A Forgotten Town on a Forgotten Road: The Archaeology of Pine Barrens Heritage at the Storied Cedar Bridge Tavern

Summary

New Jersey’s Pinelands (aka the Pine Barrens) is the largest preserved natural space in the Boston-Washington megalopolis. Fabled as the home of the Jersey Devil, endless pine forests, lost ghost towns, cranberry bogs, and "Pineys," the region has long drawn the attention of writers, researchers, and folklorists. Many of these authors have emphasized the distinctive way of life present in the region. This paper brings the archaeological lens to bear on the Pinelands. Have the Pinelands long been home to a distinctive regional culture, or are the regional distinctions so heavily emphasized by 20th-century authors a literary device used to create rather than describe a place? Here these questions are examined through a collaborative, interdisciplinary, public archaeological project. This works draws upon the rich archaeological deposits found at the Cedar Bridge Tavern in Barnegat Township. The intersection of history, geography, folklore, and archaeology is explored in order to better understand the region’s heritage and the importance of that heritage for researchers and residents, both past and present.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Managing Archaeological Heritage in the 21st Century

Keywords

Spatial Coverage