Stone Chamber Built by Natives?

[CMD]

The Upton chamber in Ma. has always been one of the more interesting of the stone chambers found in the Northeastern states.....

http://m.milforddailynews.com/article/20151024/NEWS/151026998

Photos from above article....

Paper:

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shannon_Mahan/publication/277133610_Construction_Ages_of_the_Upton_Stone_Chamber_Preliminary_Findings_and_Suggestions_for_Future_Luminescence_Research/links/558c438808ae1f30aa809e63.pdf?inViewer=true&pdfJsDownload=true&disableCoverPage=true&origin=publication_detail

[Hoss]

I cannot get into research gate on that link. Charlie have they found any artifacts within the man made cave? I am sure at some point some one poked around with a shovel or gone in with a metal detector. It would be nice to know if anything has turned up.

[BabaORiley]

Wow. What a structure. I have seen the History Channel shows about other structures in the east. Very interesting. That first pic of the hanging stones that make up the ceiling is quite a piece of work.

[Hoss]

Reseach gate opens for me now it must have been the internet and not the link.

[CMD]

Reseach gate opens for me now it must have been the internet and not the link.

I had posted the entire PDF text, but it did not appear that way. Still, I had no problem just clicking on "Download full text". Hopefully, anyone can do that.

[painshill]

I cannot get into research gate on that link. Charlie have they found any artifacts within the man made cave? I am sure at some point some one poked around with a shovel or gone in with a metal detector. It would be nice to know if anything has turned up.

The link worked for me.

The history of the chamber and the finds it has yielded are detailed in the 250+ page archaeological site report “Upton Chamber Masonry Rehabilitation and Drainage Improvement Project” prepared in 2012 for the town of Upton by preservation experts John Milner Associates Inc of New York. The “known” history detailed therein is rather limited and largely confines itself to the “realistic” possibilities rather than embracing the speculation of Warwick and others (the suggestion of Celtic visitors in pre-Columbian times and an expedition by the Irish monk known as Brendan the Navigator).

The FCC designated the Pratt Hill/Upton Chamber Historic District in 2011 as “Category A” for its role in religious and cultural traditions of the Narragansett, Aquinnah Wampanoag and Mashpee Wampanoag Tribes. The Milner report further recommends the chamber itself be designated “Category D” (has yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history) at the local level.

To date, no confirmed pre-Contact artefacts have been identified in the chamber, the passageway to it, or in the immediate area outside the entrance. The strata are largely disturbed, but the limited areas of undisturbed strata have also yielded nothing of significance. There are however indications from GPR and other surveying techniques of anomalies beneath the ground which may relate to the structure and warrant further investigation. In particular, there is a 16 foot quadrangular feature at a depth of 5 to 6 feet (probably undisturbed) that may represent stonework cultural architecture, but of unknown age.

The two main formal excavations were by Harvard archaeologists Kelly and Glass in 1955 and in 2011 during the survey work undertaken by Milner Associates. Both are covered in the Milner report:

“Cultural materials identified in the [1955] excavation include a wood floor approximately two inches thick, a 2-in by 6-in wood cross piece with nails embedded in it from under the floor, iron nails, a large iron L-clinched spike, indeterminate iron – possibly nails, an incised ceramic sherd, “blue-on-white straffordshire [sic] ware” and “broken white china” (the latter attributed to children from a later date). The wood from the Upton Chamber floor has never been dated. A photograph of the ceramic rim fragment with a “molded design of three lines” is shown in Figure 12b. It was recovered from the passageway in the vicinity of boulders 7 and 9 shown in Figure 14. The mention of what appears to be a lead slip of hard metallic gray suggests that the sherd is of lead glazed earthenware. Incised decoration was used on certain types of lead-glazed earthenware, including English graffito ceramics from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The photograph identified the sherd as being 9/32 inches in size but no scale is present in the photograph.

Artifacts apart from the wood floor were sparse within the chamber. The wood floor elements, iron nails and spike indicate historic use. If the incised ceramic sherd is of lead-glazed earthenware, that would also date from the colonial period or early nineteenth century. Blue decorated Staffordshire ceramics from northwest of the beehive chamber may be of variable date and depending upon ceramic type could date from the eighteenth century to as late as the twentieth century. As the Staffordshire ceramics came from the northwest corner of the beehive chamber where it joins a stone wall (Trench 7?), this could be the area Malcolm Pearson mentions in his 1938 letter that was walled up by Mr. Harrington by the late 1880s. The white china ceramics likewise could date anywhere from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century. No artifacts were noted that were of likely pre-colonial origins. Wood samples were retained by James Whittall and the incised pottery sherd was in the possession of Malcolm Pearson, according to a 2005 interview with Dr. John B. Glass (Upton Historical Commission Interview notes from an interview with Dr. John B. Glass, May 20, 2005). There is no information on the whereabouts of the white china and Staffordshire ceramics or iron nails and spike that were recovered.”

And:

“A total of 261 items were recovered [in 2011] from the site examination and monitoring [259 from experimental digging and 2 coincidentally]. These numbers do not reflect modern items such as plastic wrappers, cellophane, aluminum can tabs or foil, asphalt roof shingles and cigarette filters which were noted but not retained. All ceramics, glass, bone, and non-aluminum metals were recovered. No stone artifacts or shell was encountered.

No pre-Contact Native American artifacts were recovered from the site examination. Colonial-era historic artifacts consisted of lead-glazed redware ceramics, which were common utilitarian ceramics from the earliest colonial settlements until the mid nineteenth century, by which time stoneware, ironstone or refined earthenware replaced most utilitarian redware forms. Redware continues to be produced to the present time for flower pots, and to a lesser extent as decorative wares…...

Other ceramics recovered include whiteware (1820+) and ironstone (1842+)……The fragments recovered in the 2011 site examination were small in size and typical of sheet refuse and not a refuse midden. The five pieces of transfer-print and blue-edged whiteware date from the nineteenth century and may be the ceramic type referred to as blue-on-white Staffordshire ware identified in the 1955 excavation. Some of the plain whiteware fragments may have come from blue-edged whiteware (1820-1890). The whiteware and ironstone ceramics may have been deposited after the stone chamber had been abandoned. All the fragments were small in size, most measuring less than 2cm across.

Architectural materials recovered consisted primarily of window and plate glass, and a few pieces of brick and a ferrous nail. More recent asphalt roof shingle and tar paper were also noted…… The indeterminate nail…… may be a cut or wrought nail but it was too corroded to identify…… A large thick piece of plate glass was recovered from the ground surface behind the stone lintel…… The plate glass is relatively recent. The most common artifact type recovered consisted of modern clear or amber machine-made bottle glass. One piece of mold-blown aqua tint glass from an octagonal bottle was recovered…… which is typical of mid to late nineteenth century medicine bottles. Lamp glass was widely distributed and includes chimney glass as well as thin glass that could be from a lamp chimney or a light bulb. An opaque (black) glass spherical bead 10mm in diameter was also recovered. The bead was cast in two halves, possibly with a hollow center. It is likely machine made and modern in origin as it was recovered from an upper level with modern bottle glass and plastic items.

Two large mammal (cow/large pig) bones were recovered that had been butchered. Both bones …… consist of long bone shafts with the articular ends removed, either by cleaver or handsaw. One of the shafts was also sawn longitudinally by handsaw. Other than asphalt roofing shingles (1917+) and tar paper that were noted, there were few artifacts encountered in the same levels…… as the two bones, so the mammal bones do not appear to have been part of an historic midden layer. The butchered mammal bone could date from the nineteenth century. If so, there is the possibility that the Upton Chamber could have been used for cold storage of meat for a time. The recovery of the butchered bone from the same levels as twentieth-century roof shingles and bottle glass indicates a mixed historic context at best. There is also the possibility that the butchered bones date from the twentieth century.”