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To promote public interest and awareness of local archaeology, the R.I. Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission is posting short articles that spotlight recent studies and research advances from around the state. For more information, contact Timothy Ives.
FIELD NOTE 3: Tropical Storm Sandy and Rhode Island Archaeology: The Crescent Beach Site (click here for a pdf)
Joseph N. Waller, Jr.
The Public Archaeology Laboratory Inc. (PAL)
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Tropical Storm Sandy impacted the New Shoreham coastline on October 29, 2012. The storm exposed a portion of a previously unknown Native American archaeological site, known as the Crescent Beach Site, beneath Corn Neck Road south of the Block Island town beach. Corn Neck Road is a state road and the Rhode Island Department of Transportation retained PAL to conduct archaeological recovery of Native American artifacts exposed by the storm prior to the repair of the roadway. Archaeologists working with tribal representatives from the Narragansett Indian Tribal Historic Preservation Office excavated the entire exposed surface mapping in the location of all the artifacts with a total station. Hundreds of Native American artifacts including quartz and quartzite waste debris generated by chipped-stone tool manufacture, a few roughly shaped or incomplete stone tools, a quartz arrow point, and Native American clay pot sherds were recovered from the exposed land surface. Analysis of the archaeological data is currently ongoing, although preliminary interpretations are that the Crescent Beach Site was a location where the indigenous Block Islanders camped, made stone tools, and cooked or processed foods. Clay pot sherds and the triangular arrow point from the site suggest that the Crescent Beach Site was occupied during the Woodland Period between roughly 1600 and 500 years ago.
FIELD NOTE 2: Archaeology at Block Island’s Harbor Pond Site (click here for a pdf)
Joseph N. Waller, Jr.
The Public Archaeology Laboratory Inc. (PAL)
Deepwater Wind, a Rhode Island based offshore wind developer, contracted with PAL to conduct archaeological survey as a planning element of the proposed Block Island Wind Farm (BIWF) and Block Island Transmission System (BITS). The BIWF consists of five turbines with a maximum output of 30 megawatts. The BIWF is proposed to be located in coastal waters southeast of Block Island. The BITS is a bi-directional electric cable that will connect Block Island to the mainland Rhode Island electrical grid for the first time.
Archaeological survey on Block Island identified the Harbor Pond archaeological site situated between Harbor Pond and Trims Pond within the central island area. Native American artifacts including stone arrow or spear points, scraping implements, fishing weights, chipped-stone tool manufacturing debris, and clay pot sherds have been recovered from the site. Stones used to make the tools recovered from the site were primarily acquired from Block Island’s shoreline or perhaps from the island’s glacial till deposits before being transported to the site and shaped into finished artifacts. Other stones such as argillite and quartzite suggest that some the site’s occupants either periodically traveled to or traded with individuals who inhabited Rhode Island’s mainland. Charcoal recovered from a post hole and refuse pit at the site indicate that the Harbor Pond Site was occupied as early as 2000 BC and then again around 300 BC. The site is interpreted as a series of overlapping encampments that were occupied by few individuals or perhaps small families for several days to several weeks at a time. Activities undertaken at the site included stone tool manufacture, hunting of land or perhaps marine mammals, processing and consumption of shellfish, trash disposal, and camping.
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FIELD NOTE 1: Chepachet Village Middle Privilege Archaeological Sites, Glocester, Rhode Island (click here for a pdf)
Suzanne Cherau and Erin Timms
The Public Archaeology Laboratory Inc. (PAL)
Phase II archaeological investigations in advance of the construction of a stormwater retention project identified Native American and EuroAmerican sites at the Chepachet Village Middle Privilege on the Chepachet River in Glocester, Rhode Island. The Native American site consists of a lithic assemblage of six stone tool fragments (five projectile points, one uniface) and a low density of quartz and quartzite chipping debris. The majority of these materials was recovered in fill and redeposited subsoils that are associated with the 19th-century mill site occupation. The EuroAmerican site focuses on the middle textile mill privilege first used in the late 18th century to serve a tannery and a blacksmith shop, and expanded in the early 19th century for a gristmill, distillery, sawmill, and cotton mill. These smaller mills were eventually replaced with a large brick and stone factory operating under the name F.R. White Co. The factory’s operations expanded to include worsteds production and several large mill additions, employing over 400 workers, some of whom lived in worker housing near the factory site. The complex was the largest industry in Chepachet Village until it was destroyed by fire in 1897.
The archaeological investigations at the mill were focused on the worker housing sector near Oil Mill Lane. This area contained several large mid-late-19th-century tenements as well as the documented location of an earlier “Stone House” built by the early mill occupants. The excavations within and around the Stone House foundation determined that it included at least two additions as well as a stone-lined well in a small yard area adjacent to the house. The main structure foundation appears to have been square, measuring about 30-x-30-ft, and constructed exclusively of drylaid stone with some limited mortar pointing. A center chimney base, measuring roughly 7 by 15 ft, was present in the main structure foundation. It was constructed of rough fieldstones and mortar. A low cellar may have been present in the southern half of the house, while the northern half may only have had a small crawl space underneath the main floor. The stone-lined well measured roughly 5 ft in external diameter, and appears to have been surrounded by a small semi-circular stone retaining wall that could have supported a fence to delineate this side yard area from the adjacent mill yard.
The archaeological investigations also recovered over 120,000 artifacts mostly dating from the mid to late 1800s. Artifact types include a wide range of ceramics (table and tea wares), glassware, medicine bottles, metal tools, silverware, and personal items including buttons, clothing and shoe grommets and leather, pipe stems and bowls, sewing items, pendants, buckles, children’s toys, combs, gun flints, etc. along with structural debris (window glass, nails, door and window hardware, brick, mortar, slate shingles). Food remains include butchered cow and pig bone, shellfish, and fish bones. The recovered archaeological data is being analyzed to address site density, complexity, age, and integrity as well as site-specific research themes relating to the construction and use of domestic/tenement space and lifeways of the mill owners/workers who occupied the site in the 19th century.
 Layout of the Chepachet Village Middle Privilege Woolen Mill complex including worker housing (tenements) off Oil Mill Lane, 1892 Associated Mutual Insurance Company Map. |
PAL archaeologists excavate a portion of the Harbor Pond Site on Block Island.
