The Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society will have its regular meeting for November 2009 on the 17th, beginning at 7 pm.

The meeting will be held at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center (GJAC) in Lawrenceville in the 2nd floor conference room center. Please note: voting will held for the new slate of officers and you must be a GARS member to vote.

The program for the November 17th meeting will be presented GARS member, Scot Keith. As some of you know, Scot is the lead archaeologist for the Late Woodland Leake Site, which the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation has listed on their 2010 Places in Peril. Scot will tell us about this site, its significance, and plans for the future, especially since the site has been recognized by the Georgia Trust. For more on the Leake Site being named a 2010 Place in Peril on this website, click here.

The Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society has scheduled a field trip to the Roswell Mills site for Sunday, November 15. Archaeologist Jim D’Angelo, who conducted limited excavations at the site in 2008, will lead the walking tour, which will follow existing trails, including the recently constructed trail through the ruins of second 1853 mill. The tour will begin at 1 pm departing from the Old Mill parking lot at the end of Mill Street. Click here, here, and here for general information on Roswell and the mills, as well as directions.

Though this field trip is limited to historic sites along the Vickery Creek trail, there is a lot more to see in Roswell including Barrington Hall, the Visitor’s Center at the head of Sloan Street and other sites. The tour will only be a couple of hours so you may want to take in some of these other points. The Visitor’s Center will have information on these. In fact, if you can get to Roswell a half hour before the tour, it would be worthwhile to stop in the Visitor’s Center as they have a scale model of the mills along the creek and other information on the mills.

The Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society will be having work day at Fort Daniel this Saturday, November 14, weather permitting, beginning about 9:30 am. For those who have not been out there before, this is an opportunity to see the excavation in process—feel free to come and help!

This is not, however, a public archaeology day. Contact Jim D’Angelo for more info especially if it looks like a torrential downpour as that is what it will take to cancel it (his words).

Skip Hopkins at the Helm of the FDF

Catherine Long trains young archaeologists

Jim D'Angelo Pitches Ft. Daniel Park Master Plan

Members of the Keith Family Tour Ft. Daniel

The Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society (GARS) and the Friends of Fort Daniel (FFD), recently announced that FFD has reorganized as The Fort Daniel Foundation (FDF). The new organization will be a non-profit, tax-exempt entity that can receive donations and grants directed at the on-going work at the site, including site preservation.

In connection with these efforts, on May 2 GARS and FDF held a Frontier Faire at the site as part of the Georgia Archaeology Month celebration. Several members wore period garb including Skip Hopkins, a direct descendant of General Allen Daniel, who had a period general’s uniform made especially for the occasion. A Fort Daniel “museum,” featuring conserved Fort Daniel artifacts, was presented by site historian Shannon Coffey in a large War of 1812 re-enactment wall-tent purchased by GARS through private donations. In another area, GARS members erected a half-scale portion of the palisade wall and corner blockhouse that corresponds to features excavated in what is believed to be the southwest corner of the fort. Logs for that activity were donated by Chad Stephens through the efforts of Skip Hopkins, and stone was purchased, at a discount, from supplier Roy Strickland by member Wayne Waldrip. SGA Vice President and past president of GARS, Catherine Long, led several young people in the excavation of a unit that revealed still another portion of the palisade wall trench. Children also enjoyed screening ‘salted’ buckets of dirt, thanks to the efforts of members James and Betty Kinsaul.

Other activities included story telling and re-enactments with a period militiaman (Bruce Maney), a Scot frontiersman (Tim Hall), and a blacksmith (Doc Watson). With an estimated 250 persons attending, the Faire was also the occasion for the debut of the Fort Daniel Historic and Archaeological Research Park master plan developed by jB+a Inc.’s Raigan Carr and made possible through a Georgia Trust matching grant. Phil Hoskins, Director of Gwinnett County Community Services, which included the county’s Parks and Recreation program, attended the Faire and was favorably impressed with the site and the plan. The county will be meeting sometime in June or July to assess the current status of SPLOST funds from which the land for the proposed park would be purchased, but given the dramatic drop in tax revenues, the outcome is anything but certain. We will keep you posted…

GARS archaeological advisor, Jim D’Angelo has also announced that the Gwinnett County Site Assessment Project, approved by the GCPA three years ago, has been revived after being shelved while excavations at Fort Daniel and at Creekside Shelter left no time for other projects. Five GARS members, under Jim’s supervision, have begun the process of locating previously recorded sites so that they can be visited and their condition evaluated. Priority will be given to sites that were recommended eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, followed by sites whose eligibility was undetermined. Ineligible sites and isolated finds will not be re-visited. Though the project will probably take a couple of years to complete, it is anticipated that some useful cultural resource management information will come out of the study.

The Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society, together with the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, hosted an Archaeology Month function at Fort Daniel on Saturday, 2 May, called the Frontier Fort Faire and Public Archaeology Event.

The Gwinnett Daily News, on Sunday, 3 May 2009, published a story worth reading on the event, by Heath Hamacher. Click here to read it.

Click here to check out the calendar of events on this website.

GARS and Friends of Fort Daniel (FFD), a special committee created for Fort Daniel preservation efforts, have had a lot going on since the last Profile. Since Fort Daniel’s listing as one of ten historic properties listed the Georgia Trust’s 2009 Places in Peril, GARS and FFD have submitted an application for a Georgia Trust preservation grant. The matching grant proposal is for the purpose of developing a master plan for a proposed Archaeological Park at the site of Fort Daniel in Gwinnett County. The master plan, to be designed by a leading Atlanta-based planning and landscape architecture firm, will initially be used in public outreach efforts that have as their goal raising public awareness of the importance of the site for local and state history, and promoting grassroots support for purchase of the site by the county. The firm has generously offered to return onehalf of their fee as the match for the grant.

The FFD, presently being chaired by a direct descendent of Major General Allen Daniel, John Hopkins, and GARS have already begun work on an ambitious Archaeology Month program that will include a half-scale replica of a portion of the stockade wall and corner blockhouse. The plan for this will be based on similar restorations at other late eighteenth and early nineteenth century forts, General Daniel’s written orders of how he wanted the 1813 fort built, and what has been learned so far from the archaeological record at Fort Daniel. Other things planned include an artifact and posterboard display, period reenactors, a blacksmith who will be making 1790s “Fort Hog Mountain Wrought Nails,” buckets of dirt salted with artifact replicas for children to screen, and the opportunity to do some archaeology as we look for another side of the stockade wall enclosure. The Fort Daniel Frontier Fair and Public Archaeology Day will be held on May 2.

The monthly general meeting of the Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society is held the first Wednesday of the month in Conference Room B at the Gwinnett County Justice and Administration Center, 75 Langley Place, Lawrenceville at 7:30 PM. Details about GARS meetings, projects, field trips and Fort Daniel can always be seen at our web site.

Figure 1. Trench feature with hearth feature in background, both at the bottom of the plowzone.

The Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society (GARS) has put excavations at Fort Daniel on hold until analysis of recovered artifacts, representing more than one year of investigations at the site, and preparation of a technical report are completed. On the last day of field work in September, it was determined that two features, which had been the focus of the summer’s fieldwork, were definitely a hearth with probable toppled firebox, and a stockade wall trench (Figures 1 and 2). In his 1813 letter to the Commander at Hog Mountain, giving specific instructions about how to rebuild the circa 1790s fort, Major General Allen Daniel had stipulated that the stockade wall be constructed of timbers sunk 3 feet into the ground. The bisected trench feature, completed on the last day in the field, exhibited a post mold about 36 inches deep that was filled with surface soils, charcoal and brick fragments and ceramics, suggesting that the wall’s timbers had been pulled when the fort was abandoned sometime after 1815.

Figure 2. Bisection of trench feature with post mold outlined.

GARS archaeological advisor and site archaeologist, Jim D’Angelo, believes these features represent the west end of a stockade wall where it abutted a corner block house within which was the fireplace. The block house timbers would have been horizontal and sitting on the ground, perhaps on a brick foundation, accounting for the brick that has been found. Based on other results across the site, if this interpretation is correct, this would be the southwest corner of the fort.

In October, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation announced that Fort Daniel is one of 10 sites included on its 2009 Places in Peril list. The Trust, together with GARS and Friends of Fort Daniel, a local group organized to save the site from development, will host a “Spotlight on Fort Daniel,” at the Fort Daniel Elementary School, which is located near the site. Speakers at the December 8 event will include Mark McDonald, President of the Georgia Trust, Dennis Blanton, President of the Society for Georgia Archaeology, and State Archaeologist, David Crass. Jim D’Angelo and Shannon Coffey, site historian and conservator of Fort Daniel glass and ceramics, will give presentations on the archaeology of Fort Daniel and the site’s artifacts. Beverly Paff, chairperson of the Friends of Fort Daniel will speak on efforts to purchase the site and adjoining tracks to create a passive park where continuing archaeology can take place.

Progress on work at Fort Daniel can be followed via the GARS website.

This year the GARS Archaeology Month event was a public archaeology day at the Creekside Rock shelter located on the historic Elisha Winn property in Dacula, on May 3 and 4. The site was first identified, recorded, and excavated by GARS in 2006. Although contending with intermittent showers and poor turnout on Saturday, two large slabs of roof fall were broken up and removed by GARS members. With clearing skies on Sunday, a number of families showed up with about 10 children aged 6-13. The aim was to involve them in the excavation of a 1 x 1-m x 10 cm level from the very back of the shelter where there was as little as 21 cm of ceiling clearance.

The munchkins were just the right size for the task. They each took a turn filling a bucket and then taking it to the screen. One young man was fortunate enough to come up with an Early to Middle Archaic (8000-5000 B.P.), Pine Tree projectile point base (Figure 1)! The point was recovered at about 15 cm below surface. Everyone gathered around as Jim D’Angelo explained how the broken point likely was tossed to the back of the shelter several thousand years ago when its owner sat by the creek hafting a new point to his atlatl dart.

Figure 1. Michael holding projectile point he excavated at the Creekside Rock Shelter.

Figure 2. 1776 Spanish 2 Reale coin recovered at the Fort Daniel site.

GARS had recovered Lamar pottery and a French trade bead from the shelter in 2006-2007. The finds suggest that occupation of the site may span as much as 7,500 years, bracketed by the Early Archaic and Contact periods. The answer, as we know, lies below.

Within the week, one of GARS’ members, Greg Beavers, was working at the Fort Daniel site (9GW623) and recovered a 1776 silver coin (Figure 2)! This was in the plow zone in an area where we are excavating a hearth feature that we think is located within the fort and another feature that is probably the south stockade wall trench adjacent to the hearth. Research suggests that the 2 Reale coin was minted in Mexico and, until the practice was made illegal by the Federal government in 1857, was used as tender in the colonies and then the states. The well-worn appearance of this coin indicates that it was in circulation from 1776 until the time that it was dropped at Fort Daniel, sometime, most likely, between 1795 and 1815.

Figure 3. Scouts from Troop 594 raising “Star Spangled Banner” over Fort Daniel (photo courtesy Robert Coffey).

The land on which Fort Daniel is situated is for sale as are two tracts on the east and west sides (for a total of about 15 acres). In recent months, the Friends of Fort Daniel (FFD) committee has been organized to find ways to save the site from development. Members of the committee, including its chair, are descendents of Major General Allen Daniel or the militiamen who were stationed at the fort. The Georgia Piedmont Land Trust (formerly the Gwinnett Open Land Trust) has enthusiastically agreed to head up the effort to find a purchaser for the 15 acres, and the Archaeological Conservancy has also agreed to help where they can. Other members of the committee include representatives of GARS, the Gwinnett Historical Society, the National Society United States Daughters of 1812, the Gwinnett Preservation Board, and the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center. Garrett Silliman, representing the Georgia Council of Professional Archaeologists, has also been sitting in.

The effort to save 9GW623 includes raising public awareness through public and executive presentations, developing a special use plan for the site, and working to purchase the tracts including and surrounding the site. To officially kick off the effort, GARS and FFD hosted a public archaeology day, BBQ, and flag raising ceremony on Flag Day, June 14. The event was by invitation only and approximately 60 persons attended. A local Boy Scout Troop, including some scouts who have been working on a merit badge at the site, led the flag ceremony. A replica of the 1794-1818 “Star Spangled Banner” was flown over the site, on a crafted pine flag pole, for the first time since it would have last been raised over the fort about 193 years ago (Figure 3).

Tom Gresham talking about rock pile sites at the February GARS meeting.

The Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society has moved their monthly meeting date to the first Wednesday of the month, but is still meeting 7:30 to 9:00 PM in the Gwinnett County Justice and Administration Building, 75 Langley Road, Lawrenceville. In February we had a stimulating presentation by Tom Gresham of Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., on north Georgia’s enigmatic rock piles, the epicenter of which, we learned, is Gwinnett County. The March 5 speaker was Jack Wynn who spoke to the group on archaeological methods. For programs and updates on archaeological projects visit our web site at: www.thegars.org.

Work at Fort Daniel resumed in February with an expansion of the site grid onto the adjoining property. Results of metal detection survey on these additional 6000 square feet were meager with only four artifacts that could be from the period. As the tract that contains the archaeological site is again for sale, a committee to “save” Fort Daniel has been formed in cooperation with the Gwinnett Historical Society (GHS), and others. The effort includes descendants of Major General Allen Daniel, a militiaman who served at the fort. The Southeast Region of the Archaeological Conservancy (TAC) will be helping with the effort.

For Archaeology Month, GARS, in cooperation with GHS, will conduct a public archaeology excavation May 3 at the historic Elisha Winn property in Dacula, at the Creekside Rock Shelter. The Winn House will also be open for tours and there will be an exhibit of artifacts from GARS’ survey and excavations on the property.

If you want to have some fun trying to identify mystery artifacts visit our website here.

Figure 1. English leaded crystal from Fort Daniel.

GARS continues its study of the Fort Daniel site (9GW623) in Gwinnett County, having completed the first phase of investigations on November 9 after 16 weekends in the field. Results of the investigations to date were presented at the Fall SGA meeting. A PowerPoint presentation in PDF format is available on the GARS website at www.thegars.org (see also The Profile No. 135 Fall 2007 pp.6-8).

Several “partners” have helped in these investigations including the Gwinnett County GIS Department. Our collaboration with them was featured in a poster for the National Geography Day event November 14 held at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center. GARS is also collaborating with the Gwinnett Historical Society and others in an effort to save the site from destruction by means of purchasing the tract.

GARS Historian Shannon Coffey continues to work on artifact cleaning, cataloguing and—her special area of interest— analysis of ceramics and glass. In addition to wonderful examples of (early) hand-painted polychrome pearlware (a bowl and accompanying pieces, probably teacups, dating to 1795- 1820), possibly English-made banded annular ware (a mug dating to 1785-1840), and brown transfer ware featuring an Asian pastoral scene dating ca. 1810, we have also recently recovered several sherds of imported English wheel-etched leaded crystal (Figure 1). The sherds suggest a tumbler, perhaps monogrammed, that is tentatively dated to about 1760.

Figure 2. Nail from Fort Daniel in relation to published type illustration.

We have jokingly concluded that the area this glass came from must have been the officer’s quarters. In any case, the presence of fine table ware, including a complete, bone-handled table knife with incised decoration (mid 1700s), suggests that life on the Georgia frontier was not without its amenities. TRC lab director, Tommy Garrow, has been helping with the cleaning and stabilization of metal artifacts including a great number of nails and nail fragments. One surprise was the presence of machine cut nails on the frontier. Could they point to a later structure on this site?

Machine cut nails in the industrialized north begin to appear after 1790, and they gradually replaced the far more expensive hand wrought nails, which by 1815 were pretty much relegated to the specialty market. While the majority of nails so far recovered at Fort Daniel are hand-wrought, as would be expected for an 1813 fort that replaced 1790s fort, there are also a large number of machine-cut, hand-headed nails exhibiting very distinct diagnostic attributes. According to Edwards and Wells’ Historic Louisiana Nails: A Guide to Dating of Old Buildings, the Fort Daniel machine nails would be a “Type 3d,” manufactured by a short-lived process that can be narrowly dated to 1805-1810, though the authors suggest that they might have been around to about 1815 (Figure 2). The period of manufacture and use of this particular nail fits well with the date of the construction of Fort Daniel, so we believe that these nails, as well as the hand-wrought nails, are credibly associated with Fort Daniel.

A technical report with contributions by several GARS members will hopefully be completed before the spring. Except for completing excavation of features, so far only partially excavated, no new excavations will be carried out at Fort Daniel until this report is completed. Hopefully, if preservation efforts are not successful, additional work can be carried out before the property is sold and developed.

Overview looking south of excavations at L1 and L2.

The Gwinnett Archaeological Research Society (GARS) continues to work with the Gwinnett Historical Society (GHS) investigating areas of archaeological interest on the 20-acre Winn House tract in Dacula. Having completed excavation of an outbuilding location associated with the historic Elisha Winn house, where the public was invited to participate for two weekends as part of Archaeology Month, the group began excavations at a rock shelter on Labor Day weekend. The initial dig was for GARS members only with seventeen members, under the direction of Jim D’Angelo, participating over two weekends. Shovel testing and clearing and mapping of the site were completed during the summer months. The shelter has been divided into three loci and, after griding the site, 50- cm test trenches were placed at the central location (L1) and southern location (L2), and then expanded by 1 √ó 1-m unit increments (see photos). So far, fragments of a Lamar pot and one blue trade bead have been recovered from L1 above massive roof fall that has been encountered across the excavation areas. Plans are to return to the site October 9-10 as part of GHS’s annual Winn Fair.

A GARS web site will be up and running by mid-September where more information on this and other GARS archaeological projects will be posted.

Panorama of entire rock shelter during clearing and mapping phase.