If you stumbled upon HAZEx in the field, you would probably find a
group of people decked out in dirty duds and carrying shovels.  But
not always.  Instead of into the dirt, we dig into archives and
libraries to unearth treasure that lies in plain sight.  This past
summer we were in Buffalo, New York, investigating the Shoreline
Apartments for an Historic American Building Survey report.  Shoreline
has a reputation as an ugly duckling with a dangerous reputation.  It
sticks out like a sore architectural thumb.  Sheathed in brown
“corduroy” concrete block, rows of staggered townhouses stand on
minimally landscaped superblocks within a stone’s throw of downtown
Buffalo.

Our research into Shoreline follows the a basic theme of archeological
and historical investigation:  rediscovering the things that get lost
over the years.  Unlike ah-ha moment when artifacts are sifted from
test pit soil, our appreciation for Shoreline was gradual.
Surprisingly, period documents revealed an overwhelmingly positive
response to Shoreline.  Just what was the hub-bub about the apartment
complex that is regularly covered in the police blotter?

In two words, the historical significance is about Paul Rudolph.  Paul
Rudolph may not be a name that rings the bell of your typical
shovelbum.  But the citizens of Buffalo probably recognize him as the
architect of their notable public library.  Dusty architectural
historians certainly recognize him for a raft of other well-known, if
not well-appreciated, buildings throughout the nation.  Initially
Shoreline constituted a minor part of a much larger redevelopment plan
designed by Rudolph.  Known as the
Buffalo Waterfront Development Plan, the scheme was an ambitious urban
renewal and revitalization project that included an marina ringed by
high-rise residential towers.  Penned in his sumptuous linear style,
Rudolph’s presentation drawing of the Waterfront plan appeared in
popular architectural magazines and in monographs of Rudolph’s work.

Paul Rudolph (1919-1997) first worked in Florida designing homes in
the 1940s.  Frank expression of structure, generous use of glass, and
innovative use of materials (he claimed to be the first to bend
plywood for a sculptural effect) put Rudolph firmly in the modernist
camp.  He attracted larger commissions and was eventually tapped as
Chairman of Yale University’s Art and Architecture School.  He
developed his interest in complex, angular plans and corresponding
facades.  Embracing concrete as a primary material, Rudolph strove to
define space by use of flat, textured planes pierced with voids.  His
designs for the Christian Science Student Center at the University of
Illinois and the Boston Government Service Center typify this look,
which is echoed at Shoreline.  Rudolph was also interested in modular
design, which he coined “twentieth-century brick.”  He proposed using
the complete living space the irreducible building unit.  Early
designs for Shoreline included apartment units designed to the
dimensions of a tractor-trailer to be built off site and then trucked
to the site for assembly.

Rudolph was ambitious in his designs, which did not always live up to
the finished product.  Shoreline was not modularly built; instead
stands conventional frame and masonry construction. Shoreline’s
corduroy exterior made of ribbed concrete block is unlikely to be
“self-cleaning” as Rudolph claimed.  Further, Shoreline’s master
planning, which intended to knit a residential community to the city’s
downtown business district, did not live up to expectations.  Its lack
of success does not rest completely on Rudolph’s shoulders.  In
Shoreline’s rise and fall can be read a national story of urban
dilemmas and solutions.

In a following post, I’ll write about some of those broader historical
currents that shaped the Shoreline Apartments.  Shoreline’s historical
context will show why an ugly-duckling apartment complex should be
seen as a historically significant artifact like an archeological
relic popping out of the sifted soil.

A total of 4 new rock-shelter & 12 open habitation sites containing fire-altered rock, charcoal, and lithic debitage and various tools were newly recorded. Our tentative analyses have suggested that open habitation sites were common along the edges of the seeps and seasonal drainages at the heads of larger drainage systems within broad open upland plateaus (11). These areas would have had more open canopy prehistorically as they do in the present. Rockshelters containing tool making debris and evidence for hearths (4) were similarly clustered near boulder fields or upland swamps also offering the potential for an open canopy.

PA Fish & Game Researchers working around the Alleghenies have documented these seeps as present-day locii for edible early spring plants and attractants to large game from the deep woods. The presence of prehistoric sites in these locations suggests that these micro-environments were exploited seasonally by prehistoric societies. These may be special procurement stations within areas formerly thought to be inhospitable.

Notably, the plateau doesn’t seem to have been used in our survey area as a way-station between lowland valleys to the east and west as no sites were found on any of the intensively surveyed saddles or east-west running ridges.

The tool assemblage from these sites show that the period of use has extended far intoprehistory. Tools included endscrapers, stemmed points, ear-notched points, and a fluted point with evidence of serration and corner-notch modification suggestive of the early archaic curation of a paleoindian tool! The final analysis is pending.

These sites, though often small, are significant in that they reflect cultural practices beyond the function of the material remains contained therein. The sites locations alone may reflect resource procurement practices and give us a broader prehistoric occupation sphere. Further testing has been recommended for select sites and will add more information on site functions and chronologies and we feel seeps are sensitive.

This survey for the Alleghenies and the ongoing rockshelter testing highlights the importance of establishing economical and effective strategies. In the case of the Alleghenies, we developed an economical research design which, when strictly adhered to by a great crew, recorded 16 new prehistoric sites where there had been but one despite decades of small tract and roadway surveys.

Thanks for reading my blog. If you have questions or comments please write me at Chris@HAZExplorations.com

This blog was inspired by these reports and others and presents the preliminary results of field investigations within the hills south of Allegheny State Park within the Allegheny National Forest. This upland study involved a selective survey strategy of several hundreds of acres for an Alleghenies project. The survey was surprisingly successful in many ways. The survey covered uplands to be crossed by approximately 50 miles of trails across Northeastern Pennsylvania.

This area was not previously unexamined. Hundreds of acres of the logged forest and roadways had been surveyed. Most of these surveys were small and were confined to the footprint of disturbances only, that usually being the forested slopes or valley floors. Until our recent project in the Spring and Summer of 2005 only a single prehistoric site. This rock-shelter was identified by Robert Dean (Seneca THPO) during his many volunteer surveys of the Alleghenies over the past few decades. This was the only documented prehistoric or indigenous site within miles of the portion of the county covering our survey area.

The survey covered 2,105 acres of the upland forest. The topography including the project area is mountainous with narrow valleys winding through high ridges and scattered plateaus. This area, lying at the northern end of the unglaciated Appalachian chain, had changed over the past 11 millennia from tundra to spruce, to pine and finally hemlock and chestnut forest.

This project area matches only a small portion of the area of potential effect of the trail system, including the trail and the woods within 400 meters. The area of effect would have covered 10s of thousands of acres from this motorized traffic and the greater accessibility to hikers/riders. The ANF couldn’t manage this much of a survey. So a sampling was proposed that would only cover around 2/3rds of the trail with the archaeological reconnaissance survey.

This project was conducted with a sampling design that is regional in scope and based on probabilities for encountering the greatest number of prehistoric sites with the smallest survey area (Binford 1964, Mueller 1975). We were trying to isolate microenvironments particular to the northern portion of the Allegheny Plateau that would have been favorable to prehistoric use and travel. The results of previous studies of prehistoric site distribution within these various environments were consulted. This suggested a low potential for finding any prehistoric sites other than the occasional rock-shelter, however. But based on previously documented patterns an intuitive region-based sample of more productive environments was isolated. These environments in the ANF include benches, ridges, saddles, narrow drainage terraces, the heads of drainages, and rock-shelters. The resulting technique of archaeological inquiry permitted the investigation of cultural systems over a large area within a limited time period and budget while still testing existing hypotheses for prehistoric site distribution.

The project area was divided into three areas corresponding to intuitive levels of potential to contain prehistoric cultural resources divided into high, moderate and low probability areas.

High probability (included 77 acres within the project area) areas are described as:
-relatively level (<10º slope).
&
-within 30 meters from a permanent or seasonal drainage or seep.
or
-narrow saddles.
or
-along plateaus and benches adjacent to large boulders fields and rocky outcrops.

Moderate probability (included 166 acres within the project area) areas are described as:
-relatively level (<10º slope).
&
-portions of the heads of valleys or hollows that are greater than 30 meters from a drainage or seep.
or
-narrow ridges adjacent to saddles.

Low probability areas are described as:
-sloping areas near large boulder fields or the heads of drainages.
or
-relatively level (<10º slope) ridges not adjacent to saddles.

Therefore the sampling strategy for the survey consisted of three methods of surveying:
-50 cm square shovel test excavation at 15 meter intervals within high probability areas.
-50 cm square shovel test excavation at 30 meter intervals within moderate probability areas.
-visual inspection along transects spaced at 30 meter intervals and opportunistic shovel testing within rock-shelters in low probability areas.

Rocky outcrops were scattered along the slopes and the edges of the plateaus throughout the project area. Therefore, it was necessary to establish specific dimension criteria for the identification of a rock-shelter in order to improve the chances of encountering prehistorically occupied shelters. Shovel test units at the 18 rock-shelters tested were spaced at 5 meters intervals within the drip-line. In order to examine deeply buried deposits common to Allegheny rock-shelters, these units were excavated to at least a depth of 50 centimeters below the ground surface regardless of soil type or down to bedrock.

The results of the selective investigation was positive and will be presented in a forthcoming blog. Thanks for reading my blog. If you have questions or comments please write me at Chris@HAZExplorations.com

Cemeteries are protected places where families and friends can return to remember and where a sapling planted at the foot of a grave may grow to a mighty tree. Cemeteries are also quiet libraries for historians. Cemetery research takes the historian and genealogist into the sun to look for lost stories on gravestones.

Dozens of family and community cemeteries are located in Tompkins County. Among these is the Connecticut Hill Cemetery in the western part of the Town of Newfield. This cemetery was established alongside of Schoolhouse #14 in the early 1900s by a farming and dairy community. This portion of land (once owned by the State of Connecticut) is located at the highest portion of the county within the region of rocky and rolling hills between Cayuga and Seneca Lakes.

The Hill community used this cemetery for nearly a century from 1823 to 1917. Members of 23 families from across the town buried their dead here. The most common names include Brown, Congdon, Marsh, Powers, Snyder, Tracy and Whitney. Many families left the area during the mid 1900s due to the difficulty of farming this rocky soil. But maps show that this cemetery remained important for them long after they had moved off the Hill.

Local and state archives and local historians like the late Neil Poppensiek have been great sources of information on the Hill. They tell stories of strong community bonds revolving around dairy and subsistence farming, soldiers returning from southern battles, and the unusual manufacture of washboards. But there remain many unanswered questions and untold stories.

The greatest source of answers is chiseled into stone and is lying in pieces underneath pines and vine. Grievously, over the past three decades this cemetery has been brutally vandalized. Every marker is knocked over or broken and several grave shafts have been violated.

There is evidence for the grisly excavation of grave shafts and the possible disappearance of markers and skeletal remains from the cemetery. Though these excavations are only four feet deep they may have reached the caskets. Graves in the 1900s seldom were excavated six feet deep. The Tompkins County Sheriff and the Department of Environmental Conservation regularly patrol this isolated area, yet abuses continue.

Volunteers from HAZEx and the History Center in Tompkins County and the cultural resource community at large planned a series of workdays to record and restore this important cemetery. Young and old were invited to visit the cemetery and watch the operations and it was a great success. A recent drive up Connecticut Hill Road shows me that good works last.

Thanks for reading my blog. For more information on cemetery restoration please contact me at Chris@HAZExplorations.com.

The Person Cemetery is located on the north edge of the village of Roxbury along Hardscrabble Road (a mile below the childhood home of naturalist John Burroughs) within an active gravel quarry. The cemetery is identified by historic accounts of the Person Home across the street from their family plot. This home later became the More Family Homestead. A few years ago the town accidentally truncated five burials. The displaced remains were reunited during the present analysis with the insitu remains uncovered this past summer.
In addition to uniting over a score of individual elements of human remains with the undisturbed burials, this analysis also explored disease and lives of this early settler community and attempted to identify individuals (John Burroughs describes many local characters later in the 19th century. We hoped that these burials may have been late enough to be among his local cast) by facial or other diverse traits expressed on bone.
Pathologies included fractures and chronic infection. The individual traits and chronic diseases opened the possibility of find historic documents to identify the people of the Persons Cemetery. The search for historic records describing such people continues.

The Sacket Mansion is located in Sacket Harbor along the east shore of Lake Ontario. Sacket was important to the development of the North Country and considered to be an affluent landowner. The Mansion was also used as a hosiptal during the War of 1812.

The Thousand Islands Chapter (TIC)of the NYSAA who excavated this site are continuing the investigations of the history of this important center of the community. Investigations started by the NYSM in the 90’s. The TIC and former president Tim Abel have confirmed that specific strata within test units conform to the Sacket Family occupation and a later Vaughn Family occupation. The analysis of faunal remains permits an exploration the differences in the diet, occupation, and economy of the households.
The TIC were also particularly interested in identfying any human remains associated to emergency surgery from the war.

Faunal analysis showed changes between strata including variation in the frequency of wild game such as rabbit and squirrel, the presence of draft animals (oxen with an arthritic lesion) in the diet and the exploitation of fur-bearing animals (muskrat and marten). The analysis of evidence for methods of processing continue as well as the exposure of the deposits to rodent and dog chewing.

Four fragments of cranial bone were recovered from TU3 at the Level 3 associated to the midden. The bone, originally mis-identified as human remains, were correctly idenfied as from the vault of a domestic pig.

The value of these two separate studies is greatly magnified by the community involvement with and among vocational and professional archaeologists. The Person Cemetery analysis continued with the volunteer research by students form the Roxbury Central School. The cemetery had marble gravestones in place in the early 20th century. These stones were pulled in the 1950’s. Some of them were used as foundation stones for a farmhouse downhill from the quarry. These stones are currently underneath two feet of fill and a concrete porch. The students spent a day surveying foundations, dikes and rock piles in the vicinity. Though currently unsuccessful, they continue to search the area and have authored a epitaph for this unmarked cemetery.

The faunal analysis is a small part of the complex and important TIC investigations of two Jefferson County households and the continuation of TIC continued commitment to quality volunteer archaeology involving professionals as well. Their efforts continue to fill in the missing pieces.
Thank you for visiting my blog and you can also send any comments to me at Chris@HAZExplorations.com

During the past few months my friend Joel Rabinowitz and I have been researching early European settlement along one of our local roads. Though our work was only a quick glance at a lot of information we walked away with more than we expected, uncovering a remnant of the founding family who gave their name to Hanshaw Road east of the Town of Ithaca.

Historic maps can show changes in the locations of roads and families and changes to the landscape. Knowing the locations of long-since demolished barnyards speaks to the agricultural roots of early Ithaca. Streets and homes in the City of Ithaca and within the villages are generally depicted in more detail and on a greater variety of maps. But homes from throughout the county are depicted on maps as far back as 1853 and roads across the county are depicted on maps from 1829 on.

Hanshaw Road is one of a half dozen older arteries out of Ithaca, in this case heading to Dryden, Owasco Lake and the Northeast. The lands along the road were originally part of the Revolutionary War Military Lots from which Cayuga Heights was formed. Some of the first European settlers in Tompkins County drew these lots as payment for their service in the war.

Deed research and the 1829 map of the county revealed that the road changed names from Dryden to Hanshaw reflecting its early importance as an upland track and the later importance of the Hanshaw family in their community.

A half dozen homes are shown from 1853 to 1900 along the portion of Hanshaw Road within the current East Cayuga Heights. All of these homes are still standing. The Greek Revival homes you pass along that road can be matched with names on the 19th century maps such as Raub, Cline, Manning, Morris, and Hanshaw. A detailed map from 1931 also shows the lost remains of one of the great farmsteads that prospered along this now busy suburban thoroughfare.

Taking these maps and records into the field we searched for the old barnyard of James Hanshaw. With help from long-time Tompkins County residents we finally found the ruins of a small part of this family’s enterprise. George Krizek has saved photographs of the home and barns as they appeared before 1930. How did we know that we had found the Hanshaw farm? There on the same spot marked on the maps as the Hanshaws’ since 1853, underneath a bit of sod and next to the foundation stones was an iron plow blade.

The written history of the Hanshaw House is incomplete. Was this homestead one of the rare Finger Lakes hog farms or was it an important dairy providing milk and even bovine patients to the blossoming University down the road? Investigations continue and many of the pieces of the puzzle are available at our local Historical Societies. Please send any questions or comments to Chris Hazel at Chris@HAZExplorations.com.

I also have a question about Part 2-E-3-e of the Phase IA requirements. It is my understanding that this involves literature and technical research into existing soil and geological information and deep testing with auger borings within a project area in its representative topographies which have a potential to contain buried surfaces. Could you please provide me with the current requirements for a thorough assessment of the “potential for colluvial, alluvial or other deeply buried soils”? Does this implicitly include Holocene deposits?

Could you also provide a list of the qualifications required to conduct geomorphological or soil science analysis within New York State for Phase I, Phase II and Phase III archaeological analyses on either historic or prehistoric sensitive areas/sites.

I had the chance to talk with several colleagues during the NYSAA and NYAC meeting in Rochester this April and I learned that SHPO doesn’t have answers to my questions nor does it have the requested requirements codified. It seems they must be having a lot of trouble holding archaeologists to the soil science standards of other states like Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

But HAZEx is ready to be on the frontline of new techniques in archaeology. Despite this apparent hiatus in the geomorphology requirement HAZEx is already working closely with two geomorphology companies Metapeake Soil Science, Inc and Axis Environmental, Inc. on both the preliminary research and testing phases of archaeology. We need these business relationships to provide greater information about the origin of our prehistoric and historic soils and to keep working in cultural resource management throughout the Mid-Atlantic, New England and Mid-west.
We will continue to use these specialists when the need arrises and now when the SHPO calls just as we have done since 2003 when I worked with Dr. John Foss and on the last four projects with Dr. John Wah in the Northeast.
Thanks for reading. For comments or questions email me at Chris@HAZExplorations.com

Unfortunately, archaeology in New York is more often a complicated process with conflicting requirements that have to be traversed in a timely manner. Field work has to be finished despite dreadful weather, rugged terrain, unhappy neighborhood dogs, and even escaped convicts. HAZEx Researchers have to work through piles of incomplete and badly cataloged collections avoiding recluse spiders within the ever shrinking office hours of underfunded state and local repositories.
Through all of the +100 HAZEx projects conducted over the past five years of operation in New York we have tried to keep our clients informed and satisfied. At the four-year-mark I decided to call or write all of our half dozen past clients and muscle up the courage to ask we had done. I asked about our Time Frame, Budgets, Communication Skill-set (written and spoken), and Results and I also asked for comments. I wanted some good criticism so that we could make them Happier with HAZEx 2009. I wanted to hear something positive that I might share with other great Engineering Firms considering using our services.
The results of my survey were helpful. We received feedback from all six Engineering firms with the following selection of comments from their project managers or engineers:
“Thanks Chris – Hope to work with you sometime soon”
“Nice work”
“I loved working with you and will do so again, next chance we get!”
“We appreciate your prompt, courteous and knowledgeable services”
Of the 30 questions answered all clients agreed that we met expectations and a whopping 90% agreed we had at least exceeded expectations. I felt pretty good.
But it wasn’t all wine and roses…I heard back from a Client that HAZEx needed to tighten our belts on some projects just like everyone else. So I went back to my younger days and took on more of the work that I had be sub-contracting (research, excavation, and report preparation) in order to save money for all us. Our budgets are now as streamlined as our schedules.
I also thought that new SHPO review guidelines for recorded sites were confusing my Clients so I put together an informal survey for fellow archaeologists and State Officials to see how we could get it right the first t ime. Now we have a tighter and more efficient HAZEx report. We are also holding a fire under our review agencies whenever HAZEx reports are sitting on their desks for more than 30 days.
Since I sent the survey out last Fall HAZEx has been committed to living up to the high regard we have been lucky enough to receive from our Great Clients.
So…
Maybe we’ll have to get a little frost, spider and dog bit.
Maybe we’ll have to crawl for ten minutes through buckthorn and snowdrifts to get to the next fifty foot mark.
Maybe we’ll have to eat more canned sardines and less lobster-roll while in the field.
And because of this I am confident that this year’s Client survey will be even better.
Thanks for reading. If you have any questions please email me at Chris@HAZExplorations.com or just use the blog.

The question remains whether there are still traces of the studio below the green grass of Stewart Park and if so what incredible stories and treasures might they contain? There is amazing potential for sub-surface features of the Wharton Studio. Consider the possibility of a filled in or cemented over cellar within the former film-room filled with lost reels of our early American stars preserved like young Tutankhamen ready to be cast back into the public eye on the silver screen.
Thanks for reading. For comments or questions email me at Chris@HAZExplorations.com

Our 2007 and 2008 archaeological surveys for public housing and transportation got me immersed in the cattle barons of the North Country. Before that I had never pictured the open fields along the Saint Lawrence populated by cowboys and horse-traders. But when we tested the remaining outbuilding at the former Gifford Farm and the Wild Rose Thoroughbred Stables I got a different view of the former landscape of the now built-over City of Watertown. I also delved into the early film history of Ithaca (see this blog next week for more on that)

…and so last Summer I started writing scripts for small vignettes performing bits of local history. HAZEx partnered with a couple Ithaca-based non-profit Historical Groups (Historic Ithaca and the History Center) and HAZEx produced (with $150 from the History Center) and directed the Haunted History Tour of Ithaca, New York over seven nights in the Fall to a sold-out audience totaling over 400 folks.

It took a whole lot of help from other historians, a great cast of docents and actors and many other colorful characters such as Ithaca’s own experts on silent film (Terry Harbin) and swashbuckling (Ron & Yalena Lis). The tour had flying ghosts, screaming murderers, fallen children, and celluloid come-to-life and made the local historical society a nice addition to their coffers in a year when so many county historical societies were suffering.

This spring HAZEx became so busy with new projects stemming from the new Federally funded infra-structure that I had to let the societies continue the tours without me. But the plan is to continue writing scripts and telling the stories lost in our reports through outdoor theatre.

I am now working on a nautical tour through time across Cayuga Lake. There will be ship-wrecks, lost fiancés, bootleggers, and tinsel-makers in abundance. We were part of the third phase of the Cayuga Waterfront Trail and found some exciting new clues about some of these stories. Whether this research will continue and become part of the stories remains to be seen. I just hope it won’t mean HAZEx digging through icy soil yet again.

Thanks for reading. For comments or questions email me at Chris@HAZExplorations.com