2006 Scrap Field School - Colebrook, NH

SCRAP 2006 Field School From Gunflints to Channel Flakes in Colebrook, NH.

The 2006 SCRAP field school was held from June 26 through August 4 this year in Colebrook, NH. The co-directors and principal investigators were Dick Boisvert and Edna Feighner, ably assisted by Dawn Lassman as field assistant, Barbara DelloRusso as field lab supervisor and Mark Greenly as project cartographer. The research area was first investigated during the 1997 Portland Natural Gas Transmission System survey and a crew from Victoria Bunker, Inc., directed by Feighner discovered a multi-component site (27-CO-38) in a pasture on the northern edge of Colebrook. Interest by the landowners prompted the DHR to return to the property to expand upon the survey, initially limited by the utility right-of-way, to other areas of the property and to pursue questions raised by the discovery of the Paleoindian component on the edge of the original survey area.

The 2006 field school undertook three phases of fieldwork, each coinciding with a two week session. The first session focused on detailed topographic mapping of the site, recapturing the original site grid and expanding the survey well beyond the original right-of-way. Work began on a very positive note with the identification of the 1997 shovel test pit and one by two meter test pits. With this data in hand, the master grid was re-established so the 2006 data could be easily correlated with the 1997 investigations. Shovel test pitting followed adjacent to the right-of-way and a limited amount of lithic debris was documented thus expanding the size of the original components. The crew also encountered one of the rainiest weeks ever enjoyed on a SCRAP field school. The most interesting find from this session was the recovery, on Independence Day, of a black chert bifacial scraper from a shovel test pit. This artifact is diagnostic of the Middle Woodland Meadowood phase and represented a new component at the site.

The second session sought to clarify the extent of this new component and investigate other new areas of the pasture. Interestingly, although three square meters of additional excavation were focused on the initial scraper find, no additional artifacts were found. The find was truly isolated and confounds easy explanation. New shovel test pit survey was conducted on two rises in the pasture in an attempt to place the known resources in a wider context. One area proved to be sterile while the other contained a small scatter of quartz debitage and crude steep end scrapers. On that basis, a tentative Archaic component has been proposed. Unfortunately, the cultural materials were confined to the plowzone in an extremely stony till. Along with the quartz component was a single find of a gunflint fragment, thus reflecting an historic period presence. While it is possible that the gunflint could have originated with a contemporary era use of a replica firearm, we feel that this more likely reflects an 18th or early 19th century loss by a hunter. Shovel test pitting also continued around the outer limits of the Paleoindian component but no additional cultural materials were recovered, though a potential fire cracked rock concentration was identified as well as a few small circular stains. The fire cracked rock has been sampled and the potential for Thermoluminescent Dating is being pursued by Michel Lamothe, professor of geology at the University of Quebec at Montreal. It should also be noted that the entire session was free from any rain delays and in fact the crew endured brutal heat wave.

An eight by eight meter area centered on the 1997 Paleoindian component was reserved for the last session. A four meter square block (eventually expanded to a five meter square) was established and shovel test pits were excavated in the remaining area. The results here were significantly more abundant than during the previous sessions. The deep and well defined plowzone held only a few pieces of debitage but did produce a chert channel flake. As excavations penetrated deeper the thin distribution of debitage increased and as the levels coincided with the depth of finds in 1997, the concentrations increased dramatically. The raw materials replicated those documented in the earlier excavations, with a dominance of black chert, supplemented with quartzites and rare rhyolites. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the lithic assemblage was the fact that no tools or tool fragments (including unfinished tools) were discovered. Channel flakes were relatively abundant. Final analysis is not completed but it is clear that in excess of 3 dozen channel flakes were recovered, most in situ. While it is difficult to argue from negative data, it does seem clear that fluted point manufacture was the dominant, potentially exclusive, behavior identifiable from the lithic assemblage. Debitage was not the only data recovered. A series of small, approximately 5 cm diameter, circular stains were defined and excavated in the deeper levels. These features were identical in characteristics to those identified in the 1997 excavations. Close inspection leads to the inescapable conclusion that some are cultural features and are most likely post or stake molds. Such features are not unique in Paleoindian sites, but they are extremely rare. As yet we have not defined any pattern to the features.

The field school was a distinct success as we achieved our goals of identifying additional components and clarifying the context of the Paleoindian component. We also were pleased to host many visiting colleagues including Claude Chapdelaine and his 2006 Lac Megantic Ecole de Fouilles from the University de Montreal as part of the ongoing NH/Quebec cultural exchange.