Fishing for Evidence: River Weirs in Pennsylvania

Throughout time, rivers have played an essential role in the settlement patterns of Pennsylvania’s inhabitants. Rivers helped to define travel routes, provided fresh water, and were a bountiful source of food. Pennsylvania’s rivers have changed considerably since the arrival of Europeans in the 17^th and 18^th centuries due to floods and human impact, but evidence of past fishing activities is still apparent today in the form of stone river weirs often visible during periods of low water. River or fish weirs are stone structures made by Native Americans and European colonists to corral and trap fish. This blog will discuss the forms and distribution of these features in Eastern Pennsylvania’s rivers.

The existence of fish weirs or fish traps in Pennsylvania has received relatively little attention from archaeologists, and only 10 such sites have been formally recorded with the Pennsylvania Archaeological Site Survey files (P.A.S.S). Additional sites have been described in publications or identified but not yet recorded. A 1969 publication identified 36 fish traps in Maryland on the Potomac River between Point of Rocks, Maryland and Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (Strandberg and Tomlinson 1969:312). Preliminary data from a 2019 Fish Wier Recording Survey conducted by the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology identified 750 fish weirs from more than 10 states, including 141 in Pennsylvania. Following North Carolina, Pennsylvania has the second highest concentration of weirs identified in this survey.

Locations of 750 Fish Weirs Identified in the North Carolina Fish Weir Recording Project (Cranford 2019). 

Until recently, factors that impeded the identification of fish weirs were a lack of high-quality satellite imagery (or difficulty obtaining historic aerial imagery), difficulty identifying these features from the ground, a lack of associated artifacts, or a lack of interest from the archaeology community. With advancements in technology and increasing access to high-quality satellite imagery through Google Earth, however the reliable identification of fish weirs is now possible. By accessing multiple years’ satellite imagery, the weirs appear and disappear with the rise and fall of water levels. Due to environmental factors from climate change and ongoing threats from human activity, the need to record these structures is even more critical.

During a brief period of the year, a prominent fish weir is visible from the I-83 bridge in Harrisburg, PA, facing south. (image: Melanie Mayhew)

Along the Eastern Coast of the United States, weirs most frequently take the form of “V”-shaped or multiple “V” or “W”-shaped structures. Multiple-“V” shaped weirs had the advantage of being useful for capturing migratory fish on both their downstream and upstream journeys (Rogers 1993). The tips of the “V”-shaped weirs could be opened or closed depending on direction of the fish or eels’ travel. Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers are habitat for migratory fish, such as shad, eel, and sturgeon. Populations of these fish have greatly diminished due to overfishing, pollution and in the case of the Lower Susquehanna River Valley, four large hydroelectric dams. Surveys have shown that “V” and multiple-“V” or “W”- shaped weirs on the East Coast extend from Georgia, through Pennsylvania and into New England. Additional historic period weirs also exist which may have been associated with canning factories or other historic fishing activities.

Establishing dates for stone weirs has proven to be difficult, even in areas where they have received attention from professional archaeologists. The traps or weirs located on the Potomac River by Strandberg and Tomlinson are attributed to pre-contact Native Americans or early colonial settlers. Moreover, several clusters of fish weirs in Pennsylvania are near pre-contact or contact period Native American village sites, further suggesting that these locations may have been used prior to the arrival of Europeans, although their continued use by early European settlers cannot be ruled out.

Fish weirs or traps are often located at natural rapids such as these on the Susquehanna River (image: Google Earth).

Recognizing cultural landscapes is an important line of research for archaeologists as we strive to improve our understanding of past cultural behavior. Discussions with indigenous peoples can provide additional lines of evidence that will add to our knowledge of how weirs were made and used. Examination of archaeological collections containing dietary fish remains recovered from within close proximity of these weirs improves our understanding of early diets. Modern technologies, such as satellite imagery and LiDAR are non-destructive options for gathering useful data. Recognizing and recording cultural landscapes is an important endeavor for archaeologists seeking to better understand and preserve the past.

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Additional Information about Fish Weirs:

Cranford, David

2019      A New View of Southeastern Stone Fish Weirs. Poster presented at the 2019 Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Jackson, Mississippi.

Lutins, Allen

1992      Prehistoric Fishweirs in Eastern North America. MA thesis, Department of Anthropology, State University of New York, Binghamton.

Rogers, Anne Frazer

1993      Fish Weirs as Part of the Cultural Landscape. Paper presented at the 1991 Appalachian Cultural Resources Workshop, Asheville, North Carolina.

Strandberg, Carl H. and RayTomlinson

1969      Photoarchaeological analysis of Potomac River fish traps. Am. Antiq. 34:212-219.

2021  Dozens of ancient eel weirs uncovered in Susquehanna. Bay Journal    

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .

Digging deep into Scratch Blue Salt-Glazed Stoneware

  

This week’s blog is continuing our discussion of artifact types with relatively short periods of manufacture. These can be very useful in dating an archaeological site or feature. Today, we will look at another form of historic ceramic, salt-glazed stoneware emphasizing one form of decoration, scratch blue and its variations.

Salt-glazed stonewares were a common type of ceramic  in manufacture for a hundred year period between 1685-1785, with its peak in popularity circa 1720-1770 (Edwards and Hampson 2005:30, 34). As a durable and versatile ceramic form, salt-glazed stoneware began to replace tin-glazed earthenware and porcelains as common dining and tea wares in England. Their thin, dense paste made them light, durable and attractive and the distinct “orange-peel” like textured finish aids in  identification  of salt-glazed stoneware by archaeologists.

Examples of plain white salt-glazed stoneware with “orange-peel like” glaze from Fort Hunter.

The orange-peel like finish came about through the addition of salt to the glaze on the vessel while the kiln was at the highest temperature, thus giving it the name salt-glazed stoneware. These attributes included with different types of decoration, such as “scratch blue”, allow archaeologists to narrow down the period of manufacture. 

Example of scratch blue salt-glazed stoneware from Fort Hunter (36Da159)

Examples of scratch blue salt-glazed stoneware from Fort Hunter

Scratch blue, is called such due to the thin blue lines that are present on the ceramic body. Produced through a process of incising or scoring deep lines in the ceramic and neatly filling the lines with cobalt blue oxide and wiping the excess clean before firing, the finished scratch blue ceramic often has simple geometric or floral patterns. In production from 1744-1775, scratch blue was commonly used to decorate cups and saucers, pitchers and punch pots (Hume 1969:117). Due to this short manufacture date range, scratch blue salt-glazed stoneware can be a useful tool in dating an archaeological site or feature.

Scratch blue salt-glazed stoneware fragments from a tea cup recovered at Fort Hunter (36Da159)

 Another type of incised decoration on salt-glazed stoneware, called scratch brown, is an earlier form of scratch decoration with manufacture dates between 1720 and 1730, and are rare finds (Hume 1969:117; https://apps.jefpat.maryland.gov). Following the same technique as scratch blue decoration, scratch brown uses iron oxide to fill the incised lines prior to firing.

One final variation of scratch-blue decoration found on archaeological sites today is debased scratch blue. Using the same manufacturing techniques as scratch blue stoneware, debased scratch blue used a more liberal amount of the cobalt powder and the excess not wiped off for clean striking blue lines. A later version of scratch blue stoneware debased scratch blue dates between circa 1765 and circa 1795 (Skerry and Hood 2009:106). 

Example of debased scratch blue stoneware from Fort Hunter. 

As can be seen through these brief descriptions even a small variation in decoration can make a difference on how archaeologists date and interpret a site. We hope this information has helped you see how small details can allow for a better understanding of past human behavior. Look forward to more descriptions of artifact types from Pennsylvania in future blogs. To see additional examples of ceramic types and other artifacts please visit our online collections.

What would the Farm Show be without our dugout canoe? 

 

Recently The State Museum participated in the Virtual 2021 Pennsylvania Farm Show with a special "virtual booth."  Check out a featured interview with Dr. Kurt Carr talking about our 800- year-old dugout canoe and our replicas at PHMC's virtual booth landing page. 

 

References:

Hume, Ivor Noel

1969      A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia (reprint)

 

Edwards, Diana and Rodney Hampson

2005      White Salt-Glazed Stoneware of the British Isles. Antique Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge, Suffolk.

 

Skerry, Janine E. and Suzanne Findlen Hood

2009      Salt-Glazed Stoneware in Early America. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Williamsburg, in association with University Press of New England, Hanover.

 

https://apps.jefpat.maryland.gov/diagnostic/ColonialCeramics/Colonial%20Ware%20Descriptions/WhiteSalt-glazed.html

 

https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/typeceramics/type/jackfield-type-ware/

 

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .

Pots from the Past: A Look at some Native American Pottery Types of the Early Contact Period

In our last blog post on “Pots from the Past” (posted 10/23/20), we showcased the Late Woodland pottery types of the Susquehanna Valley. In this blog we describe Susquehannock pottery dating to the period around the time of European contact. The Susquehannocks were an Iroquoian-speaking group who also lived in the Susquehanna Valley but principally established settlements in the Lower Susquehanna of Pennsylvania and the Potomac valleys of northern Maryland and eastern West Virginia after leaving the Upper Susquehanna of northcentral Pennsylvania in the early 1500s (Herbstritt 2019). Their settlements occupied fertile river bottoms where farming, principally comprised of growing corn, beans and squash and the harvesting of many different wild plant foods was economically feasible. Coupled with the harvesting of deer, elk, birds, fish and river mussels, and a modicum of other protein-based foods formed a vital part of their subsistence economy. Unlike their Late Woodland predecessors of the Susquehanna Valley, the Susquehannocks, only lived at these select locations for about 200 years (ca. 1525-1750 AD), until their culture was devastated by foreign diseases, wars with other Iroquoians, assimilation and economic hardship brought about by and through European colonialism.

Enter the potters! Archaeologic, ethnographic and historic evidence point to females as the makers of Native American clay pots. French Jesuits witnessed Iroquois women making cooking pots in Canada and contemporary Native American potters in the south and southwest United States of more recent times are women.

Much of what is known about Susquehannock pottery has been the result of samples recovered from large scale excavations that took place near Washington Boro, Pennsylvania in the 1970’s and 1980’s. These investigations were largely undertaken by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission under the direction of Dr. Barry C. Kent, the Commission’s State Archaeologist (Kent 1984). The research conducted by Dr. Kent and other archaeologists developed a pottery chronology for the Susquehannock occupations that clearly demonstrated a sequence of different pottery types through time. 

The Susquehannock pottery types in chronological order 

We begin our discussion on Susquehannock pottery by presenting these types in chronological order with the earliest defined type and working through to the latest as follows.

Schultz Incised is a high collared shell tempered pottery type largely found at the Schultz site located in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (Figure 1). This type generally dates between 1525 AD and 1600 AD. The overall surface treatment of this type is cord-marking with pronounced broad line incising decorating the collars which form different geometric patterns that include right triangles, trapezoids and vertical bars. Most often, the areas with these patterns are infilled with dentations that look like they were made with the oval-shaped end of a bone or wooden tool. Schultz pots range in volume from a pint to many gallons indicating utilitarian use and many retain evidence of carbonized residue suggesting that they were used in cooking. 

A Schultz incised pot from the Schultz site (36La7). 

Washington Boro Incised is a low to medium collared shell tempered pottery named after the Washington Boro site also located in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (Figure 2). It generally dates between 1600 AD and 1635 AD. The type shared some characteristics with Schultz Incised such as an all over cord-marked surface and collars with incised lines. However, the line incising is largely defined by horizontal panels of incising separated by a broadly spaced vertical line. The hallmark of the Washington Boro Incised type is the presence of two to four stylized expressionless human faces located on castellations along the pot’s rim. These are commonly accompanied by one or more V-shaped notches above each face. Full bodied effigies of the human form are present on these pots but rare. Interestingly, full bodied effigies are also found on pots from non-Susquehannock Iroquoian sites in New York where they are also rare. As with its predecessor, Schultz Incised, Washington Boro Incised pots are highly variable in volume capacity – big and small seems to have been the norm and many contain charred cooking residue inside the pot. 

A Washington Boro Incised pot. 

      

      Strickler Cordmarked, for the most part is a collarless cordmarked pottery type named after the Strickler site, also located in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (Figure 3). It generally dates between 1635 AD and 1680 AD. Some Strickler site potters tempered their pots with shell, other potters did not, as many of the pots exhibit little to no evidence that a tempering agent was added to the clay. Strickler Cordmarked pots departed from earlier Susquehannock types in that there was a definite departure in their aesthetic presence. Absent are the various incised line designs and effigy faces from former times – little to none of the earlier artistic expressionism is evident. It has been postulated that Strickler Cordmarked was a pottery type that was increasingly being replaced by utilitarian metal pots traded into the Susquehannock economy from Europeans (Kent 1984). After all, metal pots lasted longer and heated the food more quickly. Pots of the Strickler type were small in comparison to Schultz Incised and Washington Boro Incised pots–they rarely held more than a quart’s worth of capacity. It can perhaps be stated that Strickler Cordmarked had a longer tradition in Susquehannock culture insofar as the type was being produced well into the 1670’s after the Susquehannocks moved their settlements to the bluffs of the Susquehanna’s west shore in York County, Pennsylvania. By the early 18th century after the Susquehannock’s set up residence at Conestoga town, native pottery seems to have become a relic of the past.

A Strickler Cordmarked pot. 

We hope you have enjoyed revisiting our This Week In Pennsylvania Archaeology blog site. Please visit again as we present more in the series on “Pots from the Past”

 

References:

Herbstritt, James T.

2019      Becoming Susquehannock: The West Branch and North Branch Traditions: in The Susquehannocks: New Perspectives on Settlement and Cultural Identity. Edited by Paul A. Raber. The Pennsylvania State University Press. University Park.

Kent, Barry C.

1984      Susquehanna’s Indians. Anthropological Series, no 6. Harrisburg, Pa. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

  

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .