taken back to the center’s headquarters in Tallahassee, Fla., to be cleaned by federal curators and held for research.

The archeological sampling is part of a process began last month when the Vicksburg National Military Park held the first in a planned series of idea sessions open to the public to discuss how the landmark should be restored and presented to the public.

&#8220We are still gathering ideas and discussing ways to use the property,” said Elizabeth Joyner, museum curator for the VNMP, on hand for the sample dig.

The home was built in 1835-36 and was used by Pemberton in the spring and summer of 1863. Among its uses since then has been as classroom space by the Sisters of Mercy.

Gen. Pemberton met with senior officers there right up to the Confederate surrender of Vicksburg July 4, 1863. Because of its role in the battle, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977.

Purchased by the federal government for about $750,000 in 2003, the site will have to be stabilized and its grounds sampled before any restoration can go forward.

At least four remodeling concepts are under consideration by the park, all of which entail some kind of removal of the add-on that was built during its use by Sisters of Mercy.

The VNMP’s goal is to have the home open to park visitors on at least a limited basis by January 2007.