Dating the Ossuary

This fall our loyal volunteers have been busy washing and cataloging the dozens of artifacts and thousands of bone fragments from last summer's work at Danbury. Until now, there hasn't been much to tell, but just yesterday, I received the results of radiocarbon dating two bone samples from the large ossuary (a.k.a. BF 07-04).

Our loyal blog-readers--and field crew--may remember that all along I suspected that this was an Early Woodland feature since all the pottery retrieved from the fill was of the Leimbach series (see 7/7/07 post). In addition, several of our field crew noticed that many of the teeth found in the feature were heavily worn and had very little evidence of dental decay. Heavily worn but healthy teeth are most typical of pre-agricultural, hunting and gathering, populations of the region. Both these observation proved correct since the two samples we had dated returned calibrated 14 C dates of between 1000 BC and 800 BC! This date range corresponds to those of the birdstone burial from 2006 and an earthoven feature found in 2004. Here is a chart showing all our dates for the site. Note the clear date 'plateau' for the Early Woodland period occupation.



Now we need to understand why the Early Woodland inhabitants of the site carried out two very different burial treatments: burial of just a few individuals with a birdstone and other rare objects vs. a communal burial of more than 30 people with no deliberate burial goods. We will have to chew on this one for a while!

Wrapping Up for the Season

This past Friday, we closed out the 2007 field season at Danbury. Everyone was very busy removing the last features and backfilling deep excavation units. Jim Bowers and crew removed the last of the bundle burials from "The Ossuary," alias Burial Feature 07-04. This feature turned out to be truly astounding. Our field counts of crania alone exceeded 20 individuals, and the post-cranial bones were densely packed into the center of the pit. We found no birdstones or exotic artifacts in the ossuary, which disappointed a few crew members, but we also found nothing to contradict our working hypothesis that the feature is of Early Woodland age.

This conclusion is based on two observations. One is that only thick, cordmarked, grit-tempered pot sherds, resembling the Leimbach series, were found scattered among the bones, nothing of later vintage was found. Secondly, our cursory examination of some of the teeth appeared heavily worn and with little to no evidence of tooth decay. Such healthy but worn-out teeth are much more typical of hunting and gathering populations such as the Late Archaic and Early Woodland inhabitants of this region, than of Late Woodland or Late Prehistoric period maize agriculturalists. I guess we will have to radiocarbon date one or two samples of bone to find out the real age of this intriguing feature.

I plan to continue my entries to this blog for the next few months with updates on our work in the lab as well as posts on some of the other interesting projects we have underway.


Finally, let me finish with a final "farewell" and big "thank you" to all our very hard-working and very interested field school volunteers and students. You all did a fantastic job and worked steadily in the heat and in the slop (last week). You are directly responsible for the great success we have had this season. Also, we remain grateful to Greg Spatz and Cove on the Bay for allowing us to do this work and continuing to do "the right thing" when it comes to saving a part of this extremely important archaeological resource.

Man's Best Friend?

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, we rarely find artifacts or other inclusions within the burial features found at the Danbury site. The two notable exceptions are the whelk shell burial found in 2005 (see the 2004 excavation report) and the birdstone burial discovered just last year (described in the 2006 report, coming soon!). This week, however, we discovered something unusual placed within the extended burial of an adult female (BF 07-07). Located above the left leg of this burial was a concentration of animal bones which included the skull and jaw of a dog. Below is a closeup image of the dog remains showing the cranium (on right, upper jaw missing), the left side of the lower jaw (with teeth), about four cervical (neck) vertebrae (lower center), a rib, and one scapula (shoulder blade, on left). The white object in the center is the shell of a land snail of relatively recent origin.


No other parts of the dog skeleton were found in the burial so this feature appears not to represent the deliberate burial of, for example, a pet dog but more likely an offering of a dog head or upper body section. Interestingly, a very similar association of a female burial with the head of a dog was documented during the 2003 salvage excavations at the site.

Historical accounts of Great Lakes Native American tribes often mention the importance of dogs, not only as pets or hunting companions but also as sacred offerings or objects of sacrifice used to honor important individuals. The fact that these dog remains were accompanied by a mixture of bones from other creatures (additional offerings?) seems to support this interpretation over the more romantic notion that some Danbury site residents wished to have "man's best friend" accompany them into the afterlife.