(I have no illusion that anyone will read this report, but I wanted to put it up anyway. It’s my BIG term report for a class I took. I got an A. The professor asked for 12-15 pages; I ended up with 40 including diagrams which I’ll give you if interested, including a photo of the projectile report I found. Oh heck, I added it at the very end. )
David Ader
Introduction to Archaeology, ANT 121
Norwalk Community College
Spring Semester, 2019
Introduction
In this report I hope to establish the nature of prehistoric occupation at the Gallows Hill #1 site. It is my belief that different groups occupied the site in two distinct periods: the late Archaic and the late Woodland. The late Archaic occupations (note the use of the plural) probably had the longer timeframe of a few hundred years based on the lithics/projectile types found. The late Woodland occupation appears to have been briefer and perhaps with only one group at the site. I believe occupation took place in the autumn for a short period, a few weeks at most perhaps, and was more a hunting camp as opposed to a permanent site.
Manufacturing activity indicates manufacturing took place at the latter stages of the process and was mainly to repair, refine and repurpose tools made of raw materials acquired and initially worked elsewhere in the early stages of the manufacturing process.
The Gallows Hills site is located just south of, Gallows Hill Road in Redding, Connecticut. The start of the site is within 20 yards of the road and extends, via test pits, at least 75 yards from the road. It is on a small hill, just shy of one mile west of the intersection of Gallows Hill Rd and Lonetown Rd (Rte. 107) on land owned by the Town of Redding and Nature Conservancy. The surrounding area is residential on large, wooded, plots of land with conservation land nearby (as well as containing the site itself. (see highlighted areas on Figures 1 -3)
In 1999, a stage 1 Archaeological Reconnaissance Survey was conducted by Professor Ernest A. Wiegand on behalf of the ironically names Arrowhead Development Corporate, a land developer and the property’s then owner. Three prehistoric sites were discovered that year with all three located in the area surrounding a small wetlands through which two stream flow.
The Town of Redding and Nature Conservancy acquired the land in 2001. Formal excavation of the site began in 2000 under the auspices of Professor Wiegand and has continued unabated since with his students and volunteers. In addition to prehistoric artifacts uncovered, there have been contact period/historic artifacts found at the site. These include 18th century delftware, English slipware, and salt glazed stoneware. Some of these link to artifacts found at John Read’s Lonetown Manor. The town of Redding is named for Read, one of the first European residents of the town, who bought 500 acres from a Native American with the name Chickens Warrups, a colorful character indeed.
It is at least worth noting how the Gallows Hill got its name. This part of Connecticut was under the control of General Israel Putnam, who commanded 3,000 patriots in a winter encampment in 1778-79 in Redding itself. The area, too, had its share of loyalists who conveyed intelligence to the British. This must have been a rather rife problem as Putnam decided to make an example of the first spies that were caught. For our purposes, i.e. the naming of Gallows Hill, the relevant scoundrels were England-born Edward Jones and John Smith. (Presumably their real names, though “Alias Smith and Jones” was a short-run TV show in the late 1960s!)
Jones was accused of supplying meat and produce to the British in nearby Westchester County in New York and spying on Putnam’s encampment. Smith had been in a Connecticut Patriot unit but apparently deserted in a plan to join the British as a Tory. In his court-martial he said he’d do it all over again. Smith was just 17 years of age.
On February 16, 1779, Jones was hanged on what would be named Gallows Hill. Smith was shot nearby, 23 musket balls are said to have entered his body, causing his clothes to catch fire.
Site Setting and History
The three sites uncovered by Wiegand would become Gallows Hill sites #1, #2 and #3. Gallows Hill #1 was dug in 1999-2000, and then from 2002 to present by his students and Norwalk Community College Archaeology Club members.
Gallows Hill #2 is on a large area on a ridge west of Gallows Hill #1 (GH1) and contained Wading River and Levanna projectile points and bifaces. Pretty much all of the tools and debitage are of quartz.
Gallows Hill #3 is in a small area overlooking the stream that drains the wetlands and contained just a few pieces of quartz debitage. We will focus on GH1, the site my group excavated. GH1 sits on a relatively flat area, approximately one acre in size, on a small hill with an elevation around 520 feet above sea level. From the stream and wetlands to the peak, the elevation rises from 440 feet to 530 feet. (see Figure 4), The site is just south of Gallows Hill Rd with an historic stonewall between it and the road itself. There are two streams flowing south on either side of the site, which meet about 0.25 miles south of the site. The stream to the east (no name) appears to flow throughout the year. It flows through a conduit under Gallows Hill Road and so its flow undoubtedly has changed over the years, especially with residential development nearby. The stream to the west is small, more of a brook, and flows through a marshy area. Again, what that was like in ancient times is impossible to determine, but the proximity of the water to the side was likely a draw for the inhabitants. After the streams meet, they flow due south into the Saugatuck River in the Saugatuck Falls Natural Area.
Second growth deciduous trees are on the site. I noted shagbark hickory and oak trees, both of which produce edible mast for humans and animals like deer, turkeys, bears and squirrels. The site had once been open land, most likely used for pasture as the presence of rocks and hilly nature would have prohibited planting of fields. The fieldstone walls were probably built between 1780-1820 and support the idea that the site was once used as farmland
The Connecticut Environmental Conditions Online soil survey map marks the predominant soil type as “61B” or Cheshire Fine Sandy Loam on a 3-8% slope and “73C” or Charlton-Chatfield Complex, 3-15% slope, very rocky. Immediately to the southeast, just on the other side of the stream, the soil is marked as “52C” or Sutton Fine Loamy, 2-15%, slopes extremely stony. Immediately to the west, on the other side of that stream/marshy area, the soil is marked as “73E” or Charlton-Chatfield Complex, 15-45%, slope very rocky. (see Figure 5)
According to the USDA’s Official Soil Survey Descriptions ,“The Chatfield series consists of well-drained soils formed in loamy melt-out till. They are moderately deep to bedrock. They are nearly level to very steep soils on bedrock-controlled hills and ridges. Slope ranges from 0 to 70 percent. Crystalline bedrock is at depths of 50 to 100 cm. Saturated hydraulic conductivity is moderately high or high in the mineral soil. Mean annual temperature is about 9 degrees C, and mean annual precipitation is about 1205 mm.” (*Till or glacial till is unsorted glacial sediment. Till is derived from the erosion and entrainment of material by the moving ice of a glacier. It is deposited some distance down-ice to form terminal, lateral, medial and ground moraines.)
This rather dry description is consistent with our excavation work. We encountered broken up schist/bedrock from the surface to 50 cm (the extent of our depth).
There are the likely remains of a cellar hole, which has been excavated to reveal historic artifacts. This feature lacks a well or evidence of an outhouse that would typically be expected from a colonial structure. There is the prospect that this represents the remains of a native family, certainly a poor family (possibly early African Americans). There were freemen living in Redding according to early census reports in this area.
What makes the possibility of a native-American structure compelling is the very lack of well or outhouse; Natives in contact period were in a transitional phase and had not used outhouses or wells (given the proximity to water sources so close by). There are historic reports of natives working on the farmland owned by residents, including John Read who once owned the land.
In his history of Redding, Charles Burr Todd wrote that before the colonists arrived, the land was “claimed by a petty tribe of Indians, whose fortified village was on the high ridge a short distance southwest of the residence of Mr. John Read. This tribe consisted of disaffected members of the Potatucks of Newtown and the Paugussetts of Milford, with a few stragglers from the Mohawks on the west.”
In excerpts of Todd’s work, Chicken Warrups was also known as Sam Mohawk and may have been a Mohawk sagamore who fled that tribe, settling in Greenfield Hill, today a part of Fairfield, but killed another native there and fled to Redding. It is not clear that the site was owned or occupied by Warrups, or even suggested. However, what is notable is that at the time of contact, members of various disaffected Connecticut tribes seem to have established themselves, moving ahead of and away from, encroaching colonists. This may be part of the story of the site; effectively, refugee natives may have established themselves on this land, which wasn’t particularly good for farming, and worked as laborers as needed.
There is evidence of animal life around the site. Skunk cabbage around the streams and marsh would attract bears. Between November 2017 and September 2018, there were 86 bear sightings in Redding (Redding Patch, 2018). We encountered scat from deer, coyotes and the usual small fauna – squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits – are abundant. Within a short walking distance, oak and hickory trees provide mast for animals. I saw a flock of turkeys one morning on Gallows Hill Road.
Research Goals and Methodology
Goals
I hope to give insight into the list of questions that follows.
- What is the culture history of the site?
- What were the activities conducted at the site?
- What was the nature of the lithic manufacturing activities at the site?
- What was the diet of the site’s various occupants?
- In which seasons was the site occupied?
- What type of site was this in terms of function?
- What difficulties did we encounter and what further suggestions can we make regarding research methods and goals?
Methodology
Test pits were determined by an arbitrary sampling of the site. The pits were made in a 40 meter by 45 meter area (Gallows Hill #1) with each 50 cm x 50 cm test pit at, generally, 5 meter intervals in a grid formation (see Figure 6). The site grid was determined with a sighting compass and tape.
Shovels, trowels, brushed and other small hand tools were used, though shovels were mainly used in the early test pit excavations. The test pit excavated matrix was sifted through 1/4” screens. Subsequently, the 1 meter x 1 meter units were dug exclusively with trowels and brushes and the matrix screened with 1/8” screens.
Daily field notes were taken on material identified as created or used by humans on the site. Photographs and drawings were made as well of features and artifacts in situ. (see plates 1-2 for an example of our excavating a Levanna point.)
Description of Soil Stratigraphy
We used a metric or arbitrary approach to stratigraphy, subdividing the layers into arbitrary units of 10 cm each down to the final depth of 50 cm. The upper layer of ‘matrix’ – 0 to 8 cm — was mainly forest duff and humus, with the deeper portion – 8 to 10 cm — starting to touch into generally damp sandy loam of a brownish yellow color. From 10-30 cm the matrix was more of a yellow fine sandy loam with ample amounts of broken up bedrock, schist, as well as large such rocks that we worked around.
We came across narrow roots from surrounding or prior trees, worms and acorn shells as we dug. This presents evidence of bioturbation, intrusion into the stratigraphy. Further, there were reports of mice making homes in the soil (Weigand, personal communication) and we observed squirrels and chipmunks around the site, which could have contributed to disruption.
Results of Investigations –
Features
Six features were found, all of which were bowl-shaped pits containing charred wood identifying them as fire pits. They vary both in size, ranging from 25 cm in diameter to 30 cm, and in the originating depth of the uncovered charred wood fragments, ranging from 19-20 cm in depth to 30-60cm in Feature 4. Feature 3 contained fire-cracked rocks. The average of charred remains is about 10 cm in depth from origination to the top of the remains. (see Figure 6)
There were charred bits of hickory nutshells in and adjacent to two features, and also found elsewhere on the site though not in associated with known features. Also, there were calcined bones (figure 8) in and around some of these pit features, but also found elsewhere on the site. The nutshells, bones and clamshells were concentrated around the area near the footprint of the structure and so associated with the historic times.
Charred wood from Feature 3 has been radiocarbon dated to 1930 BC. Charred wood from Feature 6 has been similarly dated to 1052 AD.
Artifacts
Lithic debitage made up the bulk of human-impacted material uncovered, but several artifacts were found including projectile points, broken projectile points and tips, bifaces and fragments of bifaces.
Wear pattern on most of the utilized flakes are consistent with a unidirectional motion, such as would be used for scraping or planning on soft material likes hides, meat, soft plant tissue. Three end scrapers were found with a wear pattern (small step and scalar flake scars) consistent with use on hard materials like wood, bone or antlers. A few utilized flakes show a similar wear pattern.
A mica schist cobble fragment was uncovered in N81W123 and has been interpreted as a grinding stone for processing seeds and nuts.
The types of artifacts are important as are the depths at which they were uncovered (see Table 3). I will focus on the point types and associated periods (Wiegand, class 2019, Major Aboriginal Point NY state/plate 6, Ritchie, 1971). - LeCroy bifurcated base point, 1 point – Early Archaic, 8,000-6,000 BC.
- Wading River Points, 32 points – Late Archaic, 4,000-1,000 BC.
- Squibnocket stemmed and triangle, 6 points, – Late Archaic, 4,000-1,000 BC.
- Sylvan side-notched, 2 points – Late Archaic, 4,000-1,000 BC.
- Burwell, 1 point — Late Archaic, 4,000-1,000 BC.
- Beekman triangle, 8 points – Late Archaic, 4,000-1,000 BC.
- Levanna, 1 point – Late Woodland, 1,000 AD to contact, though did start to appear in late Middle Woodland era. This was an arrowhead point (Ritchie, 1971) and the principal point in the late Woodland period.
- Untyped Broad-bladed contracting stemmed, 1 point – this seems to be consistent with the Late Archaic to early Woodland period (projectilepoints.net)
We found a Levanna point with both corner barbs broken as well as a bit of the tip, though it was readily recognizable as a Levanna given its size, dimensions (nearly as broad as they are long), basal concavity and material (milky white quartz). These descriptions come from Ritchie in “New York Projectile Points.” Ritchie further relays that this type of point was characteristic of the Late Woodland period, 900 AD, though it first started to show up in the late Middle Woodland period – 700 AD. It became the principal Late Woodland point over much of the area in question (southern New England). This is, Ritchie writes, “unquestionably an arrowpoint” and very finely chipped by pressure flaking.
I mention that as we found in the same pit many small quartz chips that likely are the result of pressure flaking. We don’t know if the broken barbs and tip are a result of the manufacturing process or use, but it would seem unusual for all three parts to have been broken in manufacturing and the creator of the point continuing with the work. I prefer the Occam’s Razor principle in this example and err on the side that it was broken in use.
Debitage
There was a great amount of tertiary flakes and miscellaneous debitage. I believe this points to the final stages of shaping and thinning and repair and recycling, per the Errett Callahan chart. I will discuss my interpretation of this pattern in the next section. 93.3% of all the debitage was made up of Tertiary flakes, Blocks and Shatter and Miscellaneous Debitage. (see table 2)
Quartz represents 97.7% of all the debitage excavated at the site and is represented in each class and size. The other materials were not represented in all classes and sizes and, indeed, absent from most. Having said that, when those other materials show up they are overwhelmingly in Tertiary Flakes and Miscellaneous Debitage.
We saw no evidence of raw materials in either the form of cobbles or
bedrock formations at the site indicating that raw materials were brought in from elsewhere.
It is perhaps worth noting what we didn’t find. We didn’t come across features other than the fire-pits such as postholes. Nor did we find evidence of pots, either steatite or ceramic.
We did find one large well-used hammerstone. Of course, large hammer- stones would indicate manufacturing activity at an earlier state of process. However, it was just one and the lack of others does suggest that the site was not used much for the early processing and that view is supported by the lack of much in the way of primary or secondary or the raw materials. Presumably the occupants had smaller hammerstones – portable ones – which they took with them. Such smaller stones, too, would indicate more delicate percussion techniques, as opposed to working cobbles or veins of knappable material from the bedrock.
I want to mention that the center of the site, blocks A and B, appear to have been the focal point of activity given the amount and diversity of material found in those relatively small areas. Since the points found there and radiocarbon dating of its fire pit are consistent with the late Archaic era, I suggest that these blocks, and areas around them, saw the most intense occupations during that time spanning a few generations and cultures of the late Archaic. Block H appears to be more consistent with the late Woodland phase given the Levanna point found there and radiocarbon date of the fire pit’s charcoal remains (see accompanying figures).
Since I want to focus on the prehistoric occupants, I won’t spend too much time here with the historic artifacts found around the depression area (shaded in the accompanying figures). There is no evidence of a stone foundation so we suspect a dirt floor was there. Most of the historic artifacts were found in and around that depression, and most of those were ceramic materials which are consistent an occupation around 1750-80 (Table 4). As stated earlier, the property was owned by John Read and his family is known to have employed Native Americans. This would tend to encourage the idea that such people occupied the site given the absence of evidence of a well or outhouse.
Analysis and Interpretations
To summarize, I believe we have a site that was seasonally occupied in the autumn during the late Archaic and middle to late Woodland period. I believe that the site was periodically occupied over a long stretch of years, several hundred, but not consistently or intensely meaning not in every year, during the late Archaic. By daunt of the different point types, I believe several different cultures occupied the site. I think in the late middle to late Woodland it was occupied once again on a seasonal basis, but, too, not intensely or with a large population. When I say ‘not intensely’ I mean perhaps not every year and with a small group of people.
In the discussion to follow I hope to address each of the questions outlined at the beginning.
- What is the culture history of the site? Was it occupied by one or more prehistoric cultures?
Points like Wading River and Squibnocket, a variant of Wading River (Ritchie, 1971), Beekman and Burwell all are consistent with the late Archaic. That there are different points suggests different groups occupied the site over the late Archaic period. This would translate to different cultures simply due to the spread of time, perhaps several hundred years or more during the late Archaic phase. Nearly all the points we recovered fit into this era.
Note that the most ‘intense’ use of the site would seem to be about 2000-2500 BC. I base this on the radio carbon dating of one pit feature and the nature of the points in question. The various Squibnocket points are associated with Wading River (Ritchie, 1971) and have been found with radio-carbon dated material from 2190, +/- 140 years. The Burwell point would fit into that relatively narrow timeframe, as would the Sylvan side-notched and Beekman triangles.
The one exception to the late Archaic occupation is the Levanna point. Occupation consistent with such a point could have been as early as the late-Middle Woodland, 700 AD, but the point really “took off” during the late Woodland period from 1000 AD to contact. The radiocarbon date of 1052 AD for feature 6, the small fire pit, and the Levanna point nearby in Block H reinforces an occupation around 1052 AD.
I’m intrigued by the LeCroy bifurcated base. Such a projectile points to the early Archaic period and is the only artifact we’ve uncovered so far to do so. That it was found at 20-30 cm, deeper than most of the other points, and that chert artifacts tended to be found at greater depths (30-40 cm and deeper, table 3) makes me wonder if there was an occupation during the early Archaic. Perhaps the chert was brought in by one small band during a very few brief occupations thus raising the number of potential cultures at the site. - What were the activities conducted at the site?
Given the lack of features that would suggest a semi-permanent camp, and the lack of potsherds and postholes, I suspect this was a very temporary hunting camp where tools were repaired or recycled. With no cobbles or usable bedrock around, I believe material already reduced or worked elsewhere was brought in.
There was cooking going on as evidenced by calcified bones and charred hickory nutshells, but not in such quantities as to suggest a long occupancy. - What was the nature of the lithic manufacturing activities at the site?
I believe the bulk of the lithic manufacturing activity was in the final stages of the manufacturing process, specifically in stage 4, final shaping, and finally in the repair and recycling process. I base this on the dominance of Tertiary flakes, blocks and shatters, and miscellaneous debitage and the lack of raw, primary and secondary evidence. Once again I mention we found only the one hammerstone; I would expect to find more in association with the earlier stages of the manufacturing process.
This perspective is consistent with the trends of manufacturing posited by Francis McMahon (McMahon, 1976) in the 1976 article, “Manufacturing Activities and Lithic Assemblages: An Example from Central New York State. McMahon’s model points to a decrease in the amount of certain pieces associated with the early part of the manufacturing process (such as pieces with cortex and blocks) and increases with others associated with later phases of manufacturing (such as and increase the amount of debitage and a decrease in the size of flakes and debitage).
The predominance of tertiary flakes and miscellaneous debitage point to the final stages of shaping and thinning and repair and recycling, per the Errett Callahan chart (see table 5). 93.3% of ALL the debitage was made up of Tertiary flakes, Blocks and Shatter and Miscellaneous Debitage. (See table 2)
I allow that I can’t make much of a case that these stages differed for different materials given the overwhelming abundance of quartz vs. everything else. Quartz represents 97.7% of all the debitage excavated at the site and is represented in each class and size. The other materials were not represented in all classes and sizes and, indeed, absent from most. Having said that, when those other materials show up they are overwhelmingly in tertiary flakes and miscellaneous debitage.
I believe we encountered mostly pressure flaking and soft hammer techniques. Hard hammer percussion tends to produce large pieces, large flakes, from a core that would be reworked and thinned into smaller unifaces and bifaces. This would have been done closer to the source of the raw material – which is not in evidence at Gallows Hill – and we would have encountered more large flakes if hard hammer percussion techniques had been used at the site.
The smaller debitage we were able to replicate with our class with Jeff Kalin with small stones developed battering marks, which would suggest the hammer stones used were softer than the quartz. If ANY stone is considered a hard hammer technique (vs. bone or antler) then I would change my view and say hard hammer techniques were used albeit not for getting large flakes off a core at this site, i.e. We didn’t find evidence of such large flakes.
I believe that pressure flaking would have been employed to create the mass of debitage and small tertiary flakes although we have no evidence of the material (antler or bone) that might have been used. Antler tips were used to repair or sharpen points and created very small, micro, flakes.
We saw little evidence of raw materials in either the form of cobbles or
bedrock formations at the site, indicating that raw materials were brought in from elsewhere. We had a few primary and secondary decortication flakes, and I believe these were reduced from raw materials elsewhere and brought in.
I walked along the nearby stream bed to the south east of the site and saw no evidence of much quartz, certainly not in deposited cobbles, and the bedrock we encountered and encountered by prior excavations on the site is largely if not entirely mica schist. (figure 4)
The Summary of Lithic Debitage (table 1) shows relatively few primary and secondary flakes with cobble cortex, which is consistent with our not finding any deposits of raw material. There are more flakes with bedrock cortex and we know that in nearby Branchville, CT (approximately four miles to the southwest as the crow flies, at the Fillow Quarry) there was good quality quartz that might have been carried to this site (Wiegand, conversation). However, we did not find such bedrock immediately in the vicinity.
That the number of the primary and secondary flakes were greater in the smaller sizes (0-2 cm) suggests that larger pieces brought in had been worked elsewhere initially and smaller pieces brought to the site for later stages of the manufacturing process or reworking existing tools.
After quartz, chert was a distant second in terms of material excavated with just 1.3% of the total lithic debitage so identified. The abundance of chert was in the form of tertiary flakes of 0-1 cm and miscellaneous debitage. Just over 91% of the chert found was in those classes. This suggests that the chert brought in was from pieces worked elsewhere and repaired or recycled at the site.
Likewise, quartzite (under 1% of the debitage excavated) came mostly in tertiary flakes and miscellaneous debitage (79% of all the quartzite found), too, suggesting it was brought in and reworked from pieces ‘mined’ elsewhere. The same is true of jasper, although there was much less jasper excavated. Jasper is found in bedrock in eastern Pennsylvania and the upper Hudson River area, though cobbles can be found in this part of Connecticut. Again, however, the debitage found was of the latter stages of the manufacturing process, or repair and reshaping, and so I believe the raw material was from a distance and brought in in smaller form from tools or flakes produced elsewhere. - What was the diet of the site’s various occupants?
Projectile points tell us this was a hunting/gathering set of cultures, supported by the calcified bones near the fire pit. The charred remains of hickory nutshells points to the gathering side of the equation and we can assume that they ate other nuts, acorns for example. - In which seasons was the site occupied?
The appearance of hickory nutshells points to an autumn occupation for likely a relatively brief period, a few days to a few weeks. - What type of site was this in terms of function?
Based on the very limited number of features and those limited to fire-pits, I believe this was a hunting camp. We have no evidence of longer-term stays from postholes or rock shelters, nor heavy things like steatite pots or ceramic pottery that might suggest a longer occupation. Further, when we get to the late Woodland and agriculture phase, the land itself is too rocky to support growing crops, given further credence to a limited time of occupancy and that for a temporary purpose. - What difficulties did we encounter in conducting this study?
Weather interfered! We had fewer hours that we would have liked to expand both vertically and horizontally so, inevitably, more time and digging would be ideal. - What further suggestions can we make regarding research methods and goals?
There were a few anomalies that I would like to investigate further. For example, I have high confidence about the site used in the late Archaic and Woodland periods, but it is hard to discern if they were limited occupations – say to a generation – or a more frequent occupation during the phases. I remain curious about the bifurcated point and whether this is a still earlier occupation to discover.
I would like to search nearby for ready sources of raw lithic material. Perhaps the one just a few miles away, in Branchville, was the source and I would like to compare/contrast the quartz artifacts with quartz from that mine. Also, I would like to compare the projectiles we found, and their material, with those found elsewhere in this section of Fairfield County. I wonder if we could identify a similar manufacturing technique in other sites, say by the seashore, to indicate the groups on this site were there as well.
Summary and Conclusions
I believe GH#1 was a site occupied in two distinct periods, with different cultures in the earliest one. First, was a series of groups in the late Archaic – different groups – over a few hundred years from 2000-2500 BC who were hunter/gatherers, occupying the site for brief periods of time and those periods largely in the autumn. The logic for this lies in the text in the preceding sections, but suffice it to say that we have several different styles of late Archaic points pointing to occupation of the site during that extended period but by different groups.
The lack of more permanent features such as post-holes or deep fire pits suggest the time at the site was relatively brief.
A second occupation took place during the late Woodland period as evidenced by the carbon 14 dating of one feature in Block H and the Levanna point uncovered in that same block. The pair put the occupancy to about 1054 AD.
There is an outlier of the bifurcated base that opens speculation of an occupancy in the early archaic or, at least, a group or people passing through. We have too little beyond that one artifact to give a strong or confident indication of such a culture at the site.
Further, the nature of the lithics found, all pointing to the latter stages of the manufacturing process, indicate the site was not used to create tools from local materials – we found no raw material sources nearby – but rather that tools worked elsewhere were brought in and fixed/repaired/recycled during the limited time of occupancy.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Town of Redding and Nature Conservancy for allowing us the chance to excavate the site over these last several years. Of course, I want to than Prof. Ernest Wiegand for leading these expeditions and his patience in guiding us through the process.
Kudos is due to Wiegand’s past students and volunteers from the Norwalk Community College Archaeology Club for their excavation work and building up the evidence upon which my site report is based.
And I wish to thank my fellow students in this semester’s class for making both the classes and the digs an enjoyable and educational experience.
References
Ader, David
- Lab 1. Lithic Debitage Analysis. ANT 121. Introduction to Archaeology. Professor Ernest Wiegand, Norwalk Community College.
Lavin, Lucianne
- Connecticut’s Indigenous Peoples, What Archaeology, History, and Oral Traditions Teach Us About Their Communities and Cultures. Yale University Press, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, New Haven & London
McMahon, Francis P.
- “Manufacturing Activities and Lithic Assemblages: An Example from Central New York State. Article handed out in class.
Ritchie, William A.,
- New York Projectile Points, A Typology and Nomenclature. New York State Museum/Bulletin 384, Albany, N.Y.
1965, 1969. The Archaeology of New York State, Revised Edition.
The Natural History Press, Garden City New York (Published for the American Museum of Natural History)
Todd, Charles
- The History of Redding, Connecticut, from Its First Settlement to the Present Time.
http://historyofredding.net/HRearlysettlers.htm
All Things Liberty
2013 Gallows Hill: The 1779 Executions of Edward Jones and John Smith.
https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/09/gallows-hill-the-1779-executions-of-edward-jones-and-john-smith/
Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
Connecticut Environmental Conditions Online –Maps and Geospatial Data for Everyone. http://cteco.uconn.edu/maps/town/
- Contour_Map/Contour_Map_East_Redding.pdf
- Soil/Soil_Redding.pdf
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Redding’s Hamlet Hub,
28 September 2012. Lonetown: Warrups, Reads and the Colonial Frontier, https://news.hamlethub.com/redding/archive/19524-lonetown-warrups-reads-and-the-colonial-frontier
Redding Patch
November 2018. Updated Connecticut Bear Sightings: Where Does Redding Rank? https://patch.com/connecticut/weston-ct/updated-connecticut-bear-sightings-where-does-redding-rank-0.
National Cooperative Soil Survey
2017 Chatfield Series, NH+CT MA NJ NY, Rev. LWK-ERS-JTI.
https://soilseries.sc.egov.usda.gov/OSD_Docs/C/CHATFIELD.html
Norwalk Hour,
Jan 27 2012.NCC student finds artifact in archaeological dig. https://www.thehour.com/norwalk/article/NCC-student-finds-artifact-in-archaeological-dig-8134880.php)
Projectilepoints.net
http://www.projectilepoints.net/Points/Burwell.html
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till