Artifacts at Tudor Place/Peter House Site
My long-standing harping over the disappearance of DC public artifacts to the private non-profit Tudor Place has been recently addressed by the city archeologist – sort of. I had requested to photograph specific artifacts in the prehistoric collection that had been excavated at the Peter House near Rock Creek, and then given to the Tudor House. The request was based on the archeological report completed in 2006. (I am providing the report on the PMOP website because the paper’s link on DC’s DDOT website has changed. Google can no longer can find it on the government’s website, but I believe google will find it here.) The city archeologist, Dr. Ruth Trocolli, gave me the images of the 78 of 87 requested artifacts which had been photographed by a contractor.
Dr. Trocolli has said that the artifacts are temporarily being housed at Tudor Place and that the collection, along with all of the city’s artifacts, will not be accessible for a minimum of 4-5 years from now.
The written report for the Peter House archeological site is incredibly thorough. Unfortunately, the site’s stratigraphy appeared to be fairly disturbed. The top Ab stratum contained the earliest diagnostic point-type of the site – an Otter Creek point (there is a similar point in the PMOP which I called a MacCorkle). The pottery sherds, and their carbon dates, follow general stratigraphic integrity with the exception of the lowest “pre-holocene” stratum where an “intrusive” Popes Creek pottery sherd was found.
The most interesting sherd was something with dentation which the authors suggests was “reminiscent of a Point Peninsula” type. It did not seem to have the zig-zag characteristic of the Point Peninsula complex pottery, but I don’t know much about the subject. I know that the burial at the other archeological excavation nearby (on NPS property) was believed to be culturally related to the Algonquian Kipp Island people which I believe is the same as the Point Peninsula peeps. Not sure if this might have influenced the connection of this sherd to the Point Peninsula.
I think I found on page 72 a small mistake where the Levanna points are mistakenly called Madisons.
Now it’s on to rediscovering the other archeo site included in this report. I wanted to research the site on DC property first because I assumed that these artifacts would be more accessible than the federally-held ones (which include burial items). We’ll see if the NPS can outdo DC in terms of bureaucratic barriers.