AN ARCHAEOLOGY FAIR

AN ARCHAEOLOGY FAIR

A celebration of Archaeology Awareness Month

PROGRAM

Sponsored by Friends of the Office of State Archaeology (FOSA)

and the Archaeological Society of Connecticut (ASC)

October 19, 2013

10:00 am to 3:00 pm

Free and Open to the Public

(A suggested donation of $5 supports the work of the State Archaeologist.)

Hands-on Archaeology Activities for Kids!

Door Prize Opportunities throughout the Day!

Kids' Activities and Demonstrations:

Eric Pomo, Flintknapping

Natural Resources Conservation Service, GPR and Soil Painting

The Putting Penguin, Archaeology Minigolf

Sarah Sportman, Faunal Activity

Door Prizes:

Tickets: $2 each or 3 for $5 Must be present to win.

Signed copy of book by Dr. Robert Ballard; Collection of ASC Bulletins;

FOSA T-shirt; CSMNH & CGSN posters & T-shirt . . .

AN ARCHAEOLOGY FAIR - PROGRAM

Exhibitors:

Alison Guinness

Archaeological Society of Connecticut (ASC)

Central Connecticut State University

Connecticut Department of Transportation

Connecticut Gravestone Network

Connecticut State Museum of Natural History and Connecticut Archaeology Center

David Shortell

Ellington Historical Society

Fairfield Museum and History Center

Farmington High School

Friends of the Office of State Archaeology (FOSA)

Litchfield Hills Archaeology Club and Institute for American Indian Studies

Natural Resources Conservation Service

Norwalk Community College

Southern Connecticut State University

Wesleyan University

Western Connecticut State University

“Connecticut Field Schools”

Speakers:

11:00 - New England Hebrew Farmers of Emanuel Society Site: UCONN Judaic Studies Summer Field School
Nick Bellantoni and Stuart Miller,University of Connecticut

(Nick Bellantoni, State Archaeologist, Presenter)

12:00 - Unexpected Pharmaceuticals: Archaeology at the Beman Triangle, Middletown

Sarah Croucher, Wesleyan University

        1:00 - Western Connecticut State University's Investigations of the Middle
            Encampment Site in Redding, Connecticut: The State's Newest Revolutionary War Archaeological Preserve
            Laurie Weinstein and Cosimo Sgarlata, Western Connecticut State University
            (Cos Sgarlata, Presenter)

2:00 - The Ragged Mountain Soapstone Quarry, Barkhamsted Ken Feder, Central Connecticut State University

AN ARCHAEOLOGY FAIR - PROGRAM

“Connecticut Field Schools”

Speakers:

11:00 - New England Hebrew Farmers of Emanuel Society Site: UCONN Judaic Studies Summer Field School Nick Bellantoni and Stuart Miller, University of Connecticut

(Nick Bellantoni, State Archaeologist, Presenter)

Over 120 years ago, this Chesterfield, CT site was home to a cluster of Russian Jewish families who had relocated from the teeming neighborhoods of New York City’s Lower East Side to make a living as poultry and dairy farmers. Although the community was essentially defunct by World War II, the area still has the remains of the synagogue, the creamery, dairy barn, ritual slaughter house and a mikveh. In July 2012, UCONN’s Judaic Studies Program coordinated with the Office of State Archaeology to conduct a field school at the mikveh complex. These excavations were built on prior work at the site by the Public Archaeology Survey Team, Inc. and Historical Perspectives, Inc. The site is on the National Register of Historic Places and is listed as a State Archaeological Preserve.

Nicholas F. Bellantoni serves as the state archaeologist with the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History and Archaeology Center at the University of Connecticut. He received his doctorate in anthropology from UCONN in 1987 and was shortly thereafter appointed state archaeologist. His duties are many, but primarily include the preservation of archaeological sites in the state. His research background is the analysis of skeletal remains from eastern North America. He has been excavating in Connecticut for over 30 years.

Stuart Miller is Professor of Hebrew, History, and Judaic Studies Academic Director, Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut. He is an expert on ritual baths in ancient Israel and has conducted archaeological excavations at Sepphoris.

12:00 - Unexpected Pharmaceuticals: Archaeology at the Beman Triangle, Middletown

Sarah Croucher, Wesleyan University
This talk focuses on the Beman Triangle, Middletown. Wesleyan archaeology students and volunteers have been excavating remains of a neighborhood founded by free African-Americans in the mid-nineteenth century. One of the unexpected findings has been a massive quantity of pharmaceutical related objects. This talk will discuss the way that we have begun to interpret these objects, and how they may have implications for our understandings of healthcare in late-nineteenth century Connecticut.

Sarah Croucher is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Archaeology, and Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies at Wesleyan University. Her forthcoming book, Capitalism and Cloves, examines the archaeology of clove plantations on Zanzibar. She currently directs research at the Beman Triangle.

1:00 - Western Connecticut State University's Investigations of the Middle Encampment Site in Redding, Connecticut: The State's Newest Revolutionary War Archaeological Preserve Laurie Weinstein and Cosimo Sgarlata, Western Connecticut State University (Cos Sgarlata, Presenter)

During the winter of 1777-78 General George Washington had concentrated most of the Continental Army forces in Valley Forge, but due to logistical difficulties of housing an entire army in one location Washington decided to spread his troops out the following winter. Redding, CT was the easternmost site of the three winter camps established in 1778-79. It was divided into three encampments: the easternmost is today known as Putnam Park; the westernmost was destroyed by modern development; and, between these sites was Middle Encampment. This paper presents 8 years of ethnohistorical and archaeological investigations by

WCSU staff members and students. This work has included a variety of approaches including pedestrian survey, GIS mapping, shovel testing and excavation, FTR analysis for food residues, micromorphology, deed and archival research, GPR, and metal detecting. Sincere thanks goes to the many people who contributed to the selection of the Middle Encampment site as an Archaeological Preserve this past summer.

Dr. Laurie Weinstein is a professor of Anthropology at Western Connecticut State University. She received her Ph.D. from Southern Methodist University. She is the General Editor of Native Peoples of the Americas from the University of Arizona Press, a series that covers the western hemisphere. She has also edited or written many books and articles on such diverse topics as New England Indians and Indians of the Southwest to women in the military, including, The Wampanoag (Chelsea House Press), Enduring Traditions, Native Peoples of New England (Praeger Press), Native Peoples of the Southwest (Praeger Press), Women and the Military in the United States and Canada (Praeger Press), and Gender Camouflage (New York University Press). She is currently working on a book for the U. of A. series on Indians of western CT as well as articles about Native soldiers in the Revolutionary War. At Western Connecticut State University she is the program director for archaeology (which she team teaches with Dr. Bethany Morrison and Dr. Sgarlata) and Director of the Jane Goodall Center for Excellence in Environmental Learning. When she is not teaching and writing, she is entertaining her house full of pets.

Dr. Cosimo Sgarlata is an adjunct professor at Western Connecticut State University, a GIS specialist, an Archaeological Consultant and is currently chief editor for an upcoming volume on encampments, support structures and trails of the Revolutionary War. Cos received his Ph.D. in Archaeology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) and his M.A. in Archaeology from Hunter College (CUNY). In graduate school he specialized in the archaeological Northeast and analysis of (lithic) stone tools.

2:00 - The Ragged Mountain Soapstone Quarry, Barkhamsted Ken Feder, Central Connecticut State University

The 2011 and 2013 archaeology field schools directed by Ken Feder, professor at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU), focused on a 3,000-year-old soapstone quarry site located in Peoples State Forest in Barkhamsted, CT. Before the introduction of ceramic technology into southern New England, natives relied on a locally available, soft stone called steatite or “soapstone” for the production of fireproof cooking vessels. Soapstone is soft and can be easily carved into durable cooking and storage vessels. Technically a metamorphic rock composed of talc-schist, soapstone is found in discrete, highly localized pockets throughout southern New England. In our excavation of the quarry, we located several incomplete, in-place, “unharvested” bowl forms, several incomplete bowl blanks removed from the steatite matrix, numerous quartzite tools used in quarrying the shaping the bowls, as well as cobble quarries where the raw quartzite for those tools was gathered.

Ken Feder obtained his B.A. in anthropology in 1973 from the State University of New York at Stonybrook. He obtained his M.A. in anthropology in 1975 from the University of Connecticut and his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1982. He has taught in the Department of Anthropology at Central Connecticut State University since 1977 where he is a full professor. His primary research interests include the archaeology of the Nnative peoples of New England and the analysis of public perceptions about the human past. He is the author and co-author of several books including: A Village of Outcasts: Historical Archaeology and Documentary Research at the Lighthouse Site (Mayfield Publishing, 2004); Human Antiquity: An Introduction to Physical Anthropology and Archaeology (with Michael Park; now in its fifth edition; McGraw-Hill, 2007); Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology (now in its seventh edition; McGraw-Hill, 2011); The Past In Perspective: An Introduction to Human Prehistory (now in its fifth edition; Oxford University Press, 2011); Linking to the Past: A Brief Introduction to Archaeology (now in its second edition; Oxford University Press, 2008); and the newly published Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology (Greenwood, 2010).