Smithsonian Institution - United States National Museum - Bulletin 249: Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology; Papers 52-54 on Archeology — David Hume — John Shaqi
Smithsonian Institution - United States National Museum - Bulletin 249: Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology; Papers 52-54 on Archeology
David Hume · en
[Illustration: FIGURE 1.--_Top_: HYPOTHETICAL ELEVATIONS based on
foundations discovered on Tutter's Neck site. _Bottom_: Conjectural
reconstruction based on elevations of the Tutter's Neck site, about
1740. Elevations by E. M. Frank, director of architecture, Colonial
Williamsburg; conjectural drawings by R. Stinely.]
_Ivor Noël Hume_
Excavations at
TUTTER'S NECK
in James City County, Virginia, 1960-1961
_Land clearance for reforestation of property leased from
Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., resulted in the exposure of
numerous fragments of early 18th-century pottery and glass.
Partial excavation of the site, known as Tutter's Neck, revealed
foundations of a small colonial dwelling and outbuilding, both of
which had ceased to exist by about 1750._
_This paper describes and analyzes the artifacts recovered from
refuse pits on the site. These artifacts, which have been given
to the Smithsonian Institution, are closely dated by context
and are valuable in the general study of domestic life in early
18th-century Virginia._
THE AUTHOR: _Ivor Noël Hume is director of the department of
archeology at Colonial Williamsburg and an honorary research
associate of the Smithsonian Institution._
In the summer of 1959 the Chesapeake Corporation undertook
land-clearance operations prior to reforestation on property leased
from Williamsburg Restoration, Inc., lying to the east of College
Creek, which runs into the James River below Jamestown Island (see fig.
2). In the course of this work the foundations of a small and hitherto
unrecorded colonial residence were bulldozed and largely destroyed. In
the spring of 1960, Mr. Alden Eaton, director of landscape construction
and maintenance for Colonial Williamsburg, while walking over the
razed area, picked up numerous fragments of early 18th-century pottery
and glass which he later brought to the writer for identification. As
the result of this find a survey of the site was undertaken, and two
colonial foundations were located and partially excavated.[57]
The area available for study was limited by the need to cause as
little disturbance as possible to the newly planted seedlings, by a
shortage of time and labor, and by the remarkable speed with which the
ground became overgrown with locust trees and infested by mayflies and
mosquitoes. The location of the excavation area, nearly a mile from the
nearest road, and off a track pitted with mud-filled depressions, made
access impossible during most of the winter months; consequently, work
was possible only in the spring and fall of 1960. By the summer of 1961
both the approach and the site itself had become completely overgrown.