Post by Okwes on Jun 6, 2007 17:33:30 GMT -5
Deep History Found on Huguenot Street
By Sylvia Kates, Staff Writer
In a recent dig that covered approximately 1,060 square feet, archeologists have discovered a wealth of evidence supporting the theory that very early Native Americans and American-Europeans occupied downtown New Paltz.
Sewer construction was slated to take place on Huguenot Street. Since the area has a great deal of historical significance, archeologists were brought in to see what was buried in the area, before the construction could begin. What they found has altered the historical timeline of what is often called America’s oldest street.
A firm owned by archeologist Jay Cohen conducted the dig. Joe Diamond, an anthropology professor at SUNY New Paltz, provided guidance to the firm and the approximately 10 New Paltz anthropology majors who played an integral part in the research. He has been working on digs on Huguenot Street for seven to eight years now, and has become an authority on the history of the area.
According to Diamond, the team found a Native American site going back to 3000 B.C.E. Among the finds were a myriad of artifacts including arrowheads, spearheads, bones of animals eaten by humans and prehistoric pottery.
Evidence for an ancient domicile was also found in the form of post molds -- small circles of discolored dirt that are made when a post is driven into the ground, that last for thousands of years. When an archeologist finds many of them in a row, especially in a specific shape, they can play connect-the-dots to conclude that a building once stood there. The rows of post-holes that this team found suggest that a rather large Native American building was present hundreds of years ago.
It is assumed that the area was occupied seasonally instead of year-round, like many similar Native American settlements.
Judging by historical records, the occupants were possibly ancestors of the Waoraneck or Warranawankong tribes. By the 1660s these two tribes were both referred to by Dutch settlers as “Esopus.”
The excavation also yielded some human remains, possibly Native American. However, they were not studied much, as the archeologists were legally mandated to leave them alone. Though this was not a very information-rich discovery, it caused trouble for the dig and the town government when the local press reported on it extensively, said Diamond.
The team also found historically valuable European-American structures dating from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, including a pit house from around 1680 that may be the oldest colonial structure in New Paltz, even older than the famed stone houses of Huguenot Street.
A pit-house is a crude, simple construction, built by initial European colonists in new settlements. This may have been the pioneering structure for Europeans in New Paltz, which was mostly wilderness when they first arrived.
“The first people to move into an area build a pit-house, because you can do it quickly and it is easy to keep warm [in the winter],” Diamond said.
Evidence of a large barn behind the pit-house, and two simple houses in the “poteaux-en-terre” (“post-in-ground”) in an early French-American architectural style were also found.
In addition to the structures that had to be carefully mapped out, there are still more than 5,000 recovered artifacts that need to be catalogued and carefully studied by Jay Cohen’s firm before they release a final report on all of the findings. Once that is completed, the artifacts will go to the Huguenot Historical Society.
The excavation provided a comprehensive overview of how people of different cultures and times have occupied the same place for centuries on end. It unearthed proof of a “sustained Native American presence on Huguenot street, possibly going back thousands of years,” Eric Roth, the director of the Huguenot Historical Society, explained.
The Historical Society had mostly focused on the history of the Huguenot family, not those who came before them, until recent years.
“We’re at the beginning,” Roth said. “The archeology of the past few years has really been the first step in a long process in making it so that the history of Huguenot street will be the history of everyone, not just the Huguenots.”
E-mail Sylvia at
sylkates@yahoo.com
By Sylvia Kates, Staff Writer
In a recent dig that covered approximately 1,060 square feet, archeologists have discovered a wealth of evidence supporting the theory that very early Native Americans and American-Europeans occupied downtown New Paltz.
Sewer construction was slated to take place on Huguenot Street. Since the area has a great deal of historical significance, archeologists were brought in to see what was buried in the area, before the construction could begin. What they found has altered the historical timeline of what is often called America’s oldest street.
A firm owned by archeologist Jay Cohen conducted the dig. Joe Diamond, an anthropology professor at SUNY New Paltz, provided guidance to the firm and the approximately 10 New Paltz anthropology majors who played an integral part in the research. He has been working on digs on Huguenot Street for seven to eight years now, and has become an authority on the history of the area.
According to Diamond, the team found a Native American site going back to 3000 B.C.E. Among the finds were a myriad of artifacts including arrowheads, spearheads, bones of animals eaten by humans and prehistoric pottery.
Evidence for an ancient domicile was also found in the form of post molds -- small circles of discolored dirt that are made when a post is driven into the ground, that last for thousands of years. When an archeologist finds many of them in a row, especially in a specific shape, they can play connect-the-dots to conclude that a building once stood there. The rows of post-holes that this team found suggest that a rather large Native American building was present hundreds of years ago.
It is assumed that the area was occupied seasonally instead of year-round, like many similar Native American settlements.
Judging by historical records, the occupants were possibly ancestors of the Waoraneck or Warranawankong tribes. By the 1660s these two tribes were both referred to by Dutch settlers as “Esopus.”
The excavation also yielded some human remains, possibly Native American. However, they were not studied much, as the archeologists were legally mandated to leave them alone. Though this was not a very information-rich discovery, it caused trouble for the dig and the town government when the local press reported on it extensively, said Diamond.
The team also found historically valuable European-American structures dating from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, including a pit house from around 1680 that may be the oldest colonial structure in New Paltz, even older than the famed stone houses of Huguenot Street.
A pit-house is a crude, simple construction, built by initial European colonists in new settlements. This may have been the pioneering structure for Europeans in New Paltz, which was mostly wilderness when they first arrived.
“The first people to move into an area build a pit-house, because you can do it quickly and it is easy to keep warm [in the winter],” Diamond said.
Evidence of a large barn behind the pit-house, and two simple houses in the “poteaux-en-terre” (“post-in-ground”) in an early French-American architectural style were also found.
In addition to the structures that had to be carefully mapped out, there are still more than 5,000 recovered artifacts that need to be catalogued and carefully studied by Jay Cohen’s firm before they release a final report on all of the findings. Once that is completed, the artifacts will go to the Huguenot Historical Society.
The excavation provided a comprehensive overview of how people of different cultures and times have occupied the same place for centuries on end. It unearthed proof of a “sustained Native American presence on Huguenot street, possibly going back thousands of years,” Eric Roth, the director of the Huguenot Historical Society, explained.
The Historical Society had mostly focused on the history of the Huguenot family, not those who came before them, until recent years.
“We’re at the beginning,” Roth said. “The archeology of the past few years has really been the first step in a long process in making it so that the history of Huguenot street will be the history of everyone, not just the Huguenots.”
E-mail Sylvia at
sylkates@yahoo.com