Curtin Archaeological Consulting, Inc. is seeking field assistants for the excavation of an Archaic period chert workshop and campsite in the Saratoga Springs area.
Fieldwork Opportunities: Spring/Summer 2023
Curtin Archaeological Consulting, Inc. is seeking resumes from people in the Albany-Saratoga-Glens Falls, Upper Hudson region who are interested in temporary archaeological fieldwork positions during Spring 2023. The project is a Phase 3 data recovery (excavation) that is running for three to four weeks in May 2023, beginning May 1. Students ending the spring semester will be eligible to join the excavation later in May. The rate of pay is $17.00-$20.00, depending upon education and experience.
The archaeological site is located near Saratoga Lake and has evidence of a Middle Woodland period occupation, ca. AD 1-1000. Indigenous people residing at this site obtained chert locally and knapped it here to produce bifaces, scrapers, gravers, and other tools.
Other archaeological field work such as Phase 1 surveys is expected during the summer.
Please email resumes to jobs@curtinarchaeology.com. If you have recently submitted a resume, please email us with your availability. If you have questions, please call Ed Curtin at (518) 884-7105.
Fieldwork Opportunities: Spring 2023
Curtin Archaeological Consulting, Inc. is seeking resumes from people in the Albany-Saratoga-Glens Falls region and surrounding towns and cities who are interested in temporary archaeological fieldwork positions during Spring 2023. The rate of pay is $17.00-$20.00, depending upon education and experience.
The main Spring fieldwork project will be a Phase 3 data recovery at a precontact period site in a wooded location. The project will run from April 17-May 12. There may be some Phase 1 surveys also.
Please email resumes to jobs@curtinarchaeology.com. If you have recently submitted a resume, please email us with your availability. If you have questions, please call Ed Curtin at (518) 884-7105.
NYAC’s Upcoming Panel Discussion on African American Archaeological Sites
On Saturday afternoon, October 1, 2022, the New York Archaeological Council (NYAC) will be meeting at the New York State Museum in Albany. The program will feature recent research at African American archaeological sites in New York State. A panel discussion will follow 10 minute presentations. This will take place in the Huxley Theater from 2:00-4:30. The presenters include Christopher Lindner, Ann Morton, Marie-Lorraine Pipes, Ed Curtin, Mike Lucas, Matt Kirk, Allison McGovern, and Doug Perrelli. The research has been conducted in a variety of places including Long Island, the Hudson Valley, and western New York. Ed Curtin will be presenting on the Hemphill Site in Malta, New York, where Curtin Archaeological Consulting, Inc. has conducted Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 archaeological investigations aided by deed research, federal census records, and other documentary sources.
The program is free and open to the public, but registration is required for non-NYAC members.
Assistant Archaeologist Search Open, Spring 2022: Curtin Archaeological Consulting, Inc. Is Seeking an Assistant Archaeologist
Field Technicians Needed: Curtin Archaeological Consulting, Inc. Is Seeking Field Techs for Fall-Winter 2021 Projects
Curtin Archaeological Consulting, Inc. is seeking field technicians for employment in work on Hudson Valley projects during November 2021. It is anticipated that this work will include a Phase 2 archaeological site examination at a 19th century farmstead site near Ballston Spa, New York plus Phase 1 surveys within about one hour drive from Saratoga Springs, New York. Lab experience is a plus as some lab work may be required. There is a potential for fieldwork to continue into December. Pay is hourly and based upon experience. Motel and per diem accommodations are not available for these projects.
Please email resumes to jobs@curtinarchaeology.com. If you have recently submitted a resume, please email us with your availability.
This Old World: In Contemplation of Earth Day
On Earth Day last year, I was thinking about the health of our planet, but also about its age and the changes it has been through. I also thought, as I sometimes do on Earth Day, of the scientists who have been documenting the evolving nature of our airy, watery, rocky world that has the moving parts of a fired-up dynamo below its crust.
The Utility of Petrography in Archaeology: A Case Study Challenging the Foundation of the Vinette Type Pottery Series
CRM Re-Opening: Precautions to Reduce the Risk of Covid-19 Spread
Archaeologists have been adjusting to working within the surrounding context of Covid-19 transmission since the pandemic forced us to shutter our offices in March to work at home. This experience has been somewhat different for each Cultural Resource Management (CRM) organization, although the common experiences of needing to do office and even lab work at home, and to find appropriately safe ways to work in the field loom large.
In Memory of James Tuck, Who Helped Shape Contemporary Archaeology in New York State and the Canadian Maritime Region
Dr. James A. Tuck
The world recently lost James A. Tuck, an archaeologist who was born in Buffalo, New York, received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Syracuse University, and taught at Memorial University, Newfoundland, Canada. Tuck is best known in New York State for his work on prehistoric Onondaga Indian archaeology in which he outlined a sequence of village movements and cultural changes that provided the first comprehensive model of the development of Iroquois culture within an Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) tribal homeland. This was published in Tuck’s 1970 book Onondaga Iroquois Prehistory: a Study in Settlement Archaeology. The significance of this research for New York State archaeology cannot be understated. Beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1960s, archaeologists grappled with the notion that Iroquois culture had developed locally in and around the tribal homelands occupied during the 17th century. This idea, referred to as the in-situ hypothesis, was replacing the older theory that the Iroquois had migrated into New York from the south, perhaps from the Mississippi Valley, and possibly not long before the European entrance into these homelands. Tuck’s research was not performed in an intellectual vacuum; for example, he incorporated Donald Lenig’s concept of the “Oak Hill Horizon” bridging the previously presumed period of cultural hiatus and Iroquois migration. But testing the in-situ hypothesis required large amounts of data from a single area. You can think of Tuck’s book, replete with excavation data, ceramic seriation, and radiocarbon dating, as a blow-by-blow account showing long-term continuity (since about 1000 AD) between late prehistoric Iroquoian communities in the Syracuse area and the temporal phases of the preceding Owasco culture.
Tuck’s research in Canada included studies of the Maritime Archaic culture in Newfoundland and Labrador, around the Strait of Belle Isle and in seminally important excavations of the L’Anse Amour burial mound and the Port au Choix cemetery. Research by Tuck and his students on the Maritime Archaic provided a long temporal sequence spanning ca. 2000-7000 BC. Based upon his findings in Newfoundland and Labrador, Tuck published an article in 1977 called “A Look at Laurentian” in which he described how an important Archaic period culture in New York State and surrounding parts of Ontario, Quebec and Vermont had roots in different material culture traditions of the North American interior and Far Northeast coastal region. Put otherwise, there came a time, ca. 5000-6000 years ago (the beginning of the Laurentian Tradition), when in the great unfolding of indigenous history, populations in the upper St. Lawrence River region began recreating (perhaps initially trading for) some the most highly crafted artifact types of the Maritime Archaic. These artifact types include ulus, gouges, plummets, and polished slate points and knives. A broader view of this process would also incorporate coastal areas farther south in New England in a similar but somewhat different pathway through history, although that is not what Tuck focused on. However, his idea and its implications are intriguing during the current era when the native cultural history of the Northeastern region is being rethought.
Tuck’s many contributions to Newfoundland and Labrador archaeology are best summarized by others who were closely connected with this work, and there are several informative obituaries available online. I will simply mention that he also investigated, or supervised student research on prehistoric Indian cultures of more recent periods of Newfoundland-Labrador archaeology, as well as the remarkable 16th century Basque whaling station in Red Bay, Labrador (another important site on the Strait of Belle Isle, and a UNESCO World Heritage site). Archaeologists in both New York State and the Canadian Maritime region owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to James A. Tuck.
June 30, 2019, edited Dr. Tuck’s place of birth.