The Fred Veigh Collection, Lab Update

This time last year we discussed the William Fredrick Veigh collection: some of what the collection contained and its’ importance. A year has passed, we have processed last year’s Fort Hunter collection and we continue to process the Veigh collection. As was mentioned last year, “Fred Veigh (December 29, 1949-January 25, 2016) was a prolific archaeological collector and surveyor, and an active member of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology (SPA) for most of his adult life. His collection is vast in both the volume of artifacts as well as in documentation”. With the immensity of his collection in mind, and after months of extensive organization of the collection, artifacts and maps the Section of Archaeology lab has now been able to fully process, identify and update several known and new sites with many, many more to come.

Trays of artifacts being processed on rack.

Veigh artifacts being labeled.

Currently, we are a little over one third of the way through the processing of this very large donation. To date we have a total of 93, 669 artifacts processed and inventoried and will likely be over one hundred thousand before the end of next week.

Veigh artifacts bagged and ready for inventory.

Example of inventory.

With the use of Mr. Veigh’s topographic maps, where he recorded known sites and his other collection locations, and his detailed labels on both artifacts and boxes we have thus far been able to process and identify 229 known and new sites. These are primarily from Somerset county, but also from Adams, Allegheny, Bedford, Butler, Cambria, Clearfield, Clinton, Erie, Fayette, Franklin, Greene, Huntingdon, Indiana, Lehigh, and Venango Counties.

Volunteer helping to record and organize collection locations from Mr. Veigh’s topographic maps.

 In conjunction with the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and our wonderful, hard-working intern Andrew we have been able to update 172 sites and add 57 new sites to the Cultural Resources Geographic Information System (CRGIS). One hundred and ten of these site updates and 49 of these new sites are concentrated in Somerset county as Mr. Veigh focused much of his collecting in this county as well as Washington and Westmoreland counties, which have not yet been processed.

Example of form used for updating and adding sites in CRGIS.

Our intern, Andrew entering new sites in CRGIS.

Thanks to Mr. Veigh’s diligent recording methods and persistent collecting throughout his life we have been able to increase not only the number of identified sites in many western Pennsylvania counties, but also add to the information already known of many others. As has been mentioned in previous blogs, artifacts are important to understanding the lives of past peoples, but having provenience, or locational, information for these artifacts provides the context needed to build a better picture of how these past peoples were living their daily lives and how the artifacts we find fit into that. Thanks to Mr. Veigh we have that provenience information which can help us better understand Pennsylvania’s Past while preserving it for the future. We thank Mr. Veigh and all of those who have dedicated their lives to preserving our heritage and have collected, documented and donated their collections in order to help us expand our knowledge base to better understand Pennsylvania’s past and provide additional resources for analysis and research.

Don’t forget the Section of Archaeology will be holding programs in the State Museum of Pennsylvania’s Nature Lab at 11:30 am on Thursday August 8^th and 15^th. 

Also, look for us in other upcoming events at Kipona August 31^st – September 2^nd in downtown Harrisburg and our excavations at Fort Hunter Mansion and Park September 9^th – October 4^th.   

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