Category: Archaeology

Vanity, thy name is Charlotte

The MSU Campus Archaeology site has a new post by Katy Meyers Emery about a Frozen Charlotte doll found in one of their digs.

The name comes from a poem, and later a song, about a young woman who, not wanting to cover up her pretty dress, refused to dress warmly for a long sleigh ride with her beau. When they arrived at the party, he discovered, to his horror, that Charlotte had frozen to death.

The small, inexpensive dolls do not have moving limbs – i.e., they look frozen. They were quite common in the mid to late 1800s, and may also have been easily lost or broken,  as they turn up  not infrequently on historical archaeological sites.

The photos below show some of the Charlottes  (as well as other toys and trinkets) excavated from house sites in a former late nineteenth century working class neighborhood in Jersey City, New Jersey.

  Images from:

Howson, Jean, and Leonard G. Bianchi

2014 Covert-Larch: Archaeology of a Jersey City Neighborhood. Data Recovery for the Route 1&9T (25) St. Paul’s Viaduct Replacement Project Jersey City, Hudson County, NJ. Cultural Resource Unit, The RBA Group, Inc.

The original post is at MSU Campus Archaeology

 

Select Archaeology Books Available for Free Download from Springer

Edit: Or not. Either it was a glitch on Springer’s part, or an extremely short term offer. The books no longer appear to be free. It was nice while it lasted.

Springer has made a big chunk of its catalog of archaeology and other scientific and technical books freely available for download. There are almost 400 archaeology and anthropology books available, including Dent’s Chesapeake Prehistory, Odell’s Lithic Analysis, most/all volumes of the Encyclopedia of Prehistory, and many more. Titles include underwater archaeology, geoarchaeology, historical archaeology, and biological anthropology. See the books at Springer.

The Ancient Greek Inspiration for the Leg Lamp in A Christmas Story

Greek Ceramic Leg Vase, ROM

The famous leg lamp from the classic film A Christmas Story was created by the movie’s production designer, Reuben Freed. But how could it not have been inspired by this Archaic Greek leg vase, created in the early sixth century B.C. and on display in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto?

Not Your Typical Cradle and Knoll Topography

A Medieval skeleton was found hanging from an uprooted tree in County Sligo. The tree was knocked over during a storm, revealing the upper body of a young man killed at least 800 years ago. More details:

Medieval Skeleton Found Dangling From the Roots of a Fallen Tree

Beneath the Tree: A Violent Death in Early Medieval Sligo

Photo by Marion Dowd from irisharchaeology.ie

The First Dig at Frontenac Island

Bone Deer Head Effigy from Frontenac Island. Source: Cadzow 1925

Bone effigy deer’s head found on Frontenac Island, NY. Source: Cadzow 1925, Figure 33.

The Frontenac Island site in Cayuga Lake, New York, was excavated by William Ritchie in 1939-1940, and then again several years later. The first professional excavations on the island, however, were conducted by Donald Cadzow for the Museum of the American Indian around the same time Ritchie was beginning to excavate the Lamoka Lake site.

“For many years Cayuga county, New York, has been a happy hunting-ground for commercial pothunters and local diggers,” Cadzow wrote,  but Frontenac Island had “been protected for many years by public-spirited citizens living nearby.” (p. 56, 58) Cadzow received permission from the island’s owners (the village of Union Springs) to dig on the island, beginning in late July 1924. Excavations were limited, but finds included pottery and human burials. Included with one of the burials were four stone plummets, one winged bannerstone, a bone animal effigy interpreted as a deer’s head, three beaver incisors, one notched point, three antler flakers, two bone “arrowpoints” (one looks harpoon-like) and the left humerus of a swan, which had been cut and polished and perforated.

Frontenac Island Bone Points. Source: Cadzow 1925

Bone “arrowpoints’ from Frontenac Island, NY. Source: Cadzow 1925, Figure 35.

Frontenac Island. Source: Cadzow 1925

Frontenac Island. Source: Cadzow 1925.

Reference:

Cadzow, Donald

1925  Prehistoric Algonkian Burial Site in Cayuga County, New York. Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation Indian Notes 2(1):56-63.

 

Human Effigy on Ceramic Pot from New York

Ceramic sherd from New York state. Source: Beauchamp 1898.
Ceramic sherd from New York state. Source: Beauchamp 1898.

Human effigy on ceramic sherd found in Montgomery County, New York. The horizontal grooves across the torso are found on similar effigies on other Iroquoian pots.  Illustrated and described by William Beauchamp, who thought that the long grooves behind the body are suggestive of feathered wings. Undated by Beauchamp, but may postdate European contact.

Reference:

Beauchamp, William M.

1898       Earthenware of the New York Aborigines. Bulletin of the New York State Museum Volume 5, No. 22. Albany. Figure 41.