This summer, I had the pleasure of working with Professor Lucy Johnson and three URSI students studying the archaeology of the Mid-Hudson Valley. In the field, we excavated at two prehistoric rock shelters on the Shawangunk Ridge: Peterskill Rock Shelter and Paint Mine Rock Shelter. There we found a wide variety of flakes and flake fragments, in addition to one perfectly formed, complete Late Archaic spear point. Given the large number and lithic artifacts and the dearth of pottery found at our sites, we speculate that these sites were used as temporary shelters for hunting parties on the ridge.

We also spent a few days excavating at two local historic archaeological sites: a burned-down hotel in Lake George, NY, and the buried kitchen garden of Matthew Vassar’s estate, Springside. Over the course of the summer, I had the opportunity to learn and apply the basic principles of archaeological excavation, including practicing how to keep accurate and detailed records, dig test pits, and interpret stratigraphy.

Along with working in the field, I helped Professor Johnson analyze and catalogue artifacts from the site of New Hampton in the Hudson Valley, and from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Professor Johnson and I catalogued and bagged a large set of bone tools from the Aleutian Islands which she had collected several years ago, and when that was completed, I sorted artifacts from the New Hampton site into flakes, flake fragments, core fragments, and stone tools, and then analyzed and catalogued their characteristics.

Through performing these analyses, and continuing to excavate in sites like Peterskill and Paint Mine (which have until now remained unstudied by modern academic archaeologists), we hope to better understand the prehistory of the Hudson Valley, a region which has not been excavated and studied nearly as much as it deserves to be.

Sean Keller, ’16