An Inside View of an Archaeological Project: The Adam Shafer Site in Cobleskill, Schoharie County, New York

Early 19th-century multi-chambered slip ware found at the Adam Shafer site.

In 2011, construction planning of a new agricultural and environmental resources center at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Cobleskill required that a Phase 1 archaeological survey be performed before construction could be permitted.  Curtin Archaeological Consulting, Inc. performed this survey, finding evidence that part of the site had been used by Native Americans during prehistoric times.  Jon Vidulich directed this work in the field.  Curtin Archaeological also found that Adam Shafer (the descendant of early 18thcentury Palatine German settlers) built a farm house in 1816 on the same terrace overlooking Cobleskill Creek that the Indians had used in a much more remote period.  Artifacts from the Shafer farmhouse (including a feature composed of shell) were found in addition to prehistoric Indian artifacts.

Subsequently, Curtin Archaeological performed a Phase 2 archaeological site examination in order to evaluate the archaeological importance of the site.  I directed this work (if direction actually is needed for a team of co-workers that consisted of Dr. Andrew Farry, Jon Vidulich, and Sarah Vidulich).  The results of the Phase 2 investigation indicated that the multi-component, prehistoric-historic period archaeological site was a significant site eligible for inclusion in the State and National Registers of Historic Places.

Phase 2 fieldwork: Sarah Vidulich, Jon Vidulich, and Andrew Farry working in the Shafer midden east of the old farmhouse's cellar hole.

The finding that the archaeological site was considered significant in this way was based on the value of the archaeological data:  the site could provide information important to the study of history and prehistory.  In 2012 Curtin Archaeological conducted more fieldwork as part of the process needed to reduce the adverse impact of construction upon the archaeological site; in other words, to mitigate the impact construction would have upon this site as a source of important archaeological data.  I co-directed the 2012 fieldwork with Dr. Andrew Farry.

                              Phase 3 excavations in front of the Shafer site front yard.

During 2013 and 2014, we have been studying the information we recovered directly from this site.  We have also done some other things to help interpret the archaeological data.  For example, Kerry Nelson and I have examined primary data from historic documents to better understand the Shafers, their ancestry, and continuity and change in a certain traditional practice:  the naming of children in each successive generation of Shafers.  What we found was a reliable tradition, until there was a radical departure.

We have also been reading literature on the early 18th century German migration to New York State, as well as the nature of cultural change 100 years later, when the old guard of American revolutionaries gave way to the first generation born into the early republic.  This new generation was forming the first truly American national identity.

This chert artifact from the Shafer site has a graver spur (upper edge) and scraping surface (lower edge).

Also, focusing on the intriguing collection of chipped stone (chert) artifacts recovered from the prehistoric component, Meadow Coldon and I have examined other stone artifact collections from Cobleskill, as well as the comparative chert collection in the anthropology office of the New York State Museum.  We consulted with New York State Museum geologist Dr. Charles Ver Straeten, whose specialty is the Devonian-age cherts of New York State (the same cherts we needed to know about).  Dr. Ver Straeten kindly acquainted us with an even larger comparative collection of cherts such as Esopus and several Onondaga and Helderberg varieties.  This dove-tailed well with the field trip he led to Devonian chert exposures in November (and consequently, Meadow and I have added making our own comparative collection and obtaining chert for experimental use to the research program).

An Onondaga chert outcrop near Catskill, New York we have visited for the comparative collection. The chert is the dark stone embedded in lighter limestone.

As part of this process, we also began a careful study of the life-group exhibits of the New York State Museum for inspiration concerning how to connect ancient stone artifacts with the people of the ancient past.  This is an interesting exercise in which we can consider what is being shown in the exhibits, and mindful of what we are learning, we can imagine other scenarios (not exhibited).  In this way we carefully use existing knowledge to stimulate thought experiments that broaden our perspective.  We are considering additional visits, perhaps with new questions, in conjunction with other projects.

I offer this post and a few that will follow on the Adam Shafer site over the next several months in order to provide a greater degree of access to an actual archaeological research project than may be available otherwise (at least much of the time).  These posts will provide behind-the-scenes looks at the nuts-and-bolts work that leads to more refined reports of archaeological research.

Understanding Chert in the Mid-Hudson Valley: A Note on a Recent Workshop and Field Trip

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Tables of chert on display at the NYSM

On November 1, 2014 a group of archaeologists and geologists participated in a workshop on chert at the New York State Museum, and then left in a caravan of cars, trucks and vans for a field trip to chert-bearing sites located in Greene and Ulster Counties.  This is the second of a projected annual series of field trips in eastern New York that promises to provide archaeological and geological colleagues with a firmer basis and common language for discussing chert.  Chert is one of the most fundamental materials used in ancient Native American technology in this region.  These programs are produced through the collaboration of New York State Museum geologist Charles Ver Straeten, New York State Museum archaeologists Jonathan Lothrop and Christina Rieth, and Binghamton University Public Archaeology Facility archaeologist Laurie Miroff.

At the Esopus exposures near Catskill, Chuck Ver Straeten (left), and Nate Hamilton

The morning program featured table-top displays of chert from eastern New York and northern New England, as well as presentations on the Munsungun Lake and Mount Jasper quarry locations in Maine and New Hampshire.  The presentations were made by University of Southern Maine geologist Stephen Pollock with significant additional information and discussion by University of Southern Maine archaeologist Nathan Hamilton, Chuck Ver Straeten, and geology/geoarchaeology consultant Philip LaPorta.

The afternoon portion of the program was designed and led by Chuck Ver Straeten.  It led to locations near the Village of Catskill in Greene County and the City of Kingston in Ulster County where a combination of different exposures provided the opportunity to see Helderberg, Esopus, and Onondaga chert-bearing rock formations in place.  Chuck Ver Straeten provided the guide to stratigraphic order and the origin of these formations and their cherts.  Chuck also inspired the participants with a sense of what still needs to be learned with regard to these eastern New York Devonian cherts.

              Jon Lothrop selecting chert samples at the Helderberg exposures near Kingston

This program was immensely useful to the participants, not to mention a lot of fun on a crisp November day when the late afternoon rain was very light, and yielded little in the way of stinging sleet.  Rarely does a group of adults become so engaged in the pleasure of a Saturday outing, except perhaps at an amusement park (but bedrock exposures have a way of becoming amusement parks for geologists and archaeologists).

The Helderberg sequence near Kingston, from the bottom: Kalkberg, New Scotland, Alsen, Port Ewen

Speaking as just one archaeologist, I want to give at least a hint of why I find the subject of chert sources fascinating (and why I will continue to have fun with it long after the field trip).  Eastern New York State is rich in chert sources, including the Ordovician Normanskill chert as well as the subjects of November 1’s field trip, the Devonian cherts of the Helderberg, Esopus and Onondaga formations.  Often a relatively short trip of a mile or two (quite less in certain places) will provide access to several, or perhaps all of the chert varieties contained in these rocks.

At the same time, however, it is not unusual for archaeologists in this region to find evidence of archaeological sites or ancient activity locations dominated by the occurrence of one chert type in preference to others.  And these preferences often differ at adjoining sites.  As an archaeologist, I need to ask why this happens, because access as a function of distance doesn’t seem to apply in these cases.  I need to consider whether this is a matter of ancient knowledge (i.e., were only limited sources of chert known to the inhabitants of the site?); habitual practices adopted by the site’s inhabitants; or larger traditions of practice that provided a broader and more enduring set of rules that largely excluded some chert varieties from selection for tool stone.  The quality of the stone may be a factor, but if so, it must operate in a complex way, because although archaeologists may feel that these stones vary in quality, a wide range of stone types was used, at least over the long period of eastern New York prehistory.

                                    Alsen (Helderberg) chert exposed near Kingston

I may have more to say about this in future blog posts as my colleagues Kerry Nelson, Meadow Coldon and I examine the strength of evidence for the spatial differentiation of the use of stones such as Esopus and Onodaga chert at the site we are studying in Cobleskill, New York; and Normanskill and Kalkberg or other Helderberg cherts at a series of sites in Coxsackie, New York.  A similar or different sense of ancient Native American choices in stone selection may emerge from work we have been doing in the Town of Malta, Saratoga County, New York.  We shall see.

The thought I want to leave with was stated succinctly by Chuck Ver Straeten at the end of the field trip.  What geologists and archaeologists are doing with the chert workshops and field trips is useful.  We are still finding out how useful, but the chert workshops are already enhancing our ability to communicate and envision future research that depends on better understandings of chert.