MASSACHUSETTS ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY – NORTHEAST CHAPTER
At the March 31, 2007 Wapanucket Celebration, Glen Mairo, NE Chapter Chairperson, presents check from the chapter for $200 to Tonya Largy, MAS President, to be used toward a purchase of a video projector for the Robbins Museum.
Northeast Chapter members at the March 31, 2007 Wapanucket Celebration reception at the Robbins Museum
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY – NORTHEAST CHAPTER
MASSACHUSETTS ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY – NORTHEAST CHAPTER
January 30th, 2008
Dear Northeast Chapter members and friends,
Please join us on February 19th at the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology – Phillips Andover, at 7:30 P.M. where Dr. Curtiss Hoffman will speak on “Site Management and Digging in the Field of Dreams.”
“Dr. Curtiss Hoffman is the chair of the Anthropology Department at Bridgewater State College, and serves as the MAS Membership Secretary. He obtained his Ph.D. at Yale University in 1974, and since that time has been conducting field excavations at many sites in eastern and central Massachusetts. He has been the Principal Investigator at the Little League Site since 1996.”
If you are interested in serving as an officer with the Northeast Chapter, please let any of the current officers know that you would like to have your name placed in nomination for either Chair, Vice Chair, Treasurer, Recording Secretary, or Corresponding Secretary. Chapter elections will be in April. All current members of BOTH MAS and the Northeast Chapter are eligible to run.
There are a few Chapter members who have not yet paid their dues for the 2007-2008 season. If you are unsure if you are up-to-date; please contact me.
REMINDER – All Northeast Chapter members MUST also be members with the Massachusetts Archaeological Society. One does not have to be a member of either the MAS or MAS-NE Chapter to attend our programs that are given from September to May each year. Donations are gratefully accepted from all.
At the February meeting, I will make a motion that we present MAS with a donation from Chapter funds. And I will ask the Northeast Chapter to make a similar donation to the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology from donated funds and our treasury.
I look forward to seeing each of you on February 19th for a great program!
See you at the R.S. Peabody !
Glenn Mairo
Northeast Chapter Chair
978-580-9437
gmairo@hotmail.com
January 2, 2008
Dear MAS – NE Chapter members and friends,
Our first meeting of 2008, on Tuesday January 15th at 7:30 P.M. at the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology – Phillips Academy Andover, will feature Northeast Chapter member Marty Klein who will speak on: “Technology in the Service of Maritime Archaeology.”
“Martin Klein is the founder and former President of Klein Associates, Inc. An MIT graduate, he was Program Manager for Sonar Systems at E.G. & G. International where he developed the first commercially successful side scan sonar systems. Klein’s sonars have been used around the world to help find many famous shipwrecks including the Titanic, the Atocha, the Lusitania, the Edinburgh, the DeBraak, the Breadalbane, the Hamilton and Scourge, the Lake George Radeau (oldest warship in the U.S.) and countless others. He is a fellow of the Explorers Club and the Marine Technology Society. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering “for the development of underwater imaging systems that have contributed to ocean exploration and the recovery of high value objects.” He has many publications and patents and has received many other awards and recognition for his pioneering work in sonar and ocean exploration.”
“Studying history underwater is still a relatively new field that remains extremely challenging. The environment is hostile and often dangerous. Visibility may be poor and targets may be partially or completely buried. But the knowledge to be gained by these endeavors is priceless.
The use of technologies including sonar. magnetic detectors, special cameras and diving equipment, submersibles and navigation has allowed archaeologists to locate, identify and study shipwrecks and other submerged sites such as ancient harbors.
A number of these technologies will be described and a history of the utilization of the devices on some historic projects will be shown. Some of the projects include ancient shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, the early ironclad Monitor, the Titanic, and local wrecks including the Portland.
The contributions of some of the pioneers in the field including George Bass, Harold Edgerton, Peter Throckmorton, Elisha Linder and Robert Ballard will also be described. Thoughts about the future prospects for technology improvements and underwater discoveries will be presented.”
We hope that you will join our growing MAS chapter at our monthly meeting on January 15th for a most fascinating program by Martin Klein. Refreshments will be served at the conclusion of the talk.
See you at the R.S. Peabody,
Glenn Mairo
MAS-NE Chapter Chair
November, 2007
Dear MAS – Northeast Chapter Members and Guests,
Our November Northeast Chapter meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 20th at 7:30 p.m. at the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology – Phillips Academy, Andover. We will have a brief business discussion at the start of the meeting. Refreshments will be served at the conclusion of the presentation.
Our speaker on the 20th will be Javier Urcid of Brandeis University’s Department of Anthropology.
“Javier Urcid is an anthropological archaeologist interested in the role of ancient literacy on the formation and maintenance of social complexity, in modeling the origins and alternative developments of writing systems, and in methods of semantic and phonetic decipherment of extinct scripts. His other interests center on archaeological approaches to ancient political economies and on bio-archaeology, particularly work on the social dimensions of mortuary practices and cultural/ritual modifications of human bones. He did undergraduate and graduate work at the Universidad de las Americas, in Cholula, Mexico and received further graduate training at Yale University. His main research focuses on Mesoamerican scribal traditions. He has written on Otomanguean scripts (500 B.C.E.-1600 A.C.E.), including a book on “Zapotec Writing” and several articles on Nuine, Central Mexican and Mixteca-Puebla scripts. He has also conducted archaeological and bio-archaeological fieldwork in Mexico, Belize, Ecuador, USA, and Syria. The Social Science Research Council, the National Science Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation – among other institutions – have supported his work. Dr. Urcid has held residential fellowships at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Center for the Advanced Study in the Visual Arts of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. He has taught at the Universidad de las Americas, the University of Maryland at College Park, and the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. His experience in museums include several years of work in the Repatriation Program at the National Museum of Natural History, of the Smithsonian Institution, and a curatorial position in the Museo Frissell de Arte Zapoteca in Mitla, Mexico. He has also served as script and exhibition consultant for several community museums in Oaxaca, Mexico. At Brandeis, Dr. Urcid teaches a variety of courses on archaeology, physical anthropology, epigraphy, aesthetics, and material culture. He acts as liaison to the CMRAE consortium and is the chair of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program. Aside from his intellectual interests, he dreams about landscapes on the dark side of the moon, imagines the organic architecture of Jurassic whales, and in general enjoys the simplest moments of life.”
Dr. Urcid will speak on: “Zapotec Writing: Knowledge, Power, and Memory in Ancient Oaxaca”
See you at the R,S. Peabody!
Glenn Mairo
Chapter Chair – 978-580-9437 – gmairo@hotmail.com
October, 2007
Dear MAS – Northeast Chapter Members and Guests,
Our next chapter meeting will be on Tuesday, October 16th at 7:30 p.m. at the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology – Phillips Academy, Andover where our guest speaker will be a member of Phillips Andover’s faculty: Dr. Jerry Hagler.
“Jerry Hagler grew up in a small town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, where he enjoyed a childhood outdoors exploring the wildlife of the California chaparral. He received a B.A. degree in 1987 from the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he majored in biochemistry and molecular biology, From the coastal redwood forests of Santa Cruz, he flew to the east coastal high-rise forest of Manhattan and attended graduate school at Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. There he studied the regulation of gene expression of the smallpox relative Vaccinia virus, receiving a Ph.D. degree in 1993. After marrying a fellow Cornell graduate, he moved to Boston for postdoctoral work at Harvard University, analyzing the molecular regulation of the immune system.
Seeing an advertisement in Science for a position teaching laboratory research science to high school students, Jerry shifted career paths, coming to Phillips Academy as the visiting scholar in molecular biology in 2000 with his wife, toddler triplet daughters and three cats. He has been bitten by the teaching bug right away, and has spent the last seven years overseeing the independent laboratory research projects of PA students, teaching advanced biology to the 11th and 12th graders, and, very recently, introducing the wonders of biology to 9th graders. He has also been instrumental in developing and teaching courses in human genetics, the history of disease and medicine in the United States, and human biological and cultural evolution (a course co-taught with Malinda Blustain and Donny Slater of the Robert S. Peabody Museum), and is currently co-developing a course on the evolution and function of the human brain. During much of the day, Jerry is in the Gelb Research Laboratory, helping with and troubleshooting a wide variety of student-conceived projects; ranging from molecular analysis of local microbiological communities to attempting to extract and analyze DNA from ancient North American dog bones. He was appointed instructor in biology in 2004.”
Dr. Hagler will speak on: “The Changing Face of Archaeology: The Role of Ancient DNA in the Exploration of Our Genetic Roots.
Synopsis: Recent advances in the science of molecular biology have enabled researchers to extract DNA from remarkably old biological remnants. These techniques have recently been applied to 38,000 year old Neanderthal bones, and, as a result, portions of the Neanderthal genome have been sequenced, revealing some clues as to how Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens may be related, along with a significant portion of controversy within the scientific community. Dr. Hagler will discuss the current state of ancient DNA extraction and characterization technology and explore the impact this technology has on the science of archaeology and the study of human evolution”.
Please join us on October 16th for a great meeting. And don’t forget the MAS Annual Meeting in Middleborough on October 16th!
See you at the R.S. Peabody!
Glenn Mairo – Chapter Chair
978-580-9437
August 28th, 2007
Dear Massachusetts Archaeological Society – Northeast Chapter members and friends,
Jules Gordon, our chapter treasurer and program chair, has put together a superb, color 2007-2008 season program guide that will be passed out to all at the first MAS – Northeast Chapter meeting of the season on September 18th at the R.S. Peabody Museum. The program guide lists the dynamic slate of speakers and presenters that we will feature this season. It also has photos of recent endeavors by both museum staff and chapter members. Jules has really outdone himself this time – Bravo!
Our guest speaker on September 18th will be Marc Paiva of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He will speak on: “Urban Archaeology and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Archaeological Investigations at the Emerald Necklace, Olmstead Park System, Boston, Massachusetts.”
“This presentation will summarize the results of an archaeological monitoring and documentation study of geotechnical test pits conducted for the Muddy River Flood Damage Reduction Project in Boston, Massachusetts. The project area lies within the Back Bay Fens and Muddy River/Riverway sections of the Olmstead Park System, also known as the Emerald Necklace Parks. The Olmstead Park System is a State and National Register Historic District and Boston City Landmark. The archaeological work was conducted to identify and document any potentially significant park-related, water-management, and other engineering features exposed in the geotechnical test pits. This work was conducted by the Public Archaeological Laboratory Inc. (PAL) under contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District (NAE).”
“Marcos A. Paiva (Marc) joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in New England in 1991 as an archaeologist in the Planning Division where today he is currently assigned within the Evaluation Branch. Since 1995, Mr. Paiva has also been the New England District Tribal Liaison responsible for coordinating and consulting with the Federally Recognized Tribes of New England on Corps programs and authorities and general project involvement. Mr. Paiva was a member of the Corps/Tribal Intergovernmental Task Force which developed early relationships with Tribes and policy for further interaction.”
Refreshments will be served after the presentation. Please join us the following weekend on September 22nd and 23rd for the “5th Annual Massachusetts Atlatl Field Days and I.S.A.C.” to be held at the historic Rebecca Nurse Homestead in Danvers, Massachusetts from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. each day. This year we will feature a fun, interactive, kid friendly atlatl “station” from Boston’s Museum of Science as well as our loyal vendors and contestants. Volunteers are most welcome. Please contact me for information.
I will see you at the R.S. Peabody Museum and the Rebecca Nurse Homestead,
Glenn Mairo
Chapter Chair
978-580-9437
May 3rd, 2007
Dear Massachusetts Archaeological Society – Northeast Chapter members and friends,
As our 2006-2007 season draws to a close; I remind all chapter members that their annual dues are due now. Please bring your renewal form and dues/contribution payment with you to the May 15th meeting if you have not done so already. Many of you have received renewal letters from the Massachusetts Archaeological Society for 2007-2008. I urge all of you to renew at a higher rate if at all possible. Believe me, your money is well spent BOTH at the Robbins Museum and to cover costs related to operating the Northeast Chapter.
Our speaker for the meeting at the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology – Phillips Andover at 7:30 p.m. on May 15th will be Dr. Nathan Hamilton. “Nathan D. Hamilton, Ph.D., Department of Geography-Anthropology and Associate Professor of Archaeology, joined the University of Southern Maine faculty in 1987. Dr. Hamilton has also taught in the American and New England Studies Graduate Program. He completed his Ph.D. on Prehistoric Maritime Adaptation in Western Maine at the University of Pittsburgh. His graduate studies focused on Latin America and he held Rea Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Dr. Hamilton also functions as a Research Associate at the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology in Andover, Mass. In 1990 he represented USM’s first faculty exchange with Rissho University in Japan. Various research interests include evolution of coastal environments, faunal analysis and prehistoric diet, and studies of ethnicity with textiles and basketry production among the Black communities in the Virgin Islands. Dr. Hamilton teaches courses on Andean South America, prehistoric East Asia, historical archaeology, medical anthropology, and Native American cultures.” Dr. Hamilton is also serving this summer as the Director of the R.S. Peabody’s Field School of Archaeology to be held at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead in Danvers as part of Phillips Andover’s Summer Session.
Dr. Hamilton will speak on: “African American Archaeology and Maritime Lifeways on Malaga Island, Casco Bay, Maine.” “A culturally diverse coastal island fishing community of the late 19th to early 20th century was destroyed by the State of Maine in 1912. Archaeological investigations of the Malaga community formation, occupation and removal focused on the extensive shell midden deposits associated with individual residence and fishing activities. We present analysis and details of the cultural record, shell midden formation and the maritime fishing and terrestrial subsistence pattern. This archaeological project examines African/American and Native American heritage in southern Maine along with Land Trust and heritage stewardship, as well as Public Archaeology focused on the local communities. The project is in partnership with the NAACP of Portland as part of public outreach on the issue of race.”
We cordially invite you to attend Dr. Hamilton’s talk. He has appeared before our chapter many times and is an active member of the Northeast Chapter. Refreshments will be served.
See you at the R.S. Peabody on May 15th!
Glenn Mairo
Chapter Chair
978-580-9437
gmairo@hotmail.com
April 9th, 2007,
Dear Massachusetts Archaeological Society – Northeast Chapter members and guests,
On Saturday March 31st, Donald Slater, Jules Gordon, Gene Winter, Fred Flather, Stephen Hulbert and I attended a terrific lecture at the Middleborough, MA Public Library by MAS Bulletin Editor Dr. James Bradley on “Wampanucket”, a well-known Paleo-Indian site whose artifacts are on display at the Robbins Museum. After the lecture, we went over to the Robbins Museum for a reception where I presented MAS President Tonya Largy a $200.00 donation from the northeast Chapter towards the acquisition of a digital projector for the museum. A grand time was had by all. We will report further on this wonderful afternoon at our next meeting, which is on Tuesday April 17th at 7:30 PM at the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology, Phillips Andover.
That meeting will also be our annual meeting. The current Northeast Chapter officers are up for re-election. We will also take nominations from the floor. The slate of officers for 2007-2008 is: Glenn Mairo – Chair, Donald Slater – Vice Chair, Jules Gordon – Treasurer, Harriet Hornblower – Recording Secretary, and Richard Miller – Corresponding Secretary. Please arrive before the 7:30 start time as we will have much business to attend to that evening.
Our speaker on April 17th will be Carol Weed who will talk on: “In the Drowned Lands: Adaptive Strategies to Near Swamp Environments.” “Archaeological and historical research has been completed periodically over the last 8 years in support of a permit application for a proposed natural gas pipeline in New York. A focus of research attention has been on the Project’s routing across and through the Drowned Lands of the Wallkill and Pochuck valleys in Orange County. To date, archaeological sites recommended eligible to the National Register of Historic Places have been identified immediately north of the Wallkill near County Route 1, on Merritts Island, and on Pine Island. These sites are discussed as are the historic elements which form the bases for both archaeological and historic districts. The talk concludes with a discussion of near swamp adaptive strategies in middle and northern New England.”
“Carol Weed has been a professional archaeologist for over 30 years. During this period, she has served as a Principal Investigator, Project Director, Project Manager, or Senior Archaeologist on cultural resources projects in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia. She joined VHB, Inc., Watertown, MA in October 2006 as their Sr. Archaeologist. Between 1993 and October 2006, she was a senior Project Manager with Gray & Pape, Inc., Cincinnati, OH.”
See you at the R.S. Peabody!
Glenn Mairo
March 20th at the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology
Our speaker for our next meeting on March 20th at the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology, Phillips Andover at 7;30 PM will be Suanna C. Selby on: “More than Dirt and Rocks: A Geoarchaeological View of Archaic and Woodland Settlement Patterning on the Upper Susquehanna River, New York.”
“Recent CRM excavations along the Upper Susquehanna River in New York State provide the opportunity to re-examine Archaic and Woodland period settlement systems. First discussed by William Ritchie and Robert Funk during the mid-20th century, the archaeology of the Upper Susquehanna specifically and the Southern Tier of New York generally are facing a new era of encroachment as the nearby city of Binghamton, New York expands into rural zones. Using a geoarchaeological perspective, this analysis looks to integrate soils, landforms, and cultural materials into a new interpretation of human-landscape interactions since Middle Archaic times. We’ll get “down and dirty” as we look at some of the intricacies of creating landscape models for use in archaeological problem solving and consider parallels to the riverine settlement systems of northern New England.
Suanna Selby is completing a doctoral dissertation in Anthropology at New York University this year. Ms. Selby has pursued archaeological and geoarchaeological research in both prehistoric and historic contexts of the Old and New World. She has conducted fieldwork in Pakistan, Syria, Israel, France and across the United States. Her most recent prehistoric work has been on site formation processes along the Upper Susquehanna River in New York and the Upper Ohio River in Pennsylvania. Her research at historic sites includes the early 19th century occupation of Seneca Village in Central Park, New York City. She has taught a New York University and Columbia/Barnard in Manhattan, and Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. She currently lives in Medford, Massachusetts.”
On March 31st a free lecture will be presented to MAS members and the general public at the Middleborough Public Library at 1:30 PM. .Dr. James W. Bradley will discuss the results of his recent research on artifacts from Wampanucket with a focus on the Paleoindian component. Copies of the newly reprinted “Wapanucket” publication will be available for purchase.
Following the lecture, an open house at the Robbins Museum will be held at 3:00 PM. I plan to present MAS with a contribution from the Northeast Chapter that will be used to assist in the purchase of a digital projector for the Robbins Museum. I strongly urge all MAS-NE Chapter members to attend this lecture and open house. For those who wish to drive down to Middleborough on the 31st; we will meet at the R.S. Peabody Museum NO LATER THAN 11:45 PM, carpool and then drive down 495 South. Please let me know at the meeting on the 20th IF you plan to attend, and HOW you plan to travel.
I hope that you can join us on March 20th for our next meeting and on March 31st for a great day with MAS.
See you at the R.S. Peabody!
Glenn Mairo
Chapter Chair
978-580-9437
gmairo@hotmail.com
February 5th, 2007
Dear Massachusetts Archaeological Society Northeast Chapter Members and Guests,
I recently filed a very upbeat Northeast Chapter report for the Massachusetts Archaeological Society’s upcoming Newsletter. I am extremely pleased to see new members and returning old members at this season’s meetings. Last month we were treated to a fine presentation from Curtis White of the Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site on Joseph Jenckes.
Our speaker for our next meeting on February 20th at the R.S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology, Phillips Andover at 7:30 PM will be distinguished chapter member (and encore presenter) Dr. Neal Trubowitz. Neal will speak on: “Cracked Flints and Singed Fingers: Lessons Learned from Living History for Firearms Archaeology.”
“Experimental archaeology has long been a means of seeking greater understanding of prehistory, yet little attention has been paid to similar research in historical archaeology in general, let alone firearms archaeology in particular. In part this is due to the availability of printed records for study of historic lifeways and behavior. However, the printed or written record is often incomplete, biased, or mute regarding daily tasks and tool use, including use of firearms. The practice of living history, or historical reenactment, can provide insights that go beyond documentary and excavated data. Examples are drawn from living history to illustrate inaccuracies in literature, activities missing in documents, and interpretation of archaeological data relating to firearms. Archaeologists who study materials relating to historic firearms should acquire a first hand knowledge of the use of those weapons.”
“Dr. Neal L. Trubowitz, a Registered Professional Archaeologist, was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan and received his graduate degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo. His career of over 30 years has taken him to the Southwest and Great Plains, but primarily across the Eastern Woodlands of Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Maryland, New York, and Massachusetts. His field work has spanned a wide variety of sites from Paleo-Indian quarries and kill sites through iron furnaces and Civil War fortifications. He has been a university professor, run large contract research programs, administered archaeological museums and parks (including Mastodon State Historic Site in Missouri), and revitalized old museum collections”.
“Since coming to Massachusetts in 1999, his archaeological endeavors have included contract writing on the excavation of two Archaic sites, serving as a guest researcher/curator on the fur trade for the American Textile History Museum, and a year as visiting curator at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University studying smoking pipes (research that is continuing). He has been, a National Park Service seasonal guide at Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site, and done some small archaeological investigations at Saugus Iron Works and Salem Maritime National Historic Sites. From 2005-2006 he spent a year as an anthropologist with the Park Service at its Northeast Regional Office in Boston. His duties included addressing artifact and human remains issues for consultation with Native Americans regarding park collections from Virginia to Maine in accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA).”
I hope that you can join us on February 20th for our next meeting.
See you at the R.S. Peabody!
Glenn Mairo
Chapter Chair
978-580-9437
gmairo@hotmail.com
