Heritage Consultants, LLC

07/08/2022

“Shell-edged” ceramics are some of the most common recovered during archaeological digs in New England, so common that their variety is sometimes overlooked. The earliest form of edged English ceramics had rococo designs which had an asymmetrical scalloped rim with impressed curved lines. Our example in Photo 1 is unpainted on creamware, from around 1774 to 1790. They soon became painted as in Photo 2 (blue and green were the cheapest colors), and the design was applied to pearlware up to circa 1810. Around this time symmetrical design became popular, and neoclassical edged ceramics took over until the 1830s, often with straight impressed lines like Photo 3. Designs became more complex in the 1820s and 30s and unique patterns like the feather and fish scale rim in Photo 4 (top) were introduced. You can also see the later method of painting the rim in a straight line paralleling the rim, versus the earlier streaking down method. By the 1840s, the scalloped edges disappeared like in Photo 4 (bottom). By the 1860s, the edges were no longer impressed, as quickly-made whiteware saturated the market.

All of these edged ceramics were recovered from the Prudence Crandall Museum in the 1980s. Heritage is cataloging all archaeological artifacts collected on the Museum’s grounds since 1978 for use in future exhibits.

05/20/2022

Chinese porcelain was highly sought after in England in the early 18th century, making English potters want to produce their own porcelain. There were many failed attempts to make hard-paste porcelain that matched the quality of Chinese ceramics, until a missionary in China sent back detailed descriptions of the porcelain making process, and an English apothecary found local deposits of two key ingredients: kaolin clay and petuntse. In 1781, the first English pottery to make hard-paste porcelain on a large scale was established. Not to be outdone, in 1779 Josiah Wedgwood began marketing a less expensive product that matched the desired look of porcelain: pearlware.

Pearlware ceramics (like in the first two photos) retained Chinese-inspired painted patterns in cobalt blue, and the shape of Chinese tea bowls that were so popular 100 years earlier. In turn, Chinese ports began shipping out large quantities of “Chinese export porcelain” to meet the demand of English and American markets. By the late 18th century, Chinese potters were specifically painting porcelain dishes with scenes that appealed to Western consumers (like the pavilion landscape in the last two photos, which was initially copied in English pearlware designs). These levels of imitation differentiate the ceramic designs found in American archaeological sites from traditional Chinese porcelain.

Both tea bowls photographed were recovered from the Prudence Crandall Museum in the 1980s and show how earlier property owners repeatedly purchased Chinese-inspired ceramics as they became affordable.

More info on porcelain and pearlware here: https://www.chipstone.org/html/publications/CIA/2001/MillerHunter/MillHuntIndex.html

05/02/2022

We were glad to be a part of the Battle of Ridgefield 245th Anniversary Weekend! Thank you to everyone who visited Battlefield Archaeology Day hosted by the Ridgefield Historical Society on Saturday after the amazing Battle of Ridgefield Reenactment. It was great to dig, metal detect, and share artifacts with everyone!

04/27/2022

These mocha decorated mugs suit the Spring weather this week, looking like budding trees. The designs are often called trees, ferns, or seaweed by collectors, but they were originally meant to mimic moss agate, a stone with branching colors imported through Mocha, Yemen. Each design is unique because it was made by dropping mixtures of to***co juice, urine, ground iron scale, and hops onto the wet clay slip used as the background color. The acidity of this mixture naturally made the dark color spread across the slip, creating a random branching design. These mugs were made between 1780 and 1830 and were excavated in 1978.

In collaboration with the CT State Historic Preservation Office and the Prudence Crandall Museum, Heritage Consultants is cataloging all archaeological artifacts collected on the Museum’s grounds since 1978 for use in future exhibits.

04/22/2022

Stop by and see us Saturday, April 30th!
See the full agenda for the Battle of Ridgefield 245th Anniversary Weekend here: https://ridgefieldhistoricalsociety.org/bor-245th-anniversary-weekend-events/

DIGGING HISTORY ON APRIL 30
The Battlefield Archaeology Day at the Ridgefield Historical Society’s Scott House headquarters on Saturday afternoon, April 30, will be a demonstration of how a property is surveyed for artifacts with professionals and volunteers operating metal detectors on the Scott House lawn (4 Sunset Lane, a short walk from Main Street). During the event from 2 to 5, there will also be an exhibition of some of the objects that have been discovered in the Battle of Ridgefield area.
As part of the National Park Service grant under the American Battlefield Protection Program, researchers have been mapping areas in Ridgefield where troops may have been positioned on April 27, 1777. (That includes the area where the Scott House now sits.) In the next phase of the project, the Ridgefield Historical Society and professional consultants will be asking property owners for permission to survey their properties. These studies will be done only with written permission from landowners; any Revolutionary War-era artifacts will help fill out details of the Battle.
As this project gets underway later this year, the Historical Society hopes that landowners will only grant permission for surveys to detectorists associated with the Battle of Ridgefield study so that all relevant material is preserved and available for historical interpretation. For more information and to obtain landowner fact sheets and permission forms, please email [email protected].

04/14/2022

This balustroid stemware piece (first photo) was collected by archaeologists working for the CT State Historic Preservation Office in 1978 along the foundation of the Prudence Crandall Museum. We know it was made between 1725 and 1740 because of the foot, which has glass folded over to create sturdy edges, and the shapes of the bulbs on the stem (called knops). The top is a medial annular knop, and the bottom is a basal knop. Since there is a long, smooth section between the knops, this stem is differentiated from earlier “baluster” stems.

The extensive goblet collection held by The Barnes Museum in Southington, CT contained a comparable example of a balustroid glass (second photo). This example does not have a folded foot and therefore was made later, but it shows the permanence of English designs in American tableware. It helps us imagine what the bowl may have looked like, perhaps with a simpler engraved design, or an undecorated bucket shape.

04/07/2022

Today's lab find: a coffee pot coffer!

While washing and analyzing artifacts from a 1981 excavation at the Prudence Crandall Museum, we came across a coffee pot spout that was still clogged with soil. Once we were able to rinse it clean, a handful of small treasures tumbled out: a straight pin, a button, a faceted pear-cut gem in a metal backing, and a mysterious cuprous object.

The spout itself is made from pearlware, a type of English pottery that was produced between the years of 1780 and 1830. The straight pin is handmade, as can be seen from the head—a separate piece of wire wrapped around the shaft by hand. This means it was likely produced before the 1840s, when machine-made pins took over the market. The button is a Prosser white ceramic “pie crust” type, thought to date from between 1840 and 1880. Upon closer inspection of the set gemstone, we learned that it is a cut glass faux diamond, referred to as “paste.” It is mounted in silver with a silver foil backing that has been painted with a small black dot in the center—this is to give the stone an illusion of depth, and it is a time-consuming detail indicative of Georgian manufacture (ca. 1714-1837). It was likely mounted on a gentleman’s stick pin. We are still not quite sure what to make of the cuprous double-ringed object, although it seems to be a fragment of jewelry or some type of ornament. Do you have any ideas?

Though tiny, these objects give us an interesting picture of the last 300 years at the Prudence Crandall site. The 1981 excavation uncovered a possible privy in the yard of the Museum. The coffee pot spout may have been thrown in for leaching, but the precious small items would have fallen in by accident, annoyingly lost, but protected for us to re-collect them today.

03/30/2022

Modified discs are a not-uncommon find in Colonial era archaeological contexts across America. Typically, small unperforated discs are interpreted as game pieces, while larger discs with perforation are often classified as whirligigs.

Usually, these modified discs are fashioned from ceramic material, such as tin-glazed earthenware. The resulting disc will then have two different faces: a decorated side and an undecorated side.

In our analysis of artifacts recovered from the Prudence Crandall Museum site, we have discovered two small, modified discs without perforation. These items are unusual because of the material that was used to fashion them - one is made from glass, and the other has been crafted from a piece of slate.

We believe that these two artifacts are likely game pieces or gambling chips. The game which they were fashioned for must not have required “heads” or “tails,” but only a place marker of some sort.

03/23/2022

A history bite for today! In the late 1970s, archaeologists first found pieces of 18th-century cutlery on the property of the Prudence Crandall Museum. In 2020, the Office of State Archaeology, Connecticut uncovered a two-tined fork matching the earlier set. These bone-handled utensils resemble styles made between the 1720s and the 1780s: they have a flat metal tang along the full length of the handle, a flat fork head, and wide wedge and pistol-grip shaped handles.

This was a time when people used forks to hold down food, and cut and scooped with knives. While most Italians and French were eating with forks, the English and Americans thought it odd and effeminate, and continued to bring food to their mouth with their knives or hands.

Three-tined forks were more popular here by the 1770s when European trends caught on and people ate from forks. The wedge shape of cutlery handles narrowed by the 1780s. Then, vulcanized rubber handles were introduced in the 1860s, like the one in the bottom right of the second photo. Around this time Connecticut and Massachusetts began to outcompete England as the main provider of cutlery in New England.

In collaboration with the CT State Historic Preservation Office and the Prudence Crandall Museum, Heritage Consultants is cataloging all archaeological artifacts collected on the Museum’s grounds since 1978 for use in future exhibits.

03/16/2022

When you find slate pencils and slate board fragments from the Prudence Crandall Museum you can’t help but wonder if Crandall’s students used them in class. Crandall’s Canterbury Boarding School was open between 1831 and 1834. Sarah Harris was the first Black student to attend in 1832, and Crandall opened the school to non-white students in 1833.

Slates were undoubtedly used during this time, but these pieces could also be left from later occupants of the property. The whittled sides of the slate pencils suggest that they predate the 1870s, when it became more common to have completely rounded pencils. The notch in the end of one of the pencil fragments is unique, and likely used to attach the pencil to a board with a string. The slate used to make pencils was softer than the slate board and left light gray marks for temporary writing.

In collaboration with the CT State Historic Preservation Office and the Prudence Crandall Museum, Heritage Consultants is cataloging all archaeological artifacts collected on the Museum’s grounds since 1978 for use in future exhibits. The artifacts photographed here were recovered between 2014 and 2021.