Current Research: Canada-Atlantic
Reported by Rob Ferguson
rob.ferguson@pc.gc.ca
(Spring 2008 SHA Newsletter 40[4])
Newfoundland
Petit Nord:
The Archaeology of the Petit Nord project is directed by Peter Pope, Memorial University of Newfoundland. Summer 2007 marked the third season of survey on the maritime cultural landscape of the French seasonal, shore-based, salt-cod fishery in northern Newfoundland, 1510-1904. It was also the second year of full-scale excavations at the key site of Dos de Cheval, EfAx-09, in Crouse. This was the French fishing room once known as Champs Paya, a half-hour walk from the French Shore Interpretation Centre in Conche. Memorial University M.A. students Harley Brown, Mélissa Burns, and Geneviève Godbout worked on various features of the site. Three new sites were identified, and others revisited. A fourth Memorial M.A. candidate, Jennifer Jones, excavated part of the Kearney homestead, where a family of 19th-century Irish gardiens took care of the French fishing station at Genille (EgAw-07) in Croque Harbour.
Dos de Cheval, (EfAx-09) Waterfront Area C: Harley Brown’s aim was to learn more about waterfront activities in an area of known French seasonal activities. Brown, assisted by Amy St. John, Rita Barrett, and Scott Caroll, excavated a trench 13 m long and up to 4 m wide across a distinct anthropogenic terrace, downhill towards the water. The higher strata are full of familiar 19th-century material, including pipe stems, bottles both English and French, REW, thousands of wrought-iron nails, lead cod dabbers, and buttons, including a decorated Equipe de Ligne button of the 1840s. Underlying levels produced their own share of nails, medium and large, brown faience TGEW, and Normandy CSW. Early- 19th-century events produced painted and blue shell-edge pearlware and some creamware, including a jug with fragments of the inscription “England expects every man to do his duty,” Admiral Nelson’s slogan at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. This is striking evidence of the presence of migratory British subjects during the Napoleonic war period, when the French were absent from the site, ca. 1790-1815. These fishermen were quite possibly seasonal visitors from elsewhere in Newfoundland.
Deeper in the trench, the team uncovered five rows of subrectangular tabular rocks, each just over 2 m long, alternating with what seems to have been logs of the same length. Geneviève Duguay, visiting material culture expert from Parks Canada, recognized this as a boat-ramp (her father was a fisherman). This interpretation is supported by the exposure of hundreds of wrought-iron nail fragments and the recovery of wrought-iron gudgeon and pintle hardware (the hoops and pins used to mount rudders.) Associated 18th-century pipe bowls and faience TGEW reflect seasonal French use of the site before the wars of the 1790s and early 1800s. They also recovered a little metal crucifix in this area.
A small burnt structure was found underneath the ramp. It may have been a cabin used by officers or at least higher-status crew in the 18th century. Rich midden deposits recovered just downhill from this structure contained fragments of window glass and scraps of canvas, as well as Normandy CSW, brown faience TGEW, CEW (possibly Breton Pabu-Guingamp) including several elegant little coquemars (jugs), clay pipestems with fleur-de-lys marks (Dutch or possibly French), a glass wine glass and a tumbler, the pull from a small drawer, a gilded button, and many faunal remains. Since it lies close to what they interpret as the underlying natural cobble beach, the question for further research remains: where were the 16th- and 17th- century occupations in this area?
Boat ramp Feature 1021, uncovered in waterfront Area C at Dos de Cheval, Crouse, EfAx-09: rows of tabular rocks alternate with decayed wood in a structure used in the mid-18th century by Breton and Norman fishermen.
Crosses at Dos de Cheval (EfAx-09): Mélissa Burns, with Rébecca Janson, started the season at Dos de Cheval/Champs Paya (EfAx-09) by opening up four squares close to an oak cross on a rock plinth overlooking the site. Excavations revealed a 10-cm -thick cement base below the rocks of the plinth. Local oral history suggests that the French Navy repaired the existing cross in 1936. The cement footing suggests that the cross was, in fact, totally rebuilt at that time. Older residents of Crouse and Conche told Burns that a previous monumental wooden cross stood roughly at this spot, surrounded by smaller wooden grave markers. Excavations recovered only a few pieces of refined earthenware, so they have no evidence that this area was used much before the 20th century.
Georges Cloué’s 1858 chart of Cap Rouge Harbour shows a cross at Dos de Cheval/Champs Paya, but not where one sees the monumental cross today. The team tested a small platform, at the edge of a second beach terrace, uncovering about 50 large tabular rocks that appear to be the collapsed plinth of an earlier cross. The identification of an earlier cross location, much nearer the water than the present one, raises interesting questions about the ceremonial landscape of the fishery in earlier times.
Crosses at Northeast Crouse (EfAx-11): Burns and Janson, with project director Peter Pope, revisited the multi-component site at Northeast Crouse. Two monumental oak crosses still dominate the landscape here. Measured drawings permitted us to compare their dimensions and construction with the standing cross at EfAx-09 and the close similarity of all three crosses leaves little doubt that they were all built or rebuilt in 1936 by the French Navy. There are a few smaller grave markers close to one of the crosses. Investigation of the other cross revealed a rectangular platform, about 4 x 6 m, constructed of layers of pebbles, cobbles, and soil. Burns interprets the platform as a place where people could pray or meditate without getting their feet wet in the damp ground.
Cross at Croque Waterfront (EgAw-04): Burns and Pope revisited Croque Waterfront, which has a fenced cemetery with both French and English burials and a recent monumental wooden cross. Large sherds of Normandy CSW were noted at another waterfront area, reminding us that this area deserves more attention.
Cross at La Crémaillère (EiAv-03): At La Crémaillère Burns and Pope were assisted by Stéphane Noël of Memorial University and Marc Moingeon , an informed amateur historian from France. La Crémaillère is a large bay, just south of St. Anthony. Historic documents and maps indicate that there were four to six fishing rooms there. The Breton survey of 1680 mentions calvaries (crosses) at La Crémaillère: one of the fishing rooms was named “Le calvaire de dessus la pointe des ancres”. Maps of 1765 and the 1850s give the location of the “Pointe des ancres” fishing room. On a terrace above the associated beach, they observed tabular rocks in a roughly square arrangement, possibly a disturbed rough plinth for a cross. Sherds of coarse earthenware resembling Breton wares and water-worn sherds of Normandy CSW were found near the shore. Later materials, including REWs on the north side of the eastern cove of La Crémallière, as well as several rock alignments and sod foundations, likely relate to 19th - and 20th-century livyer (permanent settler) occupations by the ancestors of people now living in St. Anthony.
Bread oven, Northeast Crouse (EfAx-09): Geneviève Godbout’s work at EfAx-09 focused on potential bread ovens, assisted by Stéphane Noël. The first feature is a partially eroded rectangular mound near the beach. In the taskscape of the fishing room, it would have been accessible but out the way of other activities, such as fish processing. Although its position was characteristic of bread ovens, it appears to be the foundation for a building indicated on the 1858 Cloué map. Underneath rubble of the structure was an organic soil containing fish and pig bones, as well as faïence brune TGEW predating the building. A work area on the landward side was littered with 19th-century material.
Bread oven Feature 22, excavated in Area B at Dos de Cheval, Crouse, EfAx-09: a small section of the masonry
base wall of the 19th-century oven is visible in the mid-distance left, under the collapsed rock debris of the dome.
An oval mound, also slightly eroded, located in an accessible but not central area of the site, was identified as a bread oven. A 19th-century ash deposit, containing a musket ball, lead spills, and pipe bowl fragments, postdates the collapse of the oven. The oven debris consists of stones, some still in situ in a donut shape, intermingled with a brownish-red clay-like soil, with a few brick fragments but no diagnostic artifacts. The base of the oven wall consisted of a semi-circular dry masonry wall. Inside the oven they found a red gritty soil with fragments of coarse clay tile, fired clay, and charcoal, representing the oven baking surface, which seems to have been just over 2 m in diameter.
Outside the oven, Godbout and Noël uncovered a succession of events associated with activity around the bread oven. Artifacts include REW, fish hooks, and a Huveaune CEW pot from southern France, with lugs and holes for suspension. Earlier deposits contained ashes and charcoal, brick fragments, mortar, and food-associated artifacts, including REW creamware, a knife handle and fish, pig, and goat bones. These suggest food preparation, perhaps even baking in an earlier oven. The material culture associated with the oven dates from the first half of the nineteenth century.
Bread oven, Northeast Crouse (EfAx-11):Pope, Godbout, and Noël surveyed a second potential oven site at Northeast Crouse. Surface evidence suggests a feature similar to the oven at EfAx-09. Again, this feature is located near key activity areas of the fishing room, as reflected in the remnants of a stage and other work areas, but is also slightly out of the way of traffic paths. These structural characteristics and locational patterns may well be typical of bread ovens at French fishing rooms of the region.
Other Features at Northeast Crouse (EfAx 09): Further testing and recording of features around the Dos de Cheval/Champs Paya site revealed a possible cookroom or similar structure, and a raised cobble platform, bounded in places with larger rocks. This latter is almost certainly the delimited galet made for drying fish, shown on several early-19th-century maps.
Genille/Kearney’s Cove (EgAw-07): The seasonal French fishing station of Genille, in Croque Harbour, was settled in the 19th century by the Kearneys, an Irish family working as gardiens, or caretakers, for French fishermen who had seasonal fishing rights but who were themselves banned from overwintering. Memorial M.A. student Jennifer Jones returned to Genille this past season to locate and explore the Irish occupation of the site.
Jennifer’s excavations focused on a house depicted in a late-19th-century photograph by Julien Thoulet. The house was partially built on wooden posts, although on its uphill side it appears to have been cut into the slope. Artifacts relating to the gardien occupation, include coins dating to the mid-19th century, hardware, bricks, bottle glass, personal effects such as beads, buttons, textiles, clay tobacco pipes, a tortoise shell comb and part of a heart-shaped locket, fishing hooks, cutlery, and fragments of a cast-iron pot. The gardiens were paid by their employers in supplies but also made purchases from British merchants and both these sources are visible in the material culture. Ceramics recovered were both French and British: transfer-printed and sponge-decorated REWs, including some with French maker’s marks, Normandy CSW and several types of faience TGEW, British REWs, Canadian gray- and white- salt-glazed CSWs, porcelain, REW lustreware, and REW Jackfield ware.
A French fire pit used both for cooking and preparing lead cod jiggers was located several meters downhill from the house site. Almost 50 other features were recorded on the 6 acres of cleared land around the site, including house depressions, fish stores, an old shop, root cellars, a privy, dams, lazy-bed gardens, remnants of galet cobble deposits used by the French to dry fish, and a possible cookhouse. Most of the features relate to the 20th-century occupation of the site, as Kearney’s Cove was inhabited until around 1960, when it was abandoned during Newfoundland’s resettlement program.
Sans Fond (EdBb-02): The Northeast Arm of Hooping Harbour is the most likely location for the French fishing station of Sans Fond. Close to two 20th-century graves are two mounds which might be earlier graves. Other features include a lazy-bed potato garden.
Southwest Croque (EgAw-05), and Millions (EgAw-10): Surface survey at Southwest Croque added quite a bit of material to the collection, including Normandy CSW, a sherd of brown faience, as well as Canadian Gray CSW. At Millions, there was evidence of anthropogenic vegetation (buttercups, clover, alexanders, chives). It is undoubtedly a French fishing room identified as Millions, but it was not a great place to fish and therefore not likely a great place for further archaeology.
The Baccalieu Trail Archaeology Project, 2007: The Baccalieu Trail Archaeology Project is directed by William Gilbert. Since 1995, the project has investigated precontact and early European settlements in Trinity Bay and Conception Bay, including Cupids, site of the first English colony in Canada.
Hant’s Harbour: The community of Hant’s Harbour on the south side of Trinity Bay in Newfoundland was settled by at least the 1690s. On February 7, 1697 Abbé Jean Baudoin reported seeing four English planter’s houses in the harbor. In 2004 the Baccalieu Trail Heritage Corporation conducted a survey of Hant’s Harbour and found an archaeological site with both a prehistoric and an historic component on the north side of the harbour at Custer’s Head. The aboriginal material appears to be of recent Indian origin and the European material is English and dates to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. A building that must have been destroyed or abandoned sometime in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century was located during further testing in 2005 and 2006.
Excavations in 2007 were designed to better define the dimensions of the structure. A 1 m x 1 m unit east of the 2006 excavation uncovered more stones although the associated artifacts indicate that they were probably placed there in the 19th century. However, clear evidence of the 17th-century occupation was found just below the level of these stones. Among the artifacts recovered were the bases of two German-manufactured stoneware Bellarmine bottles.
Uncovering the base of a Bellarmine bottle at Custer’s Head in Hant’s Harbour.
At this point it is clear that a proper, long-term excavation is required to gain a proper understanding of the structure. The team hopes to return to Custer’s Head at some time in the future to conduct more extensive excavations.
New Perlican: In 2001 the Baccalieu Trail Heritage Corporation undertook a survey of New Perlican, located about nine miles (14.5 km) south of Hant’s Harbour. They discovered a late-seventeenth-century site, almost certainly part of the Hefford Plantation, noted in a census of 1675. The location is first mentioned in the writings of Thomas Rowley who planned to settle there in 1619. Whether or not he succeeded is unknown. Excavations have been conducted at the site every year since 2001. The remains of one late-seventeenth-century structure and over 25,000 artifacts have been recovered. The 1677 census of Newfoundland records that in that year William Hefford owned one dwelling house and nine storerooms and lodging houses. On 9 February 1697, Abbé Baudoin reported that the English planters at New Perlican had nine houses and stores. One of the objectives at New Perlican has been to find evidence of these buildings.
Digging in Area E, New Perlican. August 2007.
In 2007, during four weeks of excavation, efforts were focused on Area E, a level grassy area where testing in 2001 and 2004 had revealed a concentration of late-17th- and early-18th-century cultural material. Excavations during 2005 and 2006 did uncover a late-17th-century pit that was clearly part of a building. The presence of thousands of artifacts from the late 17th and early 18th centuries indicates that other early buildings must once have stood here. However, so far these structures have not been identified. The most likely reason is that in the seventeenth century much of the area was a boulder-strewn beach. Any buildings would of necessity have been raised on stilts and shores above the beach and left little or no trace in the archaeological record.
Area E, a place that was neither beach nor bedrock in the 17th century, seemed like a good place to have erected a building. Testing revealed a 20 cm-thick cultural deposit beneath a 30-35 cm-thick plow zone. Several thousand artifacts were recovered, most of which range in date from the late 17th to the middle of the 18th century. Hundreds of wrought iron nails were also found suggesting that some sort of wooden structure may once have stood here. However, the only feature uncovered that might be part of a building was a posthole in the extreme east of the operation. These excavations also produced dozens of animal teeth and jaw fragments and hundreds of other raw and cooked animal bones. The presence of teeth and jaw fragments suggests that animals were butchered here. A larger area will be opened in 2008 to look for other evidence of a building. An analysis of the teeth and bones will be conducted over the next few years.
Cupids: This is the site of the first English colony in Canada. The colony was established by the London and Bristol Company of Merchant Ventures in 1610 and the first governor was a Bristol merchant named John Guy. In 1995 the Baccalieu Trail Heritage Corporation surveyed Cupids and discovered the remains of the colony. Excavations have been ongoing every year since then and the remains of four early-17th-century buildings and over 126,000 artifacts have been uncovered. Two of the buildings found so far are almost certainly the remains of the dwelling house and storehouse erected by Guy’s party in the autumn of 1610. Eight weeks were spent digging at Cupids in 2007. During this time, work concentrated on completing the excavation of one of these four buildings (Structure 2).
Structure 2 is a small building located three feet (0.91 m) south of the 1610 storehouse that appears to have been erected during the early days of the colony. It was discovered in 1999 but only partially excavated at that time. The building was first revealed when the area where it once stood was taken down to sterile and a rectangular outline revealed itself as a dark stain against the surrounding orange subsoil. The decayed remains of a ground-laid sill could be seen running along a portion of the south side of the structure and another decayed sill ran along the north side. Traces of several timbers were also found inside the structure running parallel to its long axis suggesting that it may once have had a wooden floor.
Excavations in and around Structure 2 in 2007 uncovered several thousand artifacts and clarified the shape of the building. Analysis of artifacts from inside the structure indicates that it must have survived longer than first believed. Hundreds of wrought iron nails, almost certainly deposited when the building collapsed, were recovered, along with hundreds of fragments of seventeenth-century green window glass. Structure 2, although small, obviously had glazed windows. The window glass includes two complete panes, or quarries. One of these is a typical seventeenth-century diamond-shaped example but the other is a more unusual five-sided example that may have been located on the edge of the casement. Structure 2 also produced hundreds of fragments of seventeenth-century ceramic and bottle glass and a number of trade beads.
Two
late-17th-century bottles from Cupids. The one on the left came from inside Structure 2 and the one on the right from just north of Structure 2.
The building is 15 ft. (4.57 m) by 8 ft. (2.44 m) and ran parallel to the south side of the storehouse. Samples of the decayed wood from the sills will be sent to the Biology Department at Memorial University for identification.
Lab work this season has focused on sorting the thousands of fragments of bottle glass from the Cupids site. Three bottles have been almost completely reconstructed. Two come from inside Structure 2 and the third had been discarded in a 17th-century cellar pit just three feet north of Structure 2. According to bottle specialist John Wicks, all three are of a type manufactured between 1689 and 1700. A complete Westerwald cup from Structure 2, found in 1999, was manufactured sometime between 1690 and 1720. The discovery of all three artifacts suggests that Structure 2 survived the fire which destroyed the dwelling house and storehouse in the 1660s and was still in use during the last decade of the seventeenth century.
Early-18th-century headstone found south of the enclosure at Cupids.
One of the most exciting discoveries at Cupids during the 2007 season was also the most unexpected. On 15 November, while clearing away some old wood next to the back dirt pile, the crew uncovered a headstone six feet (1.83 m) long and 27 ½ inches (69.8 cm) wide. Carved from a light gray sandstone, it contains at least two lines of a well-weathered inscription which have yet to be deciphered. According to Dr. Jerry Pocius at Memorial University’s Centre for Material Culture Studies, the stone likely dates from the early 18th century and was probably carved in Dorset, England.
The discovery of this stone roughly 50 feet south of the 1610 enclosure raises some interesting questions. It almost certainly marks the location of a grave and where there is one grave there may well be more. A number of colonists died during the early years of the colony and no doubt other deaths went unrecorded. Could this be the cemetery used by the colonists in the 17th century? It is certainly possible that a 17th-century cemetery would still have been used in the early years of the 18th century. Whether a solitary stone or part of a cemetery it is certain to have marked the grave of someone well-to-do. Few people in early-18th-century Newfoundland could afford to have a large gravestone carved in England and shipped across the Atlantic. A survey for other burials will take place next season.
For more information on this project, visit the website: http://www.baccalieudigs. ca/.
Novia Scotia
Public Archaeology Experience at Beaubassin National Historic Site of Canada: Beaubassin National Historic Site, located adjacent to the New Brunswick/Nova Scotia border, encompasses a significant portion of the former Acadian village. The village was settled in 1672 and abandoned in 1750 when the British built Fort Lawrence upon its ruins. In addition to commemorating the Acadian way of life, the national designation reflects the importance of the site’s archaeological features, deposits, and artifacts. Parks Canada has initiated a multiyear archaeological resource inventory and assessment of the 137-hectare property.
For three weeks in July 2007, 109 persons participated in the “Beaubassin Public Archaeology Experience,” a day of hands-on excavation designed to engage local communities and interest groups in both the research and protection of the site while creating an exceptional visitor experience. The archaeological program, under the direction of Barbara Leskovec, Virginia Sheehan, and Clarisse Valotaire was very successful, identifying several Acadian structures and activity areas and importantly, reestablishing the location of several 1968 excavation units. The public program is an important component of Parks Canada’s continuing historical and archaeological research at the Beaubassin Village and will continue in July 2008. For additional information, contact: Charles.Burke@pc.gc.ca.
