Title

Archaeological Artifact(s)

Description

Artifacts found during the 2017-2018 Pope County Archaeological Survey.
A total of 14 stone artifacts were collected from this site. This included lithic tools and flakes(n=14) and a hammerstone. The lithic artifacts included a small biface of heat-treated Swan River Chert. The retouch to resharpen was all done by percussion flaking, with no pressure flake scars. There is also a small flake tool of Prairie du Chien Chert.
Flaking debris include five bipolar cores (Swan River Chert = 3, Red River Chert = 1,quartz = 1), three pieces of bipolar flaking debris (Swan River Chert = 1, quartz = 2), two flakes (both Swan River Chert), one piece of shatter (Swan River Chert).
The hammerstone is a relatively large cobble of granitic rock. It is symmetrically rounded but longer in one direction than the other. There is moderate pitting on one end and barely discernable pitting on the opposite end.
A small sample of the more diagnostic historic artifacts were collected. The artifacts come from several classes, architectural, medicinal bottles, tableware, and agricultural and represent a long period of use at a habitation.
Four nails were collected in sizes 6D and larger 10D. They are common cut nails that cannot be easily dated. Nine glass artifacts were collected that represent a long period of manufacture. Patent medicine bottle fragments were also well represented. Two patent medicine style bottle finishes were recovered. One has pre 1870 manufacture indicated by an applied glass finish, and one colorless finish dated to post 1885 in the “standard” tooled finish. A medicine bottle base dates from1850 to 1890 and a side fragment could not be dated. All are mold blown. A whiteware plate rim cannot be tightly dated, but is typical for table ware dating from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century.
The most interesting historic artifacts are two bottle glass sherds appear to date to the mid 19th Century (or earlier). One is a thick, slightly curved bottle glass body sherd that is dark olive green, almost black, due to iron oxide. It has an irregular exterior surface that is dimpled in an “orange peel” texture. This color was typical for older spirits bottles made before 1880.A second fragment is an aqua blue/green mold blown pictorial whisky flask fragment that could date from 1815 to1870. This fragment has embossing that appears to represent the outer edge of a wing and likely is from a larger American Eagle style flask. The flask fragment is too small to accurately classify as to the exact image depicted but is typical of pictorial flasks seen on Minnesota sites in the Civil War era.
The most significant aspect of the two older bottle glass fragments is that they have been modified using lithic tool manufacture methods, and one appears to be a scraper. Both the aqua sherd and the olive sherd are of a similar size and have a series of flakes removed from one side to make unifacial scrapers. The sherds also appear to have been purposefully broken down into rectangular shapes. These tools were typically used for cleaning hides and may have been used during the fur trade.
The historic artifacts include architectural materials (window glass, and nails)and indicate that this site had a structure used from ca.1815 to the late 19th Century by people with familiarity with stone tool manufacture. The lithic tools scattered around the historic site may reflect and earlier site that was returned to along the trail, or an area where Indigenous people camped around a structure during the contact period.