Clay Tobacco Pipe Studies: Where Will the 21st century Bring Us?

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

David Higgins’ important review of clay pipe studies, in the joint SHA/SPMA publication Old and New Worlds (1999), concluded with a discussion on avenues for future research on both sides of the Atlantic. The identification and sourcing of pipe clays, using clay pipes to understand trade patterns and socio-economic variables, and the need for tightly dated North American typologies were just a few of the directions proposed to enhance archaeological interpretation. Now that 15 years have passed, what have we achieved since then and what more needs to be done? This session explores new advances in clay pipe studies and reassesses some of the more ‘traditional’ techniques that historical archaeologists have used in the past.

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  • Documents (6)
Documents
  • And what about French Clay Pipes? (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Françoise Duguay.

    Historical literature and archaeological evidence both indicate that clay pipes were produced in France before 1760, namely in various towns of Northern France, but such pipe collections have yet to be systematically analyzed. This situation makes it difficult to identify them ‘ if any ‘ in archaeological collections found in North America. Neutron activation analysis was therefore performed on a few clay pipe fragments found in Trois-Rivières, a New France site dating before 1770, to compare...

  • Clay pipe research in Newfoundland: What works, what doesn’t and what more can be done? (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Barry C. Gaulton.

    Archaeologists in Newfoundland have been studying clay pipe bowls, makers’’ marks and stem fragments for decades. We all agree on one thing: when it comes to establishing the date range and intensity of occupation/activity, the clay tobacco pipe has few equals. However, some people engage in clay pipe research without questioning the established methodologies or recognizing their limitations. Others have successfully utilized clay pipes to investigate consumption patterns, trade, socioeconomic...

  • Finding Robert Cotton: an archaeological biography of the first English tobacco pipemaker in the New World (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Beverly Straube.

    Robert Cotton arrived at Jamestown, Virginia in April 1608 and is recorded by Captain John Smith as being a ‘tobacco-pipe-maker.’ This is the only direct mention of Cotton in the surviving documents although Smith later includes ‘Tabacco-pipe-makers’ in his list of non-essential occupations sent to the colony by the profit-driven Virginia Company. Historians have failed to identify Robert Cotton or determine why he was chosen as one of the first Jamestown colonists. With archival information...

  • Of crowns and stars and fleurs-de-lis: Politics and Tobacco Pipes in the colonial Chesapeake (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Rymer.

    A clay pipe bearing the mark of its maker can serve as a useful tool for identifying the market connections of an individual household. Applied on a broader level, it can serve as a reflection of how larger political events affect the exchange network of a geographic area. For nearly two-hundred years trade in tobacco was the beating heart of a trans-Atlantic exchange network that bound the fortunes of ports on the western coast of England and Scotland with those in the colonial Chesapeake. ...

  • Revisiting Old Collections: Revelations from the 175 Water Street Site, New York City (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Diane Dallal.

    In 1982, a team of archaeologist under the direction of Joan Geismar, excavated the 175 Water Street site along the East River waterfront in lower Manhattan. Thousands of smoking pipes were recovered that dated between circa 1740 and circa 1800, a period of time less documented archaeologically in New York City. In 1989, the collection of 350,000 artifacts from the 175 Water St. site was donated to the South Street Seaport Museum. Artifacts with ‘exhibit potential’ were photographed,...

  • The Use of Tobacco Pipes in Identifying and Separating Contexts on Smuttynose Island, Maine (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Arthur R. Clausnitzer Jr..

    Five years of excavation on Smuttynose Island, Isles of Shoals, Maine has recovered a vast quantity of artifacts related to nearly four hundred years of European occupation of the island, including over 7,000 fragments of white clay tobacco pipes. Unfortunately, the specific soil conditions on the site often made field identification of different contexts difficult during excavation. This paper explores the use of clay pipes in the separation and identification of different stratigraphic...