Fiske Center for Archaeological Research

05/20/2026

Congratulations to the Marblehead Museum for the launch of their inaugural exhibit in the Brick Kitchen Visitor Center -- Resistance and Resilience: Slavery and Freedom in Marblehead. We are honored to have contributed to this exhibit and to the research on the Jeremiah Lee property. The exhibit opens to the public on June 1, and everyone should definitely go see it!

05/18/2026

Collections management in action! This semester, undergraduates Morgan, Ana, Zach, and Chloe worked on reorganizing and reboxing the Queen Anne Square collection, excavated in 1978. The material is now in standard boxes, better organized, with barcoded labels generated from our box inventory database.

05/15/2026

A huge thank you to all of the undergrads who worked in the labs this semester! Your work contributed to so many different projects. Wishing everyone a good finals week and great summer!

05/14/2026

This , we congratulate Claire Ross on defending her thesis (today!) entitled "Gendered Labor and Dairying at a Northern Plantation." Claire's research is part of new work supported by the Mellon Foundation that continued the study of Sylvester Manor into the 19th century. From Claire's thesis: In the early nineteenth century, the work of dairying was primarily done by and associated with women. Dairy products like butter and cheese were an important part of everyday life and almost all women, especially those living in the rural North, engaged in dairying. Past studies of dairying as gendered labor have focused on the role of dairying in the lives of white, middle-class women. This thesis builds on that body of work by specifically studying the dairying labor done by free Black women working at Sylvester Manor, a former northern plantation in Eastern Long Island. In the context of emancipation-era New York State, free Black women had to navigate the social and economic reforms of the nineteenth century while also being subject to marginalization based on their race and gender. This thesis uses documentary and archaeological evidence from nineteenth-century Sylvester Manor to better understand the ways in which free Black women used dairying to support themselves and their families during this transformative period. By highlighting the fact that free Black women engaged in the skilled labor of dairying, this work aims to disrupt narratives that erase their presence from rural northern landscapes and obscure their work as competent, independent farm women.
With Sylvester Manor

05/12/2026

The call for papers is out for CNEHA, to be held in Canada in mid October. Session and paper abstract deadlines are in July.

05/05/2026

An article on the Bourne presentation this Thursday evening.

In Bourne, UMASS Boston research scientist John Steinberg will publicly share results from a Burying Hill radar scan for Wampanoag graves.

05/04/2026

At the Town of Bourne Conservation Commission meeting on Thursday, John Steinberg will talk about the results of the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey conducted on Burying Hill in Bournedale. He will discuss the basic principles of GPR and explain how it is used to identify potential unmarked burials. He will compare the Burying Hill results to nearby burial sites. The GPR survey was funded by the Town of Bourne Community Preservation Committee and conducted with the help of Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribal members.
https://www.bourne-ma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_05072026-1205

04/30/2026

Tara's thesis is one of several that are in progress on Dr. Heather Trigg's project in New Mexico at El Rancho de las Golondrinas
The crew will be back there this June for further research!

04/21/2026

Join us for a lunch time talk by Ceecee Cesario on April 29th entitled "Pigs, People, and Places."
Abstract: This presentation will focus on pigs—their contribution to the settlement of Iceland, their diet, their distribution in the archaeological record, and places with pig-related names. Pigs were brought to Iceland with the first settlers, but have generally been given less attention than other domesticates. However, it could be argued that pigs were more economically important than cattle and sheep in the first decades of settlement.
To examine one part of the relationship between people and pigs, 72 samples of archaeological pig bone were sent for isotopic analysis. This revealed the diet of the pigs and thus how they were kept. Additionally, archaeological sites with pig bones were mapped and compared with pig-related placenames to give a better picture of the people-pig relationship and highlight possible spatial trends in pigkeeping. Despite changing use of pigs over time and their diminishing numbers, pig placenames persist on the landscape. The placename research is just beginning, but shows potential to help understand more about pigs and the social landscape.

04/16/2026

For , an update from MA student Ella Virkler about her research:
My thesis focuses on new methods for identifying draft cattle (oxen) from three bones in the lower limbs. By combining measurements, 3D images, CT scans, stable isotopes, and geometric morphometrics, I hope to combine old methods with emerging methods to figure out the make up the cattle herd at Sylvester Manor, a 17th century provisioning plantation on Long Island, New York. This information will then help in parsing out the everyday lives of those that lived and labored on Sylvester Manor. By focusing on only three bones, the astragalus, metatarsal, and metacarpal, I can conduct in depth research on the individual bones, and find minute changes that set apart draft cattle, meat cattle, and dairy cattle. Documentary research shows that all three groups of cattle were present on the plantation, making it an ideal location for testing new methods on the cattle bones present.
By Ella Virkler
With Sylvester Manor

04/10/2026

Congratulations to Kristen Delatour and Samantha Side who defended their MA theses this week! Both worked on collections from Sylvester Manor, New York, continuing to add to our understanding of this northern plantation. Parts of this work were supported by a recent Mellon Grant that allowed us to make the older collections more accessible for research and to extend the research focus into the 18th and 19th centuries. With Sylvester Manor