Archaeology Day

Today we celebrated Archaeology Day at the headquarters of our local chapter of the New York State Archaeological Association. It was a beautiful day, and I was happy to see how many people came out. Laurie and I created two display boards with photos of the excavation, which we combined with the posters showing the cemetery's history which Laurie and Susan created months ago. I also brought along some artifacts and tools for the display, including the gunflint and the hand pestle.

Our display looked great next to the bright green walls, and I loved showing people our artifacts. Eugene took a look at the artifacts I brought. He said that the nails are of a type used in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which means that they could have come from either St. George's or St. Mark's Church. A piece of pottery I had brought dated to the eighteenth century, as did, of course, the gunflint.

Speaking of the gunflint, when I arrived someone told me (I forget who) that there was a French gunflint among the artifacts on display behind the Nature Center. Someone had suggested weeks ago that our gunflint was French, but asked me not to tell people she had said that because she was not completely sure. Well, now I have a picture of our gunflint (bottom) next to a genuine French gunflint (top), so you can judge for yourselves.


Also, here is a picture of our gunflint next to an English gunflint.


Additionally, Eugene gave a talk on some of the sites he's worked on, including the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan.


Barry Keegan gave a demonstration of flint knapping.


The day was definitely a success, and it made me excited to plan presentations on the dig in the upcoming months. Eugene had a lot of great suggestions that I am looking forward to implementing in the last few weeks of the dig. We will try to continue as far into November as we can, then start on artifact cleaning and organization in December.