Featured Fragment Blog
An Artifact as Stubborn as a Donkey: We Need Your Help?
By Kerry S. González For our last blog of 2019 we are once again revisiting artifacts recovered from the Trogdon-Squirrel Creek site, a mid- to late-nineteenth-century domestic site in Randolph County, North Carolina. On behalf of the North Carolina Department of...
The HumunGIS Importance of Mapping Data at Archaeological Sites
Featured Fragment – HumunGIS Importance of GIS By D. Brad Hatch and Emily Calhoun Since this past Wednesday (November 13, 2019) was Geographic Information System (GIS) Day, we’ve decided to dedicate this week’s blog to highlighting how archaeologists use GIS as a tool...
One Shell of an Artifact: Monetaria annulus as Evidence of Fredericksburg’s Global Economic Connections
Featured Fragment – Cowrie Shell By D. Brad Hatch This month’s artifact began its life somewhere in the Indian or Pacific Ocean, likely made its way to the west coast of Africa, crossed the Atlantic, then traveled up the Rappahannock River before ending up in...
Hindsite is 20/20: A Look at Historic Eyewear
Featured Fragment – Historic Eyewear By Kerry S. González We’ve decided to continue our series highlighting the artifacts recovered from the Trogdon-Squirrel Creek site in Randolph County, North Carolina for the month of September. On behalf of the North Carolina...
50th Blog!
This month celebrates our 50th blog post and in honor of this anniversary we will be revisiting our top three most-popular blogs. To see which blogs made the cut, please follow the links below. To date, our most popular blog, reaching almost 7,000 people on Facebook...
A “Classical” Case—Creamware at the Fredericksburg Riverfront
By Kerry S. González For our devoted followers, you may remember seeing a blog post back in 2015 on the creamware fragment below, found in 2013 during our Phase I survey of the Riverfront Park in Fredericksburg, Virginia (Photo 1). We are revisiting this piece because...
The Nose Knows: A Perfume Bottle from Fredericksburg
By: Kerry S. González Often times local residents interested in the history of the area, or more specifically the history of their property, bring us artifacts to identify. Most recently a long-time resident of Fredericksburg brought us some materials found during...
It Was Colonel Weedon With a Candlestick on Sophia Street: Another “Clue” to Fredericksburg’s Past
By Kerry S. González and D. Brad Hatch This month we are once again highlighting an artifact recovered from our Riverfront Park excavations in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The candlestick fragment pictured below is made of brass and is typical of the late Georgian/early...
Dovetail Needs Your Help!
By Kerry Gonzalez Continuing our blog series on artifacts recovered from our Riverfront Park excavations in Fredericksburg, we would like to highlight the wine bottle seal pictured below. Marking wine bottles with personalized seals were done near the end of the...
Jaw Harp Found in Fredericksburg
Music To Our Ears Mouths: A Jaw Harp Found in Fredericksburg By: Kerry Gonzalez This month’s blog will continue our series on Dovetail’s recent excavations at the Riverfront Park in Fredericksburg, Virginia where over 10,000 artifacts were recovered. Many of these...
When Building Fragments Come Together: Foundations at the Fredericksburg Riverfront Park
By Kerri Barile One of the most exciting finds on an archaeological site are the remains of a building or structure—evidence of people modifying their natural world to create a controlled space. Whether it is a dwelling, store, barn, or other building, the activity of...
Coming Unglued: The Importance of Reversibility in Artifact Conservation
By Reagan Andersen In this month’s blog, we are highlighting a whiteware basin with a flow blue Scinde pattern from the mid-nineteenth century. The object was brought to the Dovetail lab by a curious owner from Stafford County. The vessel had once been broken into...