Delaware Archives - Dovetail Cultural Resource Group

One Foxy Point: A Fox Creek From John Dickinson Plantation

August 6, 2021 by Kerri Barile

By: Andy Martin

This Fox Creek or Selby Bay (if you’re from Virginia) projectile point was recovered from the John Dickinson Plantation in southern Delaware.

Why is this extra cool?

Fox Creek/Selby Bay projectile points are a relatively common point type that are usually dated from 1,800 to 1,100 BP, or 1,800 to 1,100 years ago. This places Fox Creek/Selby Bay points squarely in what archaeologists call the Middle Woodland period. The Middle Woodland was a time period that would have seen pretty similar environmental conditions to those we have today, and the Pre-Contact peoples of Delaware would have been spending more of their year in larger settlements and generally moving around less. The Middle Woodland tool kit reflects this change too, with a greater emphasis on ceramics for storage and cooking. But at the same time as people were becoming more sedentary, as reflected by diagnostic Middle Woodland artifacts like ceramic pots, other parts of their tool kit, like our Fox Creek/Selby Bay projectile point, show how their trade networks were expanding.

This projectile point is made from a high-grade argillite, which is significant because argillite is most commonly sourced from the Lockatong Formation, a band of stone outcrops that begins in what is now Pennsylvania and New Jersey, between 60 and 90 miles from the John Dickinson Plantation. This fits a broader pattern of Middle Woodland sites, where non-local tool stones are becoming more and more common. That’s what makes this projectile point more interesting than it might initially appear. These stone tools made from non-local, or ‘exotic’ sources are evidence that, at the same time as people were becoming more sedentary, their worlds, or at least their trade networks, were are also expanding.

Fox Creek Projectile Point Recovered From John Dickinson Plantation.

But wait, there’s more!

The fact that our point is made of argillite is in some ways more significant because of the Pre-Contact sites that are adjacent to the Lockatong formation, sites like….Abbot Farm. Abbot Farm is probably best thought of as concentration of large Pre-Contact sites located at the confluence of the Crosswicks Creek and the Delaware River in Trenton New Jersey, roughly 80 miles upriver from the John Dickinson Plantation. The sites at Abbott Farm date to at least the Archaic Period (beginning 10,000 years ago) on through to the Late Woodland period (ending with European contact circa 400 years ago), but we mention Abbot Farm because not only is it close to a very large argillite source, but because excavations at Abbot Farm have shown that the area is home to a lot of Middle Woodland pre-contact sites, and these sites are, in turn, loaded with argillite Fox Creek/Selby Bay projectile points.

Does this mean our Fox Creek/Selby point came from Abbot Farm?

Not necessarily, and there’s no way we can prove that or would make such a claim, but what’s so fascinating about Abbot Farm is that the sites there have loads of exotic stone, some of which is from as far afield as modern-day western New York and the Great Lakes. So, what we’ve got here with our little argillite projectile point is a glimpse of an exchange network that potentially links southern Delaware to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and those NJ and PA sites then potentially linked to sites in New York and along the Great Lakes.

See what we mean when we say that the world of the Middle Woodland was expanding even as its people were becoming more sedentary? That’s one of the beautiful things about archaeology, a single artifact can ‘point’ towards the way whole regions are changing, and in this case, becoming more connected.

Any distributions of blog content, including text or images, should reference this blog in full citation. Data contained herein is the property of Dovetail Cultural Resource Group and its affiliates.

Filed Under: Arrowhead, Arrowheads, Artifact, Delaware, Prehistoric, Projectile Points, Tools Tagged With: Delaware, Fox Creek, John Dickinson Plantation, Projectile Point

Delaware We Have Contact!: A Copper Alloy Arrowhead from the John Dickinson Plantation

June 29, 2021 by Kerri Barile

By: Bill Liebeknecht

A copper alloy projectile point or “arrowhead” was recently recovered by Dovetail Cultural Resource Group during an archaeological survey at the John Dickinson Plantation near Dover, Delaware. Work was conducted on behalf of the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs in preparation of a new system of trails for use by visitors. The survey entailed a controlled surface collection of the entire area where ground disturbing activities will occur. The area was recorded as site 7K-D-45 in the 1970s.

Individuals with knowledge of copper Contact period artifacts from the region were consulted on this exciting find. They reported that this was likely the first copper alloy arrowhead to be recovered from Delaware. Others pointed out that the style differed from other copper arrow tips recovered from other states in the area in that it has a “tang” or shaft for attaching the head to the arrow, whereas others from the region were pierced with a central hole for attaching the arrowhead to the shaft of the arrow. Dr. Greg Lattanzi, Curator and New Jersey State Archaeologist, provided similar examples from New York and Canada. This begs the question: why is this artifact here in Delaware? The earliest-known contact between Europeans and Native Americans in Delaware was documented in 1608 during the voyages of Captain John Smith and in 1609 when Henry Hudson entered the Delaware Bay. A number of “Indian towns” are noted on earlier maps of the Nanticoke River and its tributaries. To date, very few European trade goods have been documented in Delaware.

The most likely source of the arrowhead may be from the Susquehannock Indians, who were heavily vested in the fur trade in Pennsylvania and had migrated south into Delaware during the seventeenth century. European goods, including copper, iron, and brass items, were of high trade values to the Native American groups in the region. Copper and brass items such as kettles were often recycled, cut down into various ornaments and projectile points. It may be that this projectile point was once part of a cooking vessel. One thing is certain, though, the mere presence of this artifact in central Delaware is a rare find indeed.

Filed Under: Archaeology, Arrowhead, Artifact, Delaware Tagged With: Copper arrowhead, Delaware, Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, John Dickinson Plantation

That’s not a knife! This is a knife. Or is it?

May 21, 2021 by Kerri Barile

By: Andy Martin

Today we’re talking about one of the less-discussed pieces of the Native American/pre-contact tool kit…the knife. There has been seemingly endless amounts of ink spilled about projectile points and axes and pottery but believe me (I’ve looked) there’s a lot less out there about knives, particularly in the mid-Atlantic.

Knives would have been every bit as crucial to the pre-contact tool kit as the above-mentioned artifacts, so where are they? The short answer is that knives are definitely present on prehistoric archaeological sites, but not necessarily in the way we think of knives today.

First off, let’s touch on an important topic. Until the bow and arrow became widespread around 1,300 years ago, your safest bet when identifying a stone tool that has been bifacially worked (flaked to a cutting edge on both sides) is to call it a “biface.” Want to get more specific? Let’s call it a hafted biface (that’s the term I dig personally). Hafted simply means attached to a handle (or haft). The hafted bifaces shown below (Photo 1) are beautiful examples from Texas showing what we mean by hafted biface.

Photo 1: Example of Hafted Bifaces (Texas Beyond History 2020).

Hafted biface is a broad but useful term covering both hafted cutting tools like knives and projectile points (bifaces meant to be thrown or shot at something). To further muddy the waters, hafted bifaces are what could be called ‘long-life tools.’ Making a biface is labor and time intensive, so these tools would often have different uses over their lives. A tool might begin its life as projectile point, but due to damage or the need to perform a different task, it might then be repurposed as a knife or a drill. This is where it’s important to try and think different about the tools people used in the past. Today, a knife is a knife (except for you Simpsons fans out there when it is actually a spoon, in which case we can see you’ve played knifey/spooney before). But a tool might segway from a spear point to a knife and eventually to a drill or an awl (a small pointed tool for piercing or puncturing holes) as damage and need dictated.

So if a hafted biface can be used as both a knife or projectile point, how do we go about determining which it is?

In incredibly rare instances, it’s obvious because the hafted biface in question has been found still attached to their bone or wooden handles. Unfortunately, such finds are uncommon because soil conditions in the mid-Atlantic aren’t very conducive to preserving organic materials like wood or bone. Intact hafted tools are usually recovered from oxygen-free, muddy environments like river bottoms or bogs, or dry environments like caves. On the coastal plain, where our site was located, the chemical composition of shell middens can also preserve organic materials. So, if we aren’t finding knives still attached to their handles, how do we figure out if something is a knife or a projectile point?

Looking carefully at the edge of the tool to see how it was used is probably the best…wait for it….tool in our arsenal for determining how a hafted biface was used. In the case of projectile points, such as arrowheads or spearheads, you see very specific types of damage such as impact fractures—cracks that result from an arrow or spear striking a target or the ground resulting in a tip or other fragment breaking off. A great example of this is the Brewerton Corner Notched projectile point in the photo below (Photo 2, center artifact). On hafted bifaces that were used as knives you tend to get very different type of damage relating to a prying or twisting motions; this damage is referred to as a “transverse fracture.” You will also see damage on the sides of the tool related to the knife being used in a sawing motion.

Photo 2: These Projectile Points Were All Recovered from a Site in Northern Delaware. From left to right, we have a possible Bare Island, a Brewerton Corner Notched, and a Poplar Island. Recent research has shown that Bare Island and Poplar Island projectile points appear to have been in use from the Late Archaic (starting about 5,000 years ago) to the Middle Woodland (ending about 1,000 years ago) periods. The Brewerton Corner Notched point has a tighter date range of 5100-4300 years ago, within the Late Archaic period.

Let’s take all this data and apply it to an artifact Dovetail recently found in Delaware. First a word about our hafted biface. It’s about 47.46 cm long and 14.78 cm wide, or a little longer and thicker than a golf tee (Photo 3). It’s made of jasper, a stone found in many streams and rivers in the mid-Atlantic as well as in quarry sites in both Pennsylvania and Delaware. One such quarry site in Delaware is just a few days walk from where our artifact was recovered. As seen in the photo below, it is narrow and has serrated edges on both sides of the tool. It has also been “heat treated,” as evident by the purple base. Purposefully exposing stone to heat for a long period of time makes certain stones easier to work. The Brewerton Corner notched projectile point, pictured above, is a beautiful example of a heat-treated (also referred to as thermally altered) stone tool.

Photo 3: Thermally Altered Hafted Biface Found in Delaware by Dovetail.

So is the artifact in Photo 3 a knife? We think it is, and this analysis comes down to use wear. First you can see the fracture on the distal (or top) end of the hafted biface and it appears to be more of a snap or transverse fracture than an impact fracture. This means that the point may have broken while it was being used to cut or pry something as opposed to striking a target or the ground. Second, the serrations and damage along the sides of the tool makes it likely that our biface is a knife. It’s possible that our knife began its life as a more traditional-looking projectile point and broke before being further worked and used as a knife.

So, the next time someone tells you “that’s not a knife, this is a knife,” you can tell them “it’s certainly a hafted biface, now let’s check the sides for use wear!”

References:

Texas Beyond History
2020 Texas Beyond History. Electronic document https://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/trans-p/images/Carved-Rock-hafted- bifaces.html, accessed May 2021.

Filed Under: Archaeology, Arrowhead, Arrowheads, Artifact, Delaware, Prehistoric, Projectile Points, Tools Tagged With: archaeology, Delaware, hafted biface, pre-contact, stone tools

A Kookpot from Casimir

September 23, 2020 by Kerri Barile

Featured Fragment –A Kookpot from Casimir

By William Liebeknecht

Our story starts in 1651 with the construction of Fort Casimir, a colonial fortification built by the West India Company in what is now New Castle, Delaware. The four-sided fort was only lightly equipped with battle gear (Figure 1). In 1654, a Swedish force attacked the fort, leading the small, unprepared Dutch garrison at Fort Casimir to surrender. In September of the following year (1655), a Dutch West India Company task force of 300 men pressured the Swedish commander to surrender the fort back to the Dutch. In 1657, the City of Amsterdam took control of the community that had developed around Fort Casmir over the years and renamed it New Amstel (Bontemantel 2011:58). This new community was once again contested, as in 1664 an English force under Sir Robert Carr conquered New Amstel and the fort changed hands again. During the assault, the fort was severely damaged by a cannon barrage from two ships. By 1671, the fort was in ruins and it was leveled by 1678, with the land passing into private hands (Heite and Heite 1986:21).

Figure 1: Virtual Model of How the Fort May Have Looked Based on Archaeological and Historical Research (Image curtesy of Archae3d 2020).

The exact location of the fort had been in question since it faded from memory and the town of New Castle expanded over the past three centuries. Formal archaeological studies to locate the fort were completed in 1986 (Heite and Heite 1989) and again in 2012 (Leach et al. 2013). Seeking to find confirmation of the fort’s location and design, the New Castle Historical Society (NCHS) obtained a grant from the American Battlefield Protection Program to complete additional studies. A three-firm project team—South River Heritage Consulting, Dovetail Cultural Resources Group, and Archae 3D—led the 2020 efforts to further investigate the fort site. The team also included a host of volunteers, visiting archaeologists and retired archaeologists with an interest in the project, including New Holland Foundation archaeologist Hans van Westing (Catts et al. 2020).

The fort was four sided with bastions at the corners and a moat or ditch surrounding the exterior walls for added protection. Much to the delight of the team, the eastern dry moat/ditch was firmly located and defined during the archaeological survey. Approximately 10 percent of the moat was sampled revealing several nearly complete Dutch red-bodied earthenware ceramic vessels (kookpan, kookkan, and stoofpan). Small pieces of “vetro a fili” glass, majolica and faience earthenware plate, yellow brick, red roof tiles, tobacco pipes, food remains, and a lead shot were found in the moat. Overall more than 950 artifacts were recovered—most relating to the period of the fort’s occupation

One of the more interesting finds was a red-bodied earthenware vessel known as a kookpot recovered from the fill of the moat. The kookpot (formerly referred to by archaeologists as grape or grapen; see Janowitz and Schaefer 2020), kookkan, and stoofpan forms exhibit three feet, a single handle, and a spout (Schaeffer 1994:78–79). Hurst et al. (1986:130) describe these vessels as composed of a hard, red clay with fine quartz sand temper that range in color from brown to orange and red (Photo 1). The clear lead glaze that coats the outside ranges from yellow to greenish brown. While the name implies that these vessels were used in cooking, there is no evidence of burning or sooting on the bases of these objects, so they were likely cracked or broken in transport to the fort and never used in food preparation or exposed to a heat source. The size of the broken sherds of this vessel found in the moat and the fact that they mend indicate that they were discarded right away and not thrown in later when the fort was leveled. Once an insignificant utilitarian object, that was never likely even used, has shed an incredible amount of data on this pivotal Delaware site.

Photo 1: Prayer Before the Meal. Note the red-bodied earthenware kookpot on the ground that the dog is licking (Steen 1667-1671).

Photo 2: Mended Kookpot Recovered During Excavations at Fort Casimir.

Click here to view the 3d model of the fort created by Archae3d https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/model-of-fort-casimir-97ce934cdaa34f8db0321c9a063271e1

References:

Bontemantel, Hans
2011 New Netherland Papers, C. 1650 -1660, From the Collected Papers of Hans Bontemantel, Director of the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Company, Held by the New York Public Library. Translated by Dingman Veersteeg, edited by Martha Dickinson Shattuck. New Netherland Research Center and the New Netherland Institute. Electronic document, https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/research/online-publications/the-new-netherlandpapers-of-hans-bontemantel/, accessed May 2020,

Catts, Wade P., William Liebeknecht, Kevin C. Bradley, Brian Crane, Kerry González, and P. Brad Hatch
2020 “…The soldiers never stopping until they stormed ye fort….” Report on the Archaeological Survey of the Battle for Fort Casimir (7NC-E-105E) City of New Castle, Delaware American Battlefield Protection Program Grant GA 2287-016-007 Prepared for New Castle Historical Society 30 Market Street New Castle, Delaware.

Heite, Edward, F. and Louise Heite
1986 Fort Elfsborg, 1643; A Background Study of the Fort Elsinboro Point or Fort Elfsborg, Elsinboro Township, Salem County, New Jersey and New Castle County, Delaware. Philadelphia District, Corps of Engineers. Manuscript on file at the Delaware State Historic Preservation Office.

1989 Report of Phase I Archaeological and Historical Investigations at the site of Fort Casimir, New Castle, Delaware. Prepared for the Trustees at New Castle Common. Manuscript on file at the Delaware State Historic Preservation Office.

Hurst, John G., David S. Neal, and H.J.E Van Beuningen
1986 Pottery Produced and Traded in North-West Europe 1350-1650. Rotterdam Papers VI. Stichting ‘Het Nederlandse Geruiksvoorwerp’, Rotterdam.

Janowitz, Meta and Richard G. Schaefer
2020 By Any Other Name: Kookpotten or Grapen? Little Pots, Big Stories. In The Archaeology of New Netherland: Uncovering a Forgotten World, edited by Craig Lukezic and John P. McCarthy. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Leach, Peter, Wade P. Catts, and Craig Lukezic
2013 “The starting Point in the Historic of New Castle”: Geophysics and the Exploratory Archaeology at the site of Fort Casimir (7NC-E-105E), City of New Castle, Delaware. John Milner associates. On file at the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, Dover.

Schaefer, Richard Gerhard
1994 A typology of seventeenth-century Dutch ceramics and its implications for American historical archaeology. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.

Steen, Jan
1667-1671 Prayer Before the Meal. Philadelphia Museum of Art. www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/102302.html, accessed September 2020.

Filed Under: Archaeology, Artifact, Delaware, Dutch, Kookpot, Seventeenth Century Tagged With: ceramic, Delaware, Dutch vessels, Fort Casimir, kookpot

A “Killer” Artifact for Babies

November 30, 2018 by Kerri Barile

A Partial Bone Disc Recovered from the Houston-LeCompt Site

By Sara Rivers Cofield and Kerry S. González

This month we are going to revisit an artifact that Dovetail recovered from their data recovery excavations at the Houston-LeCompt site in New Castle County, Delaware. This work was sponsored by the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) as part of the DelDOT Route 301 study. Thousands of artifacts were recovered during the fieldwork, some of which have been discussed in previous blog posts (see April 2016, December 2015, January 2015, and March 2017). For this blog, we not only have a guest author, Sara Rivers-Cofield, Federal Curator at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory (MAC Lab), but we are unabashedly highlighting an artifact we misidentified in 2013.

When Sara took on an analysis of the clothing-related artifacts from the Houston-LeCompt site in 2014, she photographed this partial bone disc (Photo 1) because she thought it might have been a button mold. One-holed bone discs were often used for making thread- or cloth-covered buttons in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but the holes for such buttons were usually much smaller. For that reason, this artifact was not included in Sara’s subsequent analysis and report.

Photo 1: Partial bone disc from the Houston-LeCompt site
(Test Unit 80, Feature 18, Strat. I, Lev. 2).

As it turns out, leaving the artifact out of the clothing analysis was the right decision. Earlier this year Sara was researching artifacts online when she stumbled across an Australian archaeological report showing several similar discs labeled as “bone feeding bottle nipple guards” (Stocks 2013:79, 110, 161, 184). It was an “aha” moment because she had seen nineteenth-century baby bottles that had long tubes with a nipple at the end (Photo 2). The bottles are famous for having been difficult to clean and therefore a perfect breeding ground for bacteria that led to illness and death for many infants. As a result, the bottles were nicknamed “murder bottles” and eventually were removed from the market (Baby Bottle Museum 2016). By the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, other materials like rubber and celluloid were available for bottle nipples, however according to the 1902 and 1908 Sears, Roebuck Catalogs some guards were still made of bone (Figures 1-2).

Photo 2: Many babies were photographed with their bottles, perhaps to keep them happy and still for the photo session (Parent24 2018).

Figure 1: Disc-shaped nipple guards can be seen on bottles, nipple shields, and teething rings in the 1902 Sears, Roebuck Catalog. The description of the glass nipple shield specifies that the guard is made of bone (Sears, Roebuck Co. 1902:454).

Figure 2: Two teething rings/pacifiers featured in the 1908 Sears, Roebuck Catalog specify that the nipple guard is made of bone (Schroeder 1971:794).

It was exciting to have a lead on that tricky bone disc that she remembered from Houston-LeCompt. Not long after this discovery, Sara found a complete bone guard in a collection from the City of Baltimore that had just been delivered to the MAC Lab, and this example even has a rubber lining remaining in the ring (Photo 3). No doubt there are many more of these in collections that have never been properly identified.

Now that we can recognize these bone discs for what they are, it is possible to connect the Houston-LeCompt site to an interesting era in the history of parenthood when new bottles were designed to make parents’ lives easier by letting babies feed themselves. How awful it must have been for parents to realize that their adoption of these convenient feeders could have such deadly consequences.

This artifact is just one example of the importance of retaining archaeological collections. Human beings have made an amazingly diverse array of products, and it just isn’t possible for any one archaeologist to know about them all. Archaeology is an ongoing learning process that keeps going once the initial written report is finished.

Photo 3: Complete nipple guard with surviving rubber in the center. From the Albemarle Rowhouse site (18BC50/40H-292).

References:

Baby Bottle Museum
2016 Murder Bottles: Baby feeding bottles that could kill. Electronic document, http://www.babybottle-museum.co.uk/murder-bottles/, accessed November 2018.

Parent24
2018 Timeline: From ‘killer bottles’ to baby cages, weird and wonderful baby gadgets from the past, electronic document, https://www.parent24.com/Baby/Fun/timeline-from-killer-bottles-to-baby-cages-here-are-baby-gadgets-from-the-past-20180522. Accessed August 2018.

Schroeder, Joseph J., Jr, editor
1971 Sears, Roebuck & Co. 1908, Catalogue No. 117: A Treasured Replica from the Archives of History. DBI Books, Inc., Northfield, Illinois.

Sears, Roebuck Co.
1902 The 1902 Edition of the Sears, Roebuck Catalogue. 1986 Edited reprint by Bounty Books, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, New York.

Stocks, Robyn
2013 Miscellaneous, Organics and Non-structural Metals Report: Darling Quarter, Darling Harbor. Vol. 3, Section 8.2 of the Casey & Lowe Darling Harbor report. Electronic document, http://www.caseyandlowe.com.au/pdf/darlingquarter/DarlingQuarter_Volume_3_Section_8.2_Misc_Report_Part1.pdf, accessed November 2018.

Filed Under: Archaeology, Artifact, Delaware, DelDOT, Household, Houston-LeCompt, Tools

The Tines They Are A Changing

November 24, 2017 by Kerri Barile

Featured Fragment – Eighteenth-Century Forks

By Kerry S. González

Dovetail Cultural Resource Group recently installed two exhibits highlighting archaeological finds on behalf of the Delaware Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration: one at the Smyrna Rest Area in Smyrna, Delaware, and the other at the Delaware Welcome Center in Newark, Delaware. The exhibits feature artifacts recovered during the excavations at the Houston-LeCompt (7NC-F-139) and Armstrong-Rogers sites (7NC-F-135).

Close Up of Shelf Showing Fork on Display in Houston-LeCompt Exhibit.

View of Armstrong-Rogers Archaeological Exhibit.

This month’s blog focuses on two of those artifacts, one found at each site. We are using two similar artifacts found during our excavations in Delaware to: one, shamelessly plug the recently installed artifact exhibits on the Houston-LeCompt and Armstrong-Rogers sites; and two, highlight an artifact associated with eating, which seems appropriate considering it is Thanksgiving week.

The fork recovered from the Armstrong-Rogers site consists only of the tangs and shoulders but even these seemingly insignificant attributes provided information on its date and use. Around 1770 the shoulders of a fork became more squared and less rounded, suggesting that the fork from Armstrong-Rogers predates 1770 (Dunning 2000:38). Additionally, according to Phil Dunning (2000:38), “average-quality forks began to be made with three tines, which had previously been found only on fine cutlery.” While this fork is not displayed in the exhibit on the Armstrong-Rogers site, many other artifacts are on display and highlight the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth occupation of the site.

Fork Recovered from the Armstrong-Rogers Site, Conserved by the MAC Lab. Image courtesy of the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab (MAC Lab).

The fork from the Houston-LeCompt site, which can been seen in the newly installed exhibit at the Smyrna Rest Area, is a two-tined fork with a bone handle. Based on the design of the scored bone handle and rounded shoulders, as discussed above, this fork also predates 1770 (Dunning 2000).

Fork and Scored Bone Handle Recovered from the Houston-LeCompt Site, Conserved at the MAC Lab. Image courtesy of the MAC Lab.

During the mid-eighteenth century, forks were gaining popularity but were not used in the same manner as today. The fork’s main role was to hold the food in place while being cut with a knife. A person would then deliver the bite-sized piece using the knife into their mouth, leaving the fork with no task other than to anchor the food. According to Ivor Noël Hume (1969), as forks became more popular at the end of the eighteenth century, the knife became more rounded, all but reversing their roles.

The Industrious ‘Prentice Grown Rich and Sheriff of London: Industry and Idleness (Hogarth 1747).

When you sit down to dinner this Holiday season and pick up your trusty three- or four-tined fork, think of how far we have come since the eighteenth century. And if your holiday travels take you through Delaware and you happen to pass by one of the above-mentioned rest areas, please stop by and take a peek at our exhibits!

http://www.visitdelaware.com/listings/smyrna-rest-stop-and-information-center/381/

http://www.visitdelaware.com/listings/delaware-welcome-center/2029/

References:

Dunning, Phil
2000 Composite Table Cutlery from 1700 to 1930. In Studies in Material Culture, edited by Karlis Karklin, pp. 32–45. The Society for Historical Archaeology, California University Press, California, Pennsylvania.

Hogarth, William
1747 The Industrious ‘Prentice Grown Rich and Sheriff of London: Industry and Idleness (Plate 8). Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/
collection/search/398593, accessed November 2017.

Noël Hume, Ivor
1969 A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America. Vintage Books, New York

Filed Under: Archaeology, Armstrong-Rogers, Artifact, Consumption, Delaware, Eighteenth Century, Eighteenth-century dwelling, Houston-LeCompt

Let It Bleed: A Historical Medical Device from New Castle County, Delaware

June 23, 2017 by Kerri Barile

Featured Fragment – Fleam Cover

By Kerry S. González

In the fall of 2012 Dovetail Cultural Resource Group (Dovetail) conducted a data recovery excavation on a mid-eighteenth through late-nineteenth century domestic site (7NC-F-135/Armstrong-Rogers) in New Castle County, Delaware. The data recovery was sponsored by the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) as part of the DelDOT Route 301 study. Over 6,500 artifacts were recovered during the excavation, one of which was a copper alloy fleam cover (pictured below).

Fleam Cover From Dovetail Excavation of Site 7NC-F-135.

Fleams (pictured below), also known as bloodletting devices, were used in the historic medical practice of bloodletting. This instrument was a folding handheld device (much like a pocket knife) with several blades or lancets sharp enough to cut the median cubital vein at the elbow (Greenstone 2010). Once the blood flow began, a bowl known as a ‘bleeding bowl’ was placed under the arm to catch the blood.

Bloodletting as a medical practice is thought to have begun with the Egyptians around 3,000 years ago and grew in popularity throughout the centuries peaking in the nineteenth century (Greenstone 2010). During the third century B.C. a Greek physician named Erasistratus thought that all ailments stemmed from an excess of blood (Cohen 2012). By the second century A.D., Galen of Pergamum, also a Greek physician, believed that an illness was the direct result of an imbalance of the four “humors”, represented by liquids in the body, and the best way to restore balance was by bleeding (Cohen 2012). Furthermore, Pergamum believed each humor to be associated with the essential elements of air, water, earth, and fire as well as the four seasons of the year.

Blood=Air=Spring
Phlegm=Water=Winter
Black bile=Earth=Autumn
Yellow bile=Fire=Summer

Complete 5-Bladed Fleam (Ebay 2017).

The art of bloodletting became as ubiquitous as antibiotics are today in medieval Europe where physicians and even barbers began using the fleam, which at the time was an iron rod with a sharpened point that would get ‘hammered’ into the vein (Cohen 2012). In 1978 Saturday Night Live aired a satirical sketch (shown below) on bloodletting called “Theodoric of York: Medieval Barber.” During the sketch Theodoric orders 2 pints of blood to be removed from a sick woman stating: “Isabel is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors” (Martin 1978). In the sketch the woman died, not unlike many real patients who were subjected to bloodletting.

Bloodletting continued through the years with historical figures such as Marie-Antoinette and George Washington reportedly being subjected to bloodletting. By the late-nineteenth century new medical practices were being discovered and luckily bloodletting as a treatment for all ailments became less frequent. While used today for conditions such as hemochromatosis (disorder leading to abnormal iron accumulation in organs) and polycythemia vera (stem cells bone marrow disorder causing red blood cell overproduction), we can count on never having to hear our doctor say: “you are in need of a good bleeding; let’s take 2 pints” (Greenstone 2010).

Reproduction of European Medieval Fleam and Bowl Based on Archaeological Finds at The Abbey Of Saint Eutizio, Italy (N.R.C. 2017).

References:

Cohen, Jennie
2012 A Brief History of Bloodletting. Electronic documentation, http://www.history.com/news/a-brief-history-of-bloodletting, accessed June 2017

Ebay
2017 Antique Baldinelli Veterinary Blood Letting Brass Cased Fleam. Electronic documentation, http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-BALDINELLI-Veterinary-Blood-Letting-Brass-Cased-FLEAM-5-Blades-Tools-/282525911312, accessed June 2017.

Greenstone, Gerry MD
2010 The History of Bloodletting. British Columbia Medical Journal (BCMJ) 52(1):12‒14. Electronic documentation, http://www.bcmj.org/premise/history-bloodletting, accessed June 2017.

Martin, Steve
1978 Theodoric of York: Medieval Barber. Saturday Night Live: Season 3. Electronic document, http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/theodoric-of-york/n8661?snl=1, accessed June 2017.

N.R.C
2017 Reproduction of European medieval bloodletting and cautery tools based on archaeological finds at the abbey of Saint Eutizio, Italy. Image source: Medieval Design. In Pinterest [Personal Page]. Electronic document, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/132152570287486399/, accessed June 2017.

Filed Under: Archaeology, Artifact, Delaware, Eighteenth Century, Medical, Nineteenth Century Tagged With: archaeology, Artifact, Delaware, Medical

Musical Musings

March 17, 2017 by Kerri Barile

Featured Fragment – Instrument Fragments of Houston-LeCompt

By Kerry S. González

Concertina and Harmonica Reeds from Site 7NC-F-139 Top row: concertina reeds Bottom row: harmonica reeds

In the summer of 2012 Dovetail Cultural Resource Group conducted a large-scale excavation at the Houston-LeCompt site in Middletown, Delaware sponsored by the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) as part of the DelDOT Route 301 study. Thousands of artifacts were recovered, some of which have been discussed in previous blog posts (See April 2016, December 2015, and January 2015). A total of seven artifacts relating to free-reed musical instruments were recovered from the site, representing a concertina and a harmonica. The identifications of the instrument fragments were made based on size and thickness of each artifact and in consultation with professional musicians. The four harmonica fragments consist of one plate and one reed. Both concertina reed fragments have intact rivets.

Both the harmonica and concertina are small portable instruments, which likely made them more desirable to some. The harmonica is a relatively young instrument, as it was not invented until the second half of the nineteenth century in Germany. By the 1890s, the harmonica was being mass produced and sold by many catalog stores such as Sears and Roebuck (Public Broadcasting System [PBS] 2001). The concertina was developed during the early-nineteenth century. It remained popular through the nineteenth century but its allure rapidly faded during the early-twentieth century. Mass production of other instruments such as the piano and accordion aided in the decline in popularity of the concertina. Archival research has shown that the residents of the Houston-LeCompt site in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century were tenant farmers—individuals who traveled from parcel to parcel renting land and planting crops to support their family. Finding fragments of small musical instruments at the site helps archaeologists understand the sometimes-transient lifestyle of these individuals. Although they called many areas home, music often helped provide a mental break from their day-to-day activities and create a comforting sense of place.

Girl in Kentucky playing the Anglo concertina, ca. 1920

Harmonica player

References:

Public Broadcasting System (PBS)
2001 American Roots Series. Instruments & Innovations. Electronic document, http://www.pbs.org/americanrootsmusic/pbs_arm_ii_harmonica.html, accessed December 2014.

Filed Under: Archaeology, Artifact, Delaware, Entertainment, Houston-LeCompt, Nineteenth Century Tagged With: archaeology, Artifact, Delaware, DelDOT, Nineteenth Century

Archaeological Amusement

August 12, 2016 by Kerri Barile

Featured Fragment – Brandywine Springs Carousel Ring

By Bill Liebeknecht

Recovered steel carousel ring

In 1886, Richard Crook rented the Brandywine Springs facilities from the Fell family. Located west of downtown Wilmington, Delaware, Crook envisioned a resort where people would go on weekends and holidays for picnics, parties, and political rallies. Shortly thereafter, his vision shifted to using amusements to draw in the crowds from Wilmington and Philadelphia. By 1889, he had erected a restaurant and a toboggan slide in the grove down from the Chalybeate spring; by 1890, he added a merry-go-round and the amusement park was on its way (Weslager 1949:70–73). He replaced the initial merry-go-round in 1891 with an enclosed structure housing flying horses (otherwise known as a carousel) (Lawlor 2013:15). The park resembled a shore resort community complete with boardwalks and attractions.

Dovetail conducted archaeological excavations on a portion of the former resort this summer. A seemingly unappealing artifact, an iron or steel ring (pictured left), was recovered from Excavation Unit 2, Level III. This simple, steel ring is from the carousel. Riders on the outside row of animals (typically horses, but not always) could play the “Brass Ring” game. They would grab rings from the end of a wooden arm or shoot loaded with steel or iron rings and one brass ring. The rider who grabbed the brass ring was given the honor of staying on for a free ride. Steel rings taken as souvenirs have been found throughout the park, and although not a prize they are valued as mementos of days gone by (Lawlor 2013:19–20).

For more information on Brandywine Springs visit http://www.fobsde.org/

Brandywine Springs Carousel

Brandywine Springs Carousel at Night

Brandywine Springs Food Stand

Photographs courtesy of Friends of Brandywine Springs

References:

Lawlor, Mark R
2013 Brandywine Springs Amusement Park, Echoes of the Past 1886-1923. M and M Publishing. Wilmington, Delaware.

Weslager, C.A.
1949 Brandywine Springs, The Rise and Fall of a Delaware Resort. Hambleton Company, Inc. Wilmington, Delaware.

Filed Under: Archaeology, Artifact, Delaware, Entertainment, Nineteenth Century Tagged With: archaeology, Artifact, Brandywine Springs, Delaware, Nineteenth Century