{"id":1461,"date":"2022-04-26T12:14:22","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T16:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communicator.pef.org\/?p=1461"},"modified":"2022-04-27T11:41:09","modified_gmt":"2022-04-27T15:41:09","slug":"cultural-resource-preservation-takes-pef-member-on-a-journey-through-new-yorks-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communicator.pef.org\/issue\/volume-40-no-3\/cultural-resource-preservation-takes-pef-member-on-a-journey-through-new-yorks-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural resource preservation takes PEF member on a journey through New York\u2019s history"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dig-1\"
Cultural Resource Program staff excavate at the Alvinza Finney site in Saratoga County, digging test squares at intervals across the property. Finds included some unanticipated pre-contact items, like a 1748 British coin and Native American items. Photo credit: NYS Museum\/NYSED<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To help ensure its preservation, the state Department of Education created the Cultural Resource Survey Program (CRSP) in 1958 to help other state agencies meet historic preservation mandates. Staff dig deep into available research archives and conduct fieldwork to ensure planned projects don\u2019t negatively impact cultural history.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

PEF member Aaron Gore, a cultural education specialist with the Department of Education, explained how the process works.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSay DOT wants to build a road, DOCCS wants to build a wing on a prison or DEC wants a new parking lot at a state park. There are federal and state statutes that surveys must be done in advance of those projects,\u201d Gore said.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To prepare for site visits, CRSP staff scour period maps to get the lay of the land and guide their fieldwork.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we go out there and we do our excavation, we have a little bit of guidance where we might find artifacts,\u201d Gore said. By digging a series of shovel test pits, circular holes about 30 centimeters across, staff take the soil out and screen it layer by layer.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe look and see what\u2019s in those layers, and we make our interpretation from that,\u201d Gore said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Based on historic records, one such project brought the team to a location in Saratoga County known to have been the site of locally prominent businessman Alvinza Finney\u2019s house and store. The latter, known as the \u201cUnion Store,\u201d served local residents and people traveling through the area by canal boat.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThousands of 19th century artifacts and a few below-ground features, including a stone and brick foundation for a small building likely relating to Champlain Canal activity, were uncovered during the excavation, consistent with earlier survey results,\u201d Gore said. \u201cHowever, archaeologists were not expecting to find significantly older objects, including a 1748 British coin and Native American items, including a resharpened projectile point, a sherd of decorated pottery, and chips from stone tool manufacture or resharpening.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Coin\"
Photo credit: NYS Museum\/NYSED<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThat is the nature of this work,\u201d Gore said. \u201cYou never know what you\u2019re going to get. You do research and go to a project area, and you expect to find something, but sometimes you find other things you didn\u2019t expect. That\u2019s what makes the job so exciting. The unexpected finds are generally pretty exciting.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gore\u2019s lifelong interest in history drew him to this work.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEver since I was a kid, I was always really into history,\u201d he said. \u201cI was on track to be a historian. I grew up in a small town on the Canadian border and there was an 18<\/span>th<\/span> century French fort on a property in town. I had the luck to excavate that French mission, Fort de la Presentation, in Ogdensburg.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat was amazing,\u201d he said. \u201cWe found all sorts of great stuff: gun flints, musket balls, a cool pipe bowl.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gore\u2019s work with the CRSP takes him all over the state, traveling from the Canadian border to the far end of Long Island. Projects can be large, like the Exit 3 project on the NYS Thruway and the signage for Albany International Airport \u2013 others can be small, like a single building.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great job,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just archaeology. We look at historic buildings, structures, bridges. All of these are considered cultural resources.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To help ensure its preservation, the state Department of Education created the Cultural Resource Survey Program (CRSP) in 1958 to help other state agencies meet historic preservation mandates. 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