Getting to the Bottom of the Barrel: A Fresh Look at Some Old Features from Albany’s Big Digs

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Boxed but not Forgotten Redux or: How I Learned to Stop Digging and Love Old Collections" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In 1998, Hartgen Archeological Associates, Inc., excavated 3 small late-eighteenth century barrel features in downtown Albany. Wooden barrels were commonly used as liners for wells, privies, and sumps, however these three pits were unusual in that they were located on the interior of the buildings and do not appear to be sumps. The contents, composition, and location of these features are key to their interpretation. At least one of these barrels was used to store personal possessions, perhaps curated by enslaved African Americans living in the household. A forth small barrel was removed from the site with the contents intact and transferred to the New York State Museum along with the rest of the artifact collection in 2003. Preliminary findings of a systematic “laboratory excavation” of the barrel will be discussed in comparison to the traditionally excavated examples to better interpret the use of these small subfloor barrel features.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Boxed but not Forgotten Redux or: How I Learned to Stop Digging and Love Old Collections

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 609