Archaeology on the FLNF

What is Archaeology?	SUNY Brockport's Archaeology Work on the FLNF
Academic Reports

What is Archaeology?
Archaeology is the study of the past – material culture, how people lived based on the material goods they made, used, and threw away. Historians look at documents, cultural anthropologists talk to people, and archaeologists use material culture to understand how people lived in the past.

Archaeological Sites on the forest
Archaeological sites give us insights into the land-use patterns and life-ways of people who have walked these lands before us. Because the Forest is made up of old farmstead sites, it makes it this area a prime location for researchers and students to delve into the past. The Forest has more than 100 such sites, including the archaeological remains of farmsteads, mills, schools, roads, stone walls, and more. These sites exist today in a forested environment, far different from the landscape at the time when they were bustling farms and small communities.

A stone wall on the forest.


Why Excavate?
Excavations conducted on the Finger Lakes National Forest have an educational purpose, and that purpose is to learn more about the people that once populated the Hector Backbone.  Researchers and students look for clues about how the people lived, and what kind of life they led. Excavations must be conducted under a special use permit and for educational purposes.

Looting
When people remove things from historic sites, or old dump sites, that information is lost to researchers and to all future generations.  It is similar to tearing out a chapter in a book. If you see artifacts laying on the surface, please leave them.

Archaeological sites are protected by Federal law.  Please leave them undisturbed; they hold clues to our past. Looting heritage sites is against the law, and is a felony. Please see the section on Laws and Fines.

Researching the Past - Steps to Follow
One way archaeologists can learn about the past is thru excavations. Before any excavations are conducted, several things have to be done.

Research is the first step, and old maps are a great place to start, before going out to ground-truth the site to see if there are features left, such as a well, foundation, or cellar hole.  Records such as deeds, wills and census reports are searched at county offices and courthouses.

There’s no one-way to excavate a site.  A lot depends on what the researcher wants to know about the site, or an aspect of the past.  It’s also determined by the amount of time and money available, and what will happen to the site after the researchers are done with their work.
Field work is not about just digging holes – it is about where, how, and why to dig those holes.

Provenance is everything to professionals and students in heritage resources.  All excavations are conducted with units and grids, and all artifacts collected are precisely recorded. The site must first be brushed out, and everything is carefully mapped, using GPS technology.
A grid is mapped, and a central point chosen, called as site datum. Using a laser Theodolite, the features (such as a cellar hole), units (designated excavation sites) and the site area is mapped.

Metal detector surveys are also sometimes done, and every time the detector gets a hit, a pin flag is put into the ground.  These flags are then recorded by GPS and removed.  This will often tell the researchers where other buildings stood, by finding nails, or metal farm equipment, etc.

When surface artifacts are collected, the location is also GPS'd, so it is documented and recorded.  It could become important information in helping to understand the site later. 

Shovel test pit (STP) sites are dug to test the soil profile and to determine the presence of artifact deposits or location of features.  For example, if you  saw a foundation, and weren’t sure which way it was going, north or south, you would probably dig a STP at one location and hope to hit the stone wall, telling you what direction the feature was going in.  It also helps the archaeologist determine where to place units. Excavations are very time consuming, so unit placement is key.

Example of a Shovel Test Pit

Units are large meter squares that layed out, and this is the area that is excavated.  Everything is in metric. Units are generally 1x1x2.  The units are carefully excavated in layers, and photographed. Think of your laundry basket at home as an example – If your laundry basket has not been disturbed, you are going to find the oldest clothes (the ones you wore the longest ago) on the bottom, and the ones you wore more recently toward the top.  Well – it’s the same way in theory with excavating sites.  You expect to find the oldest artifacts and materials deepest in the soil, unless it has been disturbed. This is called stratigraphy.  When one soil layer overlies another, the bottom layer was deposited first and must be older. Researchers know when they are excavating a site that has been looted or disturbed. Soils are in layers, and those layers usually have different colorations.  If archaeologists start excavating a site that has been disturbed, the soil colorations will not be distinct, and they often find modern trash in the lower levels.

When excavating, you do so with a trowel, and remove layers of soil separately.  However, soils are not always differentiated by colors, and textures, and when they are not, archaeologist use arbitrary levels, and dig down incrementally in centimeter levels. Everything is pre-measured and recorded.  Digging is done horizontally, not vertically, and the unit must be kept neat.  Whisk brooms are often used to brush out the dirt into a dustpan and emptied into a bucket that will be screened.  The depth of each unit is measured using a level on a string.


Dirt is sifted through an archaeology screen, and it is here that you’ll find bone pieces, nails, buttons, ceramics, pottery, beads, etc. that you wouldn’t normally see while you are excavating with the trowel.

Girl Scouts excavating at Caywood Point.

Artifacts are recorded, bagged, and labeled.  They are later washed, set out to dry, and re-bagged for analysis and data entry at the lab. All throughout the process, the researchers are recording everything in journals, which remain as part of the research base. 

Dr. LouAnn Wurst of SUNY Brockport states that "the field of archaeology is based on the premise that we can learn about human behavior through the study of material culture.  All archaeological interpretation is framed around a comparison and entails the concept of patterning.  I define patterning as the systematic relationship between material culture and space.  We operationalize this concept by asking questions such as: What was found?, What was it found with? How did those artifacts get there? When did they get there? Once we understand the behaviors that led to the creation of our assemblages and sites, we can ask other questions about the people who lived there."

Excavations were conducted on the forest by SUNY Brockport from 2000 to 2008. After the excavating, the following process is what happens in the Archaeology Lab at SUNY Brockport:

1. All artifacts are identified and catalogued.
2. All the material is sorted (i.e. glass, ceramic, metal, bone)
3. Artifacts are identifed by functional group.
4. The artifact is dated if possible.
5. All data about the artifact is entered onto a recording form, entered into a database, and checked for accuracy.
6. The data is organized and analysed, looking for patterns.
a. Are there differences in the total number of artifacts in different levels?  In nearby units?
b. Are some artifact groups/types only present in certain levels or units?
c. Are there differences in the number of artifacts by group or type in different levels?  In nearby units?
d. Are there differences in the size of artifacts in different levels or in nearby units that would help explain how those artifacts were deposited?
7. The data patterns are interpreted in terms of human behavior at the site.
a. Can we associate these artifacts with the site’s occupants?
b. Do these artifact patterns suggest any interpretations of the site occupants in terms of diet and foodways?
c. Do these artifact patterns suggest any interpretations of the site occupants in terms of activities or tasks?
d. Do these artifact patterns suggest any interpretations of the site occupants in terms of socio-economic class?           

The Lab at SUNY Brockport. Those are all FLNF artifact boxes! This picture is from an Open House held in 2008. That's Dave Lacy, the Archaeologist for the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests on the right!

Recordkeeping is extremely important in the field of archaeology.  Mainly because the sites are a non-renewable resource – excavating a site is a destructive process. Archaeology is a unique science in that the researchers actually destroy what they are trying to study.  Because of that, documentation is key.  Archaeologists spend as much time in the field writing in journals as digging.

SUNY Brockport's Archaeology Work on the FLNF

Dr. LouAnn Wurst, Professor at SUNY Brockport has been conducting excavations on the forest since 2000. She has held a 6 credit course entitled "Field Methods in Archaeology", and the students spent 6 weeks on the forest.

2007 Research Design	July 2007 News Article
2006 Research Design	Excavation Photos

For specific information on family farmsteads, and more in depth information on the homestead sites, please click onto to the Historic Sites and Structures page.

Academic Reports:
Other institutions have done studies on the Forest, and the following reports are the result of those studies:

"Crisis on the Farm: An Archaeology of the Great Depression in Rural New York" by Patrick Heaton, New York University, and LouAnn Wurst, SUNY Brockport

"The Hector Backbone" A Quiescent Landscape of Conflict" by James A. Delle and Patrict Heaton

"Farming the Sub-Margins: Dominant Myths and Archaeological Realities" by Christine L. Ridarsky, University of Rochester, LouAnn Wurst, SUNY Brockport

"Farmsteads and Finances in the Finger Lakes: Using GIS to interpret Archival REcords in Historical Archaeology" by Patrick J. Heaton, New York University

"Fixing Farms: Pondering Farm Scenes from the Vanity Press" by LouAnn Wurst, SUNY Brockport