A Pleasant Eighteenth-Century Surprise: The Post-Contact Component of the SB 11 Site in Franklin, Connecticut

Summary

In the summer of 2015, the Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc. (PAL) conducted data recovery excavations at Susquetonscut Brook Pre-Contact Site 11 (SB 11), a multi-component site in Franklin, Connecticut. Prior archaeological investigations had produced a high density of pre-contact artifacts, but very few artifacts that would have suggested a sizeable post-contact occupation. However, the data recovery yielded 1,798 post-contact artifacts, revealing a substantial post-contact component to the site. Diagnostic artifacts indicate that the post-contact component at SB 11 is early to mid eighteenth-century, although the post-contact occupation may have begun in the late seventeenth-century. This paper presents an assessment of the post-contact assemblage from SB 11 and explores how the site fits in the context of early eighteenth-century settlement in the New London and Norwich area of southeastern Connecticut. This research also seeks to investigate how the material culture at SB 11 might offer insight into the recognition of post-contact sites that do not have extant foundations or other surface features.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Person, Place or Thing: Ongoing Questions and Evidence for New England Settlement and Material Culture   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16393