Central Mass. Chapter Past Events
Saturday, June 7, 2008 at the Zion Lutheran Church, Worcester, 7:00 pm
Concord’s Dugans Brook Knoll Site: From collection to excavation, revealing a site by plow and trowel.
The Town of Concord, Massachusetts has among the largest quantity of recorded archeological sites of any town in Massachusetts. This is due in part to the rich environmental setting where the Assabet and Sudbury Rivers join to form the Concord River. It is also due to the extensive work of MAS amateur archeologist Benjamin Smith who identified and collected artifacts from over a hundred sites in Concord, Wayland and Sudbury, mostly from surface collecting agricultural fields. Few of these sites have been investigated professionally. The Dugans Brook Knoll Site (19-MD-151) is one such site and gives us an example of the type of data these plowed sites may still be able to yield. Recent archeological work at the Dugans Brook Knoll Site defined the site area and included some curious discoveries, among which included over 500 chipped stone artifacts and over 600 pieces of burned animal bone. Activity areas and features, as well as Tonya Largy’s analysis of faunal remains, help us to better understand Native American activities along the rivers and brooks in Concord during the Late Archaic and Early Woodland periods.
MARTIN DUDEK, is Principal Archeologist/Project Manager for John Milner Associates, Inc. Martin and has twenty-five years of professional experience in North American archeology. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from University of Maryland in 1985 and a Master’s degree in Anthropology from Brandeis University in 1992. Martin has field experience at ancient cities in Mexico, a Paleoindian site in California, ethno-archeological work in Honduras, and coastal surveys in Alaska. Over the last fifteen years Martin has participated in numerous archeological surveys and excavations in Massachusetts. He served as data manager and laboratory supervisor for several of the most significant of the archeological projects conducted for the Central Artery/Tunnel. He has authored or co-authored over fifty Cultural Resource Management reports for New England and directed excavations at Native American sites in New England spanning every time period from 9000 years ago through the seventeenth century and at historic American sites covering the seventeenth century through the early twentieth century.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
"The First of the Mohegans: Lost Collections from Fort Shantok, Village of Uncas."
Uncas was a warrior, statesman, leader, and founder of the Mohegan Tribe. His principal village, Fort Shantok, is perhaps the most important and well known Native American site in eastern Connecticut.
The significance of Shantok was recognized by its designation as a National Historic Landmark. The Mohegan Tribe's Archaeology Program, a part of the Cultural and Community Programs Department, has made strides to better understand the historical, archeological and cultural legacy of the site through the study of materials collected at the site throughout the 20th century. This effort has resulted in new information about the 17th century Mohegans community and an appreciation of the complexities of Native American life during this tumultuous period. This is especially poignant considering the Mohegan Tribe continues to hold important events, including the annual tribal 'Homecoming' and Wigwam Festival, a legacy of the ancient Green Corn
Dance, at Shantok. In these ways, Shantok continues to be an important
center of Mohegan cultural and spiritual life as it has been for more than three centuries.
Jeff (right) with Members of the Council of the Elders
Jeffrey Bendremer has a Masters Degree in education and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Connecticut. A former Professor of Anthropology at Eastern Connecticut State University, Indiana University and Connecticut College, he currently directs the Mohegan Tribe’s Cultural and Community Programs Department Archeology program having begun work with the tribe in 1994 just months after their Federal recognition. Dr. Bendremer directed the University of Connecticut’s archaeological field school for four years and this summer will be his 14th field season directing the Mohegan-Eastern Connecticut State University Archaeological Field School conducted on the Mohegan Reservation (founded c. 1671). His specialties include pre- and post-European contact settlement and subsistence systems, Native agriculture in New England, the Late Woodland Period in Connecticut and Mohegan archaeology.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Excavation of the Indian Hill Site in the Farmington Valley of Connecticut
(Click for talk synopsis)
Friday, January 11, 2008
The Chachapoyas: Unknown Discoveries in the North High Jungle of Peru.
Daniel Fernandez-Davila, Archaeologist
Chachapoyas is a name that is rarely found in archaeological texts.
Encompassing an area of at least fifty thousand square kilometers inside of the tropical cloud forest in the north high jungle of Peru, its settlements resemble some of the uncovered Mayan ruins at the end of the nineteenth century. This Pre-Inca civilization, overlooked by field researchers, has left countless sites behind that are now covered by thick vegetation. Today, spectacular findings are changing our
classical hypothesis about the ancient dwellers in this remote area of
the Andes.
Interestingly, the January/February 2008 of Archaeology magazine, published by the Archaeological Institue of America (AIA), features an article on the same culture: "Realm of the Cloud People".
Daniel Fernandez-Davila
- B.A. Archaeology, Catholic University Lima 1993
- Post Bachelor Studies Diploma of Anthropological Studies, Catholic
University Lima 1997
- Enrolled MA (finish with MA thesis February 2008) Archeology and
Ancient Heritage University of Leicester, England
- Field researcher in the highlands and coast of Peru (1995-2000)
- Archaeological Adviser in the production of Documentaries for
Discovery Channel, BBC and South African Broadcasting.
- Teacher at Catholic University (Introduction to Archeology and
American Archaeology I)1997
- History and Geography teacher at Framingham Middle School (bilingual
Program) 2002-2004
- History and Geography teacher at Wayland Middle School, 2004-present
March 3, 2007
Speaker: Timothy H. Ives, University of Connecticut
"Excavations at the Preston Plains Site"
Excavations at the Preston Plains site have revealed an extensive complex of large pit features dating to the Late Archaic Period. Though initially interpreted to be subterranean remnants of pit houses, the morphological variability of these features and low artifact densities from “floor” surfaces demand the consideration of multiple explanatory models. Also, these features were generated by Native Americans discarding both Laurentian and Small-Stemmed “tradition” tools, affording us an opportunity to critically examine the utility of correlating tool forms with cultural signatures in southern New England during this period.
Timothy earned a B.A. in anthropology from the University of Connecticut in 1996, and an M.A. in historical archaeology from the College of William and Mary in 2001. I have enjoyed a career as a professional archaeologist in New England’s cultural resources management industry for the better part of a decade, and am currently pursuing a doctorate at the University of Connecticut. My academic interests include ethnohistory, experimental archaeology, and pre-contact Native American occupation of the Northeast.
