Stillwater, NY — Archaeologists are hard at work digging for artifacts in a battle-scarred and history-rich stretch of the upper Hudson River, where thousands of Europeans, Americans and Native Americans fought and died during more than a century of sporadic warfare, ending in the Americans’ defeat of the British at Saratoga in 1777.

The archaeologists are hoping to complete their task ahead of a different kind of dig along the river in 2014 for something more recent occupants (General Electric) left behind: polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.