Rock Piles: August 2023

Saturday, August 26, 2023

Indian Barns

I'm reasonably sure this is the foundation and not the "Indian Barns mentioned in the text:

“The Stephen Talkhouse Pharoah house was used by Pharoah later in his life. The house featured two “Indian barns” as food storage, and a footpath toward Bridgehampton on it’s edge.

The foundation remains today, but the house may have been a wood cabin during its use…The shallow pits to the north of the foundation, known locally as, “Indian barns,” were most likely covered with woven thatch and used for food storage…”

https://nativelongisland.com/listing/stephen-talkhouse-pharoah-house/

From the "Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society," Vol. 23, Nos. 3 and 4 Massachusetts Archaeological Society (July 1962):

“These underground barns have been opened or reported in modern times in such widely scattered places as the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts and Vermont, Ware River Valley, Sudbury Valley, Plymouth County, South Woodstock, Connecticut, and Kennebec Valley in Maine. Occasionally, the character of the contents is still identifiable. Storage pits have been frequently referred to by early writers, as may be seen by William Bradford's account: In November, 1620, just before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, they ran into storages on Cape Cod, under "heap's'of sand newly padled with their hands which they, digging up, found in them diverce faire Indean baskets filled with corne, and in some eares, faire and good, of diverce collours . . . a very goodly sight," for which, at a later date the newcomers gave them "full satisfaction . . . to their good contente."

Other early commentators record the presence and use of earth storages on Long Island (very numerous in 1642), in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and in Southern Maine. However, none have been recorded in Maine east of the Penobscot, (Burrage).

By what characteristics would an archaeologist recognize such an Indian storage pit?

A number of early explorers and colonists have described vividly such storages here in Massachusetts. The record of Champlain, on Cape Cod, is admirably clear (1604): "They make trenches in the sand on the slope of the hills, some five or six feet deep, more or less. Putting their corn and other grains into large grass sacks, they throw them into these trenches, and cover them with sand three or four feet above the surface of the earth, taking it out as their needs require. In this way it is preserved as well as it would be possible to do in our granaries."

Morton, in his New England Canaan, adds details: "Their barns are holes made in the earth, that will hold a Hogshead of corne a peece in them. In these, (when their corne is out of the huske and well dried) they lay their store in greate baskets ... with mats under, about the sides, and on the top; and putting it into the place made for it, they cover it with earth."

John Winthrop, Jr., Governor of Connecticut (1657), mentions that their underground barns were "well lined with withered Grass and with Matts" before being covered. The contents, he observes, "Kept very well." Wood, in his New England Prospect (1634) reports a slightly different practice: "Their corne being ripe, they gather it and drying it harde in the sun conveigh it to their barnes, which be great holes digged in the ground in the form of a brasse pot seeled with the rinds" (bark) "of trees."

https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1088&context=bmas

“Pre-contact basketry was intimately related to women's subsistence and economic activities which centered on the production and distribution of food, and it is this cultural feature that enabled women to accumulate wealth and positions of cultural authority. The household/clan/com economy of the pre-contact Algonquin coincided with the "Old Birch-bark Hunting Culture" in which women were skilled experts in birch-bark technology. Using birch bark, women erected quick and efficient shelters, made light-weight waterproof utensils and covers for canoe frames (Butler and Hadlock 7). Few original birch-bark articles have survived; however, colonial records describe several uses of birch-bark construction that played significant economic roles within women' s com and household economy. Because birch-bark is durable, waterproof, odorless, tasteless and resistant to decay, it protects stored items, such as food, from spoiling. "Equally important was the fact that enough birch-bark for the Indian's needs was almost always just outside their wigwams" (Butler and Hadlock 6-7). Birch-bark was symbiotic with Algonquin women's com economy; for example, women used sheets of birch-bark to sun-dry their com, they stored dried com in bushel size birch-bark baskets, and they lined the underground walls of their "Indian barns" (underground granary) with birch-bark…”

From Fishing Weirs to Fancy Baskets: How Changes in Native American Basketry Forms Reflect Changes in the Economic Independence of Native American Women during Colonization - Heidi J. Pickering (2010)

https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1074&context=mals_stu_schol

From "Native Tech:"

http://www.nativetech.org/brchbark/barkcont.html

Reproductions:

Lifted from: https://www.gp-award.com/en/produkte/birch-food-container

Monday, August 21, 2023

Wednesday, August 09, 2023

Perhaps my prettiest find - Raynham MA Arrowhead

Very lucky, I was inspecting every square inch and it payed off. It comes as a great surprise when you are actually looking at an arrowhead, after so many hours inspecting every square inch and not seeing anything. The shape is usually a surprise too.

This is a bit like a stemmed Squibnocket point, a bit like a Stark Point. Here is a bit of video:

It is hard to put my finger on a feeling that I don't deserve to find such a beautiful thing. Where does the guilt come from - the feeling that someone will suddenly appear and take it back? As I drove home, crossing over the Bourne Bridge, thinking: well at least I got it back to Cape Cod.