Assessing the Remains of the Crosswicks Creek Revolutionary War-Era Shipwrecks

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "The World Turned Upside Down: Revisiting the Archaeology of the American Revolution" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Revolutionary War is a rich part of American history. The colonial artifacts left behind also have stories of their own to tell, yet the challenges in learning about those stories are the methods used to glean information and what amount of information is there from the past to understand the stories. In the case of the Site III wreck remains that still lie on a shifting sandbar in the middle of Crosswicks Creek, Bordentown, New Jersey, previous research from the 1980s and significant historical documentation confirm the historical significance of the site; however, even with the up-to-date archaeological methods and technologies of side scan sonar and magnetometry, the mystery of vessel classification and vessel purpose still eludes the researchers. The remains of the wreck are determined to be of a colonial merchant vessel that likely supported colonial military efforts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The World Turned Upside Down: Revisiting the Archaeology of the American Revolution   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology