“Half-way up a hill, at the foot of which we camped”: Archaeological Investigations of the 1781 Rochambeau Camp #5, Bolton, Connecticut

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2023, the Connecticut Office of State Archaeology directed a new archaeological investigation of the 1781 Rochambeau Camp #5, in Bolton, Connecticut, as part of the Connecticut State Library’s Digging into History Program for high school students. Camp #5 is one of several stops along the route taken by French forces under the command of Jean-Baptiste de Rochambeau, as they made their way across Connecticut and into New York to join the Continental Army before proceeding to Yorktown, Virginia. The Camp #5 site, now a town preserve, was historically used as farm and pasture land, and retains much of its eighteenth century character. An archaeological metal detecting survey conducted the 1990s identified a scatter of military artifacts, demonstrating the site’s potential. The current archaeological investigation included geophysical survey, metal detecting, and limited excavations. Despite extensive plowing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, much of the camp site appears to be intact. Metal detecting identified concentrations of artifacts, including regimental buttons, tools, and personal items and the remote sensing work identified the truncated remains of several likely camp features. The results suggest that a combination of survey techniques provides the strongest methods for documenting and interpreting such short-term military sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39377.0