Archaeology

The NYSM Historical Archaeology Collection recently acquired the Pierce House Collection containing a wide variety of mid-nineteenth century household artifacts from a farmstead located in the town of Lewis, Essex County, New York. Documenting&nbs...

Many of the Historical Archaeology Collections at the New York State Museum were recovered during compliance work prior to the construction of roads, buildings, and other structures. Larger compliance projects can result in the recovery of 100,000...

In late Fall 2020, the Museum’s Cultural Resource Survey Program (CRSP) conducted a Phase 2 site examination of a historic period archaeological site in Central New York (see the NYSM Science Tuesday post from 11/24/2020).  Among the goals of...

Many of the historical archaeology collections at the New York State Museum were recovered during compliance work prior to the construction of roads, buildings, and other structures. Larger compliance projects can result in the recovery of 100,000...

Just released! The NYSM has published the latest volume in the Bulletin Series entitled, Onondaga and Empire; An Iroquoian People in an Imperial Era. As author James W. Bradley notes, the publication “continues the story of the Onondaga, central n...

Ann Lee founded the first communal settlement of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, commonly known as the Shakers, in Watervliet New York in 1776. Lee died in 1784, but the community she established continued until 1915....

Archaeologists can glean a tremendous amount of information from soil sediments collected at archaeological sites. Pollen grains, phytoliths, seeds, and other remnant plant material can survive for thousands of years below ground under the right c...

Over the years, the NYSM has received donations of some very large archaeological collections numbering hundreds of thousands of specimens, but small collections can also be important accessions. Born in 1909, Roger McVaugh grew up on his parents’...

Over the years, the NYSM has received donations of some very large archaeological collections numbering hundreds of thousands of specimens, but small collections can also be important accessions. Born in 1909, Roger McVaugh grew up on his parents’...

Ann Lee founded the first communal settlement of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, commonly known as the Shakers, in Watervliet New York in 1776. Lee died in 1784 but the community she established continued until 1915. ...

The NYSM Historical Archaeology Collections now includes artifacts from the 2014, 2015 and 2016 excavations at the Lake George Battlefield Park in Lake George, New York. David Starbuck, who conducted the first professional archaeology in the park&...

The New York State Museum, in collaboration with the Open Space Institute and Stockbridge Munsee Mohican Tribal Preservation Office, recently completed a controlled surface artifact collection and a magnetic susceptibility survey (MS) at the locat...

In July and September 2019, NYSM archaeologists and volunteers conducted their fifth season of excavations at the OPS Paleoindian site in Madison County. Discovered in 2015, the OPS site has yielded stone fluted points of the Crowfield "style," in...

When a historic unmarked cemetery was found during construction in Lake George, New York last winter, it was presumed to date to the mid-18th century French and Indian War. The discovery of a regimental button from the First Pennsylvania Battalion...

Archaeologists from the New York State Museum and the University of Albany completed two collaborative field schools in Historical Archaeology at the Ten Broeck Mansion, located in Albany, NY's Arbor Hill neighborhood during the summers of 2017 an...

In June 2015, avocational archaeologists Mike Beardsley and Mark Clymer were surveying for Native American archaeological sites on farm property owned by Tom and Joyce Bush in central New York. Walking across their fields, Mike spied a large scrap...

The museum's curator of historical archaeology, Michael Lucas, and project manager of The Archaeology of Slavery in the Hudson Valley, is featured in the Winter 2018-19 issue of American Archaeology in an article entitled, The End of Slavery in Ne...

Historical archaeology is a multidisciplinary field combining written historical records with archaeological data to study places, objects and issues of the past. In North America, historical archaeology begins with European colonization. One of t...

In September, NYSM archaeologists completed the 2018 excavations at the OPS Paleoindian site in Madison County, New York. The OPS site has yielded fluted points of the Crowfield "style," indicating an early Native American encampment dating to the...

From the 1930s through the early 1960s, avid avocational archaeologist Dr. James Vieth collected and conducted test excavations on Native American archaeological sites, most often in Rockland County, southeastern New York. His son, James Vieth Jr....