Notable Women of Pennsylvania Archaeology – Louise Welles Murray (1854-1931)

Continuing with the theme of notable women of Pennsylvania Archaeology, we now turn our attention to Louise Welles Murray. A native of Athens, PA in Bradford county, Mrs. Murray was by all accounts, an exceptional individual. At age 3 1/2, she entered school and at 18 graduated from Wells College in Aurora, NY while also attending the Moravian Seminary in Bethlehem, PA and Mr. Brown’s school in Auburn, NY. She is credited with bringing attention to the archaeological resources of Bradford County and the town of Athens, which sits at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chemung Rivers near the New York state line in northeastern Pennsylvania. She is also credited with founding the Tioga Point Museum of which she served as the director until her death in 1931.

Mrs. Murray was described as an “ardent lover of accuracy” giving her time freely so that others might share in her knowledge of the area’s early inhabitants. She was an authority on Pennsylvania history.

Louise Welles Murray (1854-1831)

Louise Welles Murray’s interest in historical research appears to have been seeded by the fulfillment of a request made by her mother that she should publish material relating to some French Refugees and their Azilum. Louise’s grandfather was Bartholomew Laporte, a French Émigré and one of the 1794 founders of French Asylum. After 14 years of research, her volume, “The Story of Some French Refugees and their Azilum” was published in 1903. A second edition was published in 1917 with additional information gathered by Mrs. Murray.

In 1882, when Native American burials were discovered in the garden plot of her home in Athens, it attracted the attention of both Louise and her husband Millard P. Murray.   For Mrs. Murray, this was the beginning of a 50-year interest in the native inhabitants of Pennsylvania. The site would come to be known as the Murray Garden site (36Br2). This site, significant for its evidence of early Susquehannock pottery, is believed to have been occupied about 1525.

A selection of early Susquehannock pottery recovered from the Murray Garden site.

Members of the Susquehanna Archaeological Expedition were invited by the Murrays to excavate their garden site in 1919. The results of which she published in two parts in the journal American Anthropologist (1921) under the title “Aboriginal Sites in and Near ‘Teaoga,’ Now Athens, Pennsylvania”.

In 1931, shortly before Louise Welles Murray’s death, she heard Donald Cadzow speak about his excavations at Safe Harbor. Cadzow encouraged her to apply for a grant to carry out excavations in the area, which she obtained with the goal of having Cadzow direct archaeological excavations in Athens. At the time of Louise Welles Murray’s death, she had recently been elected second vice president for the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology.

The Spalding Memorial Library Building which houses the Tioga Point Museum, founded by Louise Welles Murray

Throughout her professional life, Louise Welles Murray exhibited a thirst for knowledge and a desire to share that knowledge with those around her. She strongly advocated for record keeping during archaeological excavations and looked down upon the actions of those who dug sites with no care for recording artifacts or the locations from which they were found.

We hope you have enjoyed this edition of Notable Women in Pennsylvania Archaeology. It is an honor to celebrate the contributions of these pioneers in the field — Frances Dorrance, Mary Butler, Verna Cowin, Catherine McCann and Louise Welles Murray. We hope our readers recognize the significant contributions these women have made in preserving the past. We hope that you’ll be inspired to read some of their publications and learn more about our archaeological heritage in Pennsylvania.

A list of online books by Louise Welles Murray can be found through the library at the University of Pennsylvania.

References:

The Evening Times [Sayre, Pennsylvania]

1931            Obituary for Louise Welles Murray. April 23:3. Sayre, Pennsylvania.

Kent, Barry

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1984            Susquehanna’s Indians. The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Harrisburg.

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Murray, Louise Welles

1921            Aboriginal Sites in and Near “Teaoga,” Now Athens Part I, Pennsylvania. American Anthropologist, 23(2):183-214

1921            Aboriginal Sites in and Near “Teaoga,” Now Athens Part II, Pennsylvania. American Anthropologist, 23(3):268-297

Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology

1931            Louise Welles Murray. Bulletin of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology 2(2):1-3

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .

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Recent Past, Present and Future Archaeology Events hosted and partnered by the State Museum of PA

A Day at the Museum

Over a thousand visitors attended Charter Day at The State Museum on Sunday, March 12. Janet Johnson, curator, and archaeology volunteers were on hand to lead children and the young-at-heart through the petroglyph drawing activity featured at this year’s Farm Show exhibit in the Nature Lab.

Photographer Credit: Don Giles

You’ll have an opportunity to meet archaeology staff at future museum events this summer during the popular Nature Lab series on Wednesday afternoons from late June to early August. Check the State Museum Events Calendar for more details.

The 47^th annual Mid-Atlantic Archaeology Conference is held this weekend:

March 16-19^th, 2017

Virginia Beach Resort and Conference Center

2800 Shore Drive

Virginia Beach, Virginia

www.virginiabeachresort.com

(800)-468-2722

It is not too late to attend. Walk-in registrants are welcome through this Saturday, March 18th at 4pm.

Kurt Carr and member volunteers at the MAAC Registration Table. Photographer Credit: Judy Hawthorn

Conference activities kicked off on Thursday with a conservation and gallery tour of the Mariners’ Museum and Park, Newport News, Virginia, and a Coastal Plain Woodland Pottery Workshop in the afternoon. 

Marcey Creek pottery featured during yesterday’s Coastal Plain Pottery Workshop, Photographer Credit: Judy Hawthorn

Today, regular paper sessions begin featuring Paleoindian research; Ethnoecological approaches; Conservation practices; Climate Change, Natural Hazards and Archaeological Sites; Fairfax Co., VA Archaeology; Prehistoric Archaeology; Montpelier;  and a honorarium session for Dr. Douglas W. Sanford. Kurt Carr, Senior Curator at the State Museum will be reprising his dissertation work at the Thunderbird site as the final morning contributor to the Paleoindian session at 9:40am. Additional activities include the Student Committee Coffee Hour, “Afternoon Knapping”- Experimental Archaeology with Jack Cresson, and the evenings Plenary Session- Augmented reality: how we transformed a reality show into a unique teaching and learning opportunity,  with Dr. Bill Schindler, who will discuss his experience with the National Geographic series, The Great Human Race.

Lucy Harrington, Mercyhurst University presenting during the Paleoindian Session this morning. Photographer Credit: Judy Hawthorn.

Saturday’s paper and workshop sessions continue with topics ranging from Historic Sites; Archaeological Survey; the Biggs Ford Site; Connecting museum collections in news ways with the public audience in the digital age; Current Research at St. Mary’s College of Maryland; Gender Identity in the Archaeological Record; Sherwood Forest Plantation, Stafford Co., VA; Domestic Archaeology in an Early Industrial Context; Public Sites and Parks; to a honorarium session for Leverette Gregory.  The poster session will run Saturday afternoon and the evening  General Business Meeting  is capped with the festive Student Committee Mixer at 7:30pm and Reception at 8:30pm.

The conference ends with concurrent Sunday morning sessions—the Indigo Hotel Site; the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center; and Specialized Analysis of Historic Sites and Artifacts.  

Follow the provided link to read the complete program and speaker abstracts.

The Society for Pennsylvania 88^th Annual Meeting will be featured in our next blog, however, we don’t want those interested to miss their chance to pre-register for the event online or call to reserve a hotel room. Click here for a program listing of the SPA session contributors and presentation titles.

The Pennsylvania Archaeology Council (PAC) Symposium and

The Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology (SPA) 88^th Annual Meeting

April 7-9^th, hosted this year by Section of Archaeology

Radisson Hotel Harrisburg

1150 Camp Hill Bypass

Camp Hill, PA 17011

(717) 763-7117

This year’s PAC symposium, Public outreach- Preserving the Past with New Technologies, was organized by Bernard Means. The Annual meeting presentations begin Saturday morning and will feature the research of several of our staff curators—Melanie Mayhew, Kurt Carr, Kimberley Sebestyen, and Janet Johnson—as well as SPA members and professional archaeologists from across the Commonwealth. Other highlights from the weekend meeting include the banquet speaker, Dr. Robert D. Wall, Towson University, presentation of Paleo to Susquehannock in the Upper Potomac Valley: The Barton Site, and the ever popular Primitive Games to be held late Saturday afternoon on the hotel grounds. The games are an opportunity to test your flint and steel fire making skills, your spear throwing accuracy with an atlatl, or how far you can toss a hammerstone to name a few of the friendly competitions you can participate in as a meeting attendee. Cordier Auctions has agreed to conduct our ever popular fund raising auction on Saturday evening which is sure to hold many a treasure. We hope to see you there!

Atlatl spear throwing, Fort Hunter Indian Day 2013

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .

Collecting in Archaeology

This week in Pennsylvania archaeology, we are going to take a look at important aspects of field work that make or break a project’s use for future research. We will do this by looking at the Zimmerman site, a site that was described in a previous blog that highlighted the excavators, their excavation methods and the importance to our work. For more information on the this site, see our previous blogs titled, In Memorium, Fredrick Assmus January 6, 1946-October 14, 2012, The Werner Collection and the Archaeology of Pike County.

Many of the State Museum’s archaeology collections have been donated by amateur archaeologists who are doing their part to further archaeological research.  One group who did this is Lenape Chapter 12 of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology (SPA). Chapter 12 conducted a survey of the proposed Tocks Island Reservoir area in the spring of 1962. Based on three positive test pits on Marie Zimmermann’s property, additional excavations were conducted beginning in May of 1962. Members of   the chapter  who worked on this site included Fred Assmus, William DeGraw, Frank Loux and David Werner.  Their excavations led to the discovery of a multi-component Late Archaic (4850-6850 BP.) through Late Woodland (1550 AD-1000 BP.) site.  A total of 409 features were identified including many small and large pits, hearths and postmolds. The Section of Archeology has inventoried David Werner’s entire donation (including 12,837 artifacts) and is half way through inventorying William DeGraw’s donation. There are currently a total of 13,397 artifacts and this count will increase as the remaining portions of William DeGraw’s and Fred Assmus’ collections are inventoried.

Zimmermann collection in process

As demonstrated by the numbers listed above, this site was large and had the potential to provide a significant contribution to our understanding of how people lived in the past, especially from the Late Archaic through the Late Woodland period. The archeological site context is most important to our understanding of how and why artifacts were made and used and how humans interacted with one another and the environment. This is the reason that archaeologists map and record in-depth information of how, where and what is being excavated during the investigation.  The Chapter also recorded this site in the Pennsylvania Archaeological Site Survey files along with several other sites they had individually or collectively excavated.  Site recording is the first step in the cataloging process. Once the site is recorded in relationship to all other sites, settlement systems can be analyzed.

  

Chapter 12 went to great lengths to keep detailed notes. Specifically, David Werner diligently recorded and organized feature and artifact records, created artifact inventories and produced detailed maps of the site, which included feature and artifact locations. As noted above, this information is imperative to interpreting how the site was used and the activities that were conducted there.

Zimmermann site map

Mr. Werner’s work and organization is a fantastic example of how to record artifacts and features on a site. By creating site maps for each unit and each level of those units, Mr. Werner was able to identify the relationship between features and artifacts. In conjunction with artifact and feature records, field specimen inventories and Mr. Werner’s labeling system, maps and notes the process of creating the Section of Archaeology’s standard inventory was straight forward. This allows us to have collections ready for research sooner and with a known high degree of accuracy of artifact location and dating. In the Section of Archaeology we used to receive collections with limited provenience (the three deminsional location of an artifact or feature) information often, making these artifacts minimally useful in understanding how and why these objects were being used in the larger cultural context. Though each artifact has a story of its own, as archaeologists we need this context to accurately interpret and piece together the human experience through time.

 David Werner’s Zimmermann site artifact record, field specimen inventory with corresponding artifact

So, as archaeologists, we hope that future collectors may heed our words on the importance of provenience and making detailed notes, maps and even photos of where one is collecting artifacts. Then follow this with a catalog and artifact labeling method in a method that others can determine the provenience of the artifacts. The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Hall of Anthropology & Archaeology currently has a rotating exhibit highlighting individual collectors, their donations and the varying degrees of information given to us about the sites. This exhibit also provides information on useful tools for processing artifacts, such as how and what materials to use to best label artifacts.

Section of the current Collector’s Exhibit highlighting Mr. Assmus

This exhibit will soon be changing from highlighting Fred Assmus, one of the excavators and donors of the Zimmermann collection, to Doris Freyermuth, another avid collector who did her part in providing good provenience information on collections from several sites in the Delaware Valley. These are just a few of the prolific collectors whose collections we have had the honor to work with and curate for the benefit of researchers.  To see more information on Freyermuth and others, please visit the State Museum now and in the future as we continue to change this exhibit.

      

We hope you have enjoyed learning how to organize and care for your archaeological discoveries and we encourage you to visit the CRGIS web site to record your site information.  If you would like to donate your collection for curation at the State Museum, please contact Kurt Carr at kcarr@pa.gov or Janet Johnson at janjohnson@pa.gov.  Help us to preserve our archaeological heritage by collecting responsibly and organizing/cataloging your discoveries. We ask you to join us in ensuring that our archaeological heritage is preserved by supporting public programs and preservation laws so that we can protect the past for future generations. 

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .

The 2016 State Archaeology Meetings

            This week in Pennsylvania Archaeology features a summary of the joint Pennsylvania Archaeological Council (PAC) and Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, Inc. (SPA) annual meetings at West Middlesex, Mercer County on  4/15-4/17/2016.

registration table

            The gathering of professional and amateur archaeologists began Friday morning with the PAC business meeting. Here a variety of issues facing archaeology in the Commonwealth were discussed, foremost among these was the new predictive model for pre-contact sites that is now available on the Cultural Resources Geographic Information System (CRGIS) website. New guidelines issued by the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) created quite a stir but a closer examination revealed these were a clarification rather than significant changes (although the discussion is still on-going).

            In the afternoon, PAC held a symposium entitled Lithic Quarries in Pennsylvania: The Archaeology of Tool Stone Procurement. Frank Vento began the presentation with an overview of the geologic formation of the main types of stone used in the production of chipped stone tools. Chert is the most common type used in the region and it is found in several different geologic formations including Bowmanstown, Shriver, Buttermilk Falls, Monongahela, Upper Mercer and Van Port. These overlap in color and appearance but several can be distinguished by the microscopic examination of thin-sections. Kurt Carr presented an overview of recorded prehistoric quarry sites including how the material was extracted from the ground. Quartz and quartzite were collected directly from the surface with minimal effort, however, shallow mining pits, one to three meters deep were dug to recover argillite and metarhyolite. The Hardyston jasper quarries in the Allentown area required the most effort. Mining pits over eight meters deep were dug to extract jasper for tools. Digging the pit took place over thousands of years, but, as noted by Brian Fritz, managing the spoils pile was the major problem.

conference attendees in the book room

            Ken Burkett, Paul Raber, Bev Chiarulli and Tim Murtha discussed specific quarries and also described the lithic reduction sites around these quarries. Typically, the raw material is frequently located some distance from water and once it was removed from the bedrock, the best pieces were moved to a more comfortable site where the poor quality material was removed and the actual production of tools began. Heather Wholey described the quarrying process for steatite which is a relatively soft rock that was used for stone bowls and ornaments during the Transitional period. Although, numerous studies have been conducted of the steatite quarries, Heather’s investigation included one of the first modern archaeological excavations of a worked outcrop. Brian Fritz finished the session with a model for the analysis of quarry sites. It included a classification system for quarry site types and new methods for analyzing large quantities of quarry debris.

Mercyhurst University students in attendance

            The SPA paper presentations began Saturday morning with a special treat for the audience; a video by Angela Jaillet-Wentling entitled Digging Deeper: Buried Landscapes of Pennsylvania. This is a Making Archaeology Public (MAP) https://vimeo.com/153555041 project sponsored by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. This is a nation-wide celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act. Although, an unprecedented level of archaeology has been conducted over the past 50 years, much of it has not reached the general public. The goal of the MAP program is for each state to produce a 20 minute video summarizing what has been learned as a result of the NHPS. The basic idea of the MAP Project is that archaeologists within each state will work together to answer the question: What are the most important insights into life in the past that we have gained from National Historic Preservation Act mandated archaeology? Digging Deeper reviews the major stratified sites in each of the major rivers of Pennsylvania that have made significant contributions to our understanding of past cultural behavior. This is a must see.

powerpoint presentation title slide

            The Saturday morning session continued with presentations on a remote sensing project of Hanna’s Town by David Breitkreutz. Hanna’s Town is an 18^th century town in Westmoreland County that has been difficult to locate but this investigation had promising results. Chris Espenshade conducted a battlefield archaeology project involving the Brodhead Expedition of 1779 during the Revolutionary War. His presentation demonstrated the difficulties of documenting a battle that included less than 50 combatants lasting less than an hour.  Victoria Cacchione also addressed the difficulties of investigating an historic site located in Michaux State Forest, but in this case, the site was occupied for nearly 200 years. The problem was linking the non-diagnostic artifacts with specific occupations. Charles Williams conducted an industrial archaeology project of the history and eventual demolition of a reservoir dam in Clarion County. 

The last three papers of the morning had a Paleoindian theme. Tom Glover described the environment, especially temperatures, during the Late Glacial Maximum; the bottom line - it was very very cold. Jim Wosochlo conducted experiments using end and side scrapers on a large cow bone. These tools are ubiquitous on Paleoindian sites and he suggested they were used for working bone, especially for removing the marrow. Finally, Jen Rankin reported on the excavation of a stratified Paleoindian site just across the Delaware River in New Jersey. These types of sites are very rare and preliminary findings suggest a very significant site in terms of the data available from this time period.

poster session

The afternoon commenced with a poster session by students from Indiana, Kutztown, Millersville, and California universities of Pennsylvania. The topics included a public outreach project, an industrial archaeology project, a distributional analysis of artifacts from a prehistoric village site and a dental analysis documenting gender related differences in an early Monongahela population.

The afternoon papers began with a paper by Andy Myers and Patty Stahlman documenting a stone mortar from a rockshelter and included a discussion of the possibility of nuts being processed. Carl Burkett, Robert Ilisevich and Bill Black documented the incredible variety of prehistoric archaeological sites found around Pymatuning Swamp. This type of survey is very important because it documents the diversity of adaptations associated with large wetlands. Ingram et al. conducted an investigation of an artifact collection from a Monongahela site that was investigated several decades ago. They examined the horizontal distribution of a variety of different artifact types. Part of the study included digitizing the site records and inventory notes. This will facilitate future analysis of artifact patterning.

presentation of the Hatch award

The final sessions of the afternoon began with a presentation by Brian Fritz, Bill Tippins and Ken Fisher on the Buffalo Creek Chert of Washington County. This was followed by James Burke who converted old photographs, slides and negatives to electronic media from the Carnegie Museum to reveal “hidden knowledge” concerning early investigation, such as, the Burgwin Mound excavation of 1898.  Finally, Dave Watters discussed the contribution of the Thomas Harper archaeological collection at the Carnegie and Amanda Valko, Janet Johnson, Brian Fritz and Bob Oshnock offered a tribute to Fred Veigh who recently passed on but donated his collection to the State Museum of Pennsylvania in perpetuity. It is good that these collections have found a permanent home where they will continue to contribute to exhibits and future research.

The goal of the SPA and PAC annual meetings is to share information on recent research being conducted by amateurs, professionals and students (our next generation of researchers). This year’s meetings were definitely successful in reaching that goal. Sharing research conducted by avocational and professional archaeologists is important for both groups.  The opportunity to hear of sites that the professional community is investigating and the potential for detailed analysis allows for SPA Chapters to learn about current excavation methods. We hope you will consider attending next year’s meeting in Harrisburg, April 7-9, 2017. 

     

  

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .

Recap of Archaeology Workshops 2011

We are delighted to report on the success of the return of our Workshops in Archaeology program. This past Saturday we hosted just over a hundred people from all avenues who just want to learn more about archaeology. Members of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, Pennsylvania Heritage Society members, students, and the general public turned out to learn more at about the Prehistory of Pennsylvania.

Profile of Calver Island from Susquehanna Turnpike Bridge Replacement Project

Presenters for the program included Pat Miller, PhD. sharing information relative to The Late Archaic/Transitional Period. During this period hunter-gatherers adapted to environmental change and increasing population density by developing new technological, social, and economic strategies. Recently there have been several major contributions from sites excavated along the Ohio River and along the Susquehanna River including the Turnpike bridge replacement project. Dr. Miller was involved in these archaeological investigations and their subsequent analyses.




  Steve Nissly discusses the products of  his flint knapping demonstation with Workshop participants

 Workshop participants selected four sessions from a total of eight presentations. A behind the scenes tour of the Section of Archaeology which includes the processing laboratory was also offered. Steve Nissly provided an excellent demonstration on flint knapping that was very popular. Numerous individuals brought in their artifact collections for identification by Doug McLearen and Steve Warfel. This was an excellent opportunity for avocationals to share their site information and associated collections with Noel Strattan and Tom Held from the Bureau for Historic Preservation. Noel and Tom assisted participants in recording site information in the Pennsylvania Archaeological Site Survey and the Cultural Resources Geographic Information System (CRGIS). Dr. Bernard Means demonstrated three-dimensional scanning of artifacts from both the collections at The State Museum and from the Consol Site (36Wm100). Bernard will share the results of this technology in a future blog





Noel Strattan demonstrates the CRGIS program to Workshop participants.



Tom Held shares site recording information



The closing comments delivered by Dr. Dean Snow, Professor of Anthropology, Penn State University were an opportunity for reflection of our understanding of past cultural behavior and the direction for archaeological research in the future. Presenters and participants engaged in discussions of the day in an informal reception held in the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology.

Dr. Dean Snow delivers the closing comments for the day.

This is one of many public outreach programs that our department provides for the general populist. They are always well received and incredibly rewarding venues, but they require a lot of planning and assistance. We would be remiss in not recognizing the many contributors to the success of our program. The dedicated volunteers of The Section of Archaeology provided assistance with mailing registration forms, preparing registration packets, registering participants, organizing and furnishing the refreshments for breaks, and numerous tasks that could not be done without them. Andi, Toni, Sheila, Harmony, Melanie, Ande, Cassie and all did a terrific job! Many thanks to the following businesses Navarro & Wright, URS and TEC,Inc. for their donations which provided printing and refreshments for the Workshops. Thanks to the Pennsylvania Archaeological Council, Mark McConaughy, for his assistance in organizing the funding for this program. Staff of The State Museum provided facilities support and our wonderful security staff patiently waited for us to clear out after a long day on Saturday.

Reception following the programs in the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology

We are making lists and taking notes for Archaeology Workshops 2012 and are already planning speakers and presentations for next year. If you couldn’t join us this year, please keep watch on our blog for this program in November 2012.

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .

Lopresti Collection Donation

This week’s entry, our fourth in a series of donations to the State Museum of PA, showcases a collection of artifacts from Virginia Lopresti. A long time member of the Forks of the Delaware Chapter of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, Virginia chose to donate some of her artifacts to the State Museum’s Section of Archaeology in 2005, and the Museum graciously accepted. One of the earliest recorded archaeological sites in Northampton County, 36Nm11 was first registered in 1967. Over the years Ms. Lopresti has been an avid surface collector on this site, a portion of which lies in her back yard. Virginia has amassed a sizable assemblage of not only whole, diagnostic projectile points, but also expedient flake tools, scrapers, chipping debris of a variety of lithic materials, hammerstones, pitted stones and pestle fragments. From bifurcates to broadspears, the bulk of the diagnostic points imply an Archaic occupation (9000 to 3000 years ago). With 15 grandchildren, Virginia has understandably decided to hold on to her framed projectile points to pass along for them to enjoy. However, the value of the rest of the collection cannot be overlooked, and in some ways they can be viewed as a “more complete sample” of the site. Because there was no bias towards only whole projectile points, this type of collecting provides the archaeologist with a more representative sample of artifacts and can aid in interpreting site types and their function.

The State Museum has no other collection from this site, and Ms. Lopresti’s generous artifact donation contributes important information about regional settlement patterns and culture change during the prehistory of the Middle Delaware Valley.

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .

Susquehannocks at the Overpeck Site (36Bu5)

In May 2007 Lou Farina, Forks of the Delaware Chapter 14, Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology Inc., donated four pottery vessels to The State Museum of Pennsylvania. These exceptionally fine examples of Native American origin were recovered by Mr. Farina and others during salvage excavations at the Overpeck Site from 1963-1967. Located on a terrace of the Delaware River at Kintnersville, Overpeck was a stratified multicomponent archaeological site lost to a soil mining operation.

Figure 1: Lou Farina and his donation of ceramic vessels from the Overpeck Site

Overpeck is perhaps best known for the pottery type Overpeck Incised, a unique Late Woodland type that has been described by John Witthoft (1947), former State Anthropologist and long time member of Chapter 14. Through the efforts of the chapter much information was garnered from the Overpeck Site investigations which has led to the completion of several reports published in Pennsylvania Archaeologist (Forks of the Delaware Chapter #14, 1980; Freyermuth and Staats 1992).

Of importance at Overpeck was the discovery of fourteen human burials, some containing early Contact Period European trade metal in the form of beads and pendants. The remains were disturbed by the mining operation though enough information survived that allows for some interpretation of the burials and their place of origin in history. Comingled with these deposits confined to the upper soil layers at Overpeck were numerous Late Woodland and Contact period potsherds essentially representative of the entire Delaware Valley sequence. Of interest, however, in the present discussion are the four vessels reconstructed by Mr. Farina as depicted in Figures 1 and 2.

Figure 2: Farina donation close-up

The large central vessel is of the Iroquois Linear type common over much of Iroquoia and dates to the circa 13th century A.D. The small vessel at its base, a "toy or juvenile" pot is from the Susquehannock occupation at Overpeck and dates to the Contact period (circa late 16th century A.D.). The two remaining large vessels, as well , are Susquehannock and fit with the Schultz Phase which is also dated to the latter part of the 16th century in the adjacent Susquehanna Valley.

As a side note, there have been other Susquehannock pottery specimens found at the Overpeck Site and many of these are curated at the State Museum of Pennsylvania where they can be studied by researchers and others interested in Native American material culture. The Farina donation of artifacts from the now lost Overpeck Site has added a new dimension to our understanding of Delaware Valley history.

References:

Forks of the Delaware Chapter #14
1980 The Overpeck Site (36Bu5) Pennsylvania Archaeologist 50 (3): 1-46.

Freyermuth, Doris A. and F. Dayton Staats
1992 A Supplementary Report on the Late Woodland Ceramics from the Overpeck Site (36Bu5) Pennsylvania Archaeologist 62(1): 53-61.


Witthoft, John
Nd. The Overpeck Site. Unpublished manuscript in the manuscript files of the Section of Archaeology, State Museum of Pennsylvania.

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .