Smithsonian Institution - United States National Museum - Bulletin 249: Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology; Papers 52-54 on Archeology
David Hume · en
An indication of a terminal date for the life of the site is provided
by the total absence of English white salt-glazed stoneware from
all except one stratified deposit (Pit F), a ware that does not
seem to have reached the colonies before the third decade of the
18th century,[124] most of it arriving after about 1740. It must be
recorded, however, that fragments of this later period were found
scattered on the surface, but it was impossible to determine whence
they came.
GLASS BOTTLES
Wine bottles[125] provided the key to the entire excavation, first by
possessing seals (fig. 6) that identified the owner of the property
and secondly by providing dating evidence for the construction of the
kitchen; thus there was avoided an error of dating that would otherwise
have been inevitable. In addition, the group of bottles from Pit B
(T.N. 30) provided a valuable series of specimens of varying shapes,
all of which were in use together at the beginning of the 18th century.
(See fig. 19, nos. 11-20.)
A few small fragments of green pharmaceutical phials were also
recovered, but none was sufficiently large to merit illustration.
TABLE GLASS
Although wine-bottle glass was plentiful, table glass was comparatively
scarce. It was confined to the three wineglasses illustrated as nos.
16-18 of figure 17, a 17th-century wineglass-stem fragment similar to
no. 17 of figure 17 (see footnote 94), heavy tumbler-base fragments of
typical 18th-century type (from T.N. 24, 27), and a fragment from a
fine gadrooned Romer of late 17th-century date (fig. 20, no. 8).
Conclusions
The Tutter's Neck excavations represented the partial exploration of a
small colonial dwelling and outbuilding, both of which ceased to exist
by about 1750. On the basis of the excavated artifacts the intensity
of occupation seems to fall into two periods, the decade of about
1701-1710 and within the years about 1730-1740. Documentary evidence
indicates that these periods relate to the respective ownerships of
Frederick Jones and Thomas Bray.
While the groups of artifacts from refuse pits are closely dated by
context and are consequently valuable in the general study of domestic
life in early 18th-century Virginia, the history of the site is less
well served. The limited nature of the excavation, the loss of the
overburden through bulldozing, and the destruction of the James City
County court records during the Civil War serve to leave a number
of important gaps in the chronology. It is to be hoped that at such
time as the new trees have grown up and have been cut there will be
archeologists ready and waiting to complete the excavation of this
small but historically interesting site.
Illustrations