An Excavation of Data from Dusty File Cabinets: Carolina Artifact Pattern Data of Colonial Period Households, Kitchens, and Public Structures from Brunswick Town

Summary

Between 1958 and 1968, archaeological pioneer Stanley South excavated a total of 13 colonial era primary households and associated structures, as well as the courthouse, jail ("gaol"), and church.  While these excavations were designed to interpret these structures for public visitation, it was the tens of thousands of artifacts from these ruins that led South towards the development his pattern-based, scientific archaeology.  However, the artifact data from only three of these structures—Nath Moore’s Front, the Hepburn-Reonalds House, and the Public House/Tailor Shop—was reported widely in his Method and Theory text.  The artifact catalogs that South completed, and the remainder that were completed after 1968, have been resting in what have become dusty file cabinets.  This study will recover and report on this artifact data, hopefully to offer comparative data to more recently excavated sites, as well as the problems matching the original counts to the surviving artifact collections.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Off the Public Walkways: Expanding Interpretations of a a Colonial Era Town and Civil War Fort at Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 18