AHS, an affiliate of PAST, Inc., one of New England's oldest cultural resource management firms, is based in Storrs, Connecticut. Designated a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, AHS provides quality archaeological and historical research services and products while helping clients meet contract set-aside goals.
Services
- Archaeological and historical components of state- and federal-level environmental impact studies
- Assessment-level studies to identify potentially significant archaeological and historical resources
- Archaeological reconnaissance surveys, designed to locate all archaeological sites in a project area
- Intensive archaeological surveys, designed to determine the eligibility of sites for the National Register of Historic Places
- Archaeological Data Recovery, site excavation performed as an impact mitigation measure
- Geoarchaeological testing and analysis
- Industrial archaeology and history
- National Register of Historic Places nomination documentation
- State- and federal-level historic structure and building documentation, including HABS and HAER recording of buildings and engineering structures
- Historic bridge documentation and advising
- Cultural resource management planning, including preservation and impact mitigation planning for archaeological and historical resources
- Advising on the rehabilitation of historic structures
- Museum interpretive concepts and exhibits
- Public-oriented web presentations, books and brochures
- Specialized archaeological laboratory services, including a dedicated conservation laboratory
- Consultation with Native American communities regarding traditional cultural properties and archaeological and ethnographic issues
Project Examples
Cultural Resource Assessment Surveys
AHS is currently working with Fuss & O'Neill and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection in evaluating strategies for beach restoration at this popular state park. A portion of the beach has repeatedly washed away in winter storms. Strategies under consideration for restoring and stabilizing the eroded beach area include dredging sand to replenish the beach and the construction of breakwaters or other retaining devices. AHS's role is to evaluate the potential impact to archaeological sites both on and off-shore and help guide the alternative selection and the development of a strategy to avoid or minimize impacts to archaeological sites.
As part of an Environmental Impact Evaluation, AHS's Historian and Senior Historical Archaeologist undertook a Phase Ia Archaeological Assessment Survey of the proposed site of the Bristol Downtown Redevelopment Project, the former Bristol Center Mall, in Bristol, Connecticut. Background research and field inspection indicated that the surveyed area as it appears today is primarily the result of redevelopment activities–demolition, channeling of brooks, and re-alignment of streets–that substantially transformed the landscape in the 1960s. As a result of this analysis, it was recommended that the archaeological sensitivity of the project area be regarded as extremely low, and that no further archaeological studies were needed.
Archaeological Reconnaissance Surveys
Under contract to the State of Connecticut, AHS undertook an Archaeological Reconnaissance Survey of a 500-acre property in Preston which will be redeveloped in a public-private partnership. The purpose of the survey, which included documentary research and the excavation of over 3,700 shovel test pits, was to identify all cultural resources which may be eligible for the State or National Registers of Historic Places. Over 40 archaeological sites were found, from nearly all periods of prehistory, as was the site of the construction of the Continental frigate the USS Confederacy. This project also included the identification of above-ground electric railway remains and the crash sites of two World War II fighter planes; the latter sites were designated State Archaeological Preserves.
The Town of Cumberland, Rhode Island, proposed the construction of a 1.5-mile walking trail on a former Trappist Monastery property using FHWA monies, therefore requiring Section 106 compliance. Construction of the trail was inadvertently started prior to any archaeological survey, disturbing portions of at least two buried prehistoric sites. AHS personnel completed emergency archaeological surveys, resulting in the identification of seven prehistoric sites ranging in age from the Middle Archaic to the Late Woodland periods, and a single 17th-century site associated with the on-site deaths of nine colonial militia men during King Philip's War (1675). AHS personnel were active participants in consultation with Rhode Island Department of Transportation, the Rhodes Island Historic Preservation and Heritage Commission, and local Native American groups.
Intensive Archaeological and Historical Studies
In 1780 a contingent of the French Army arrived in America to provide much-needed assistance against the British in the Revolutionary War. In 1781, after wintering in Rhode Island, the army marched across Connecticut to New York where it joined the forces of General Washington. Following the defeat of the British at Yorktown in October 1781, the French, led by General Rochambeau, made a return march through Connecticut in 1782. The locations of the march route and campsites were known only as local traditions. AHS affiliate PAST, working for the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office and the Hudson River Valley Institute at Marist College, designed and executed a strategy for identifying and confirming the route and camps. Through intensive map and document research we were able to fix the route on today's landscape, and in the process discovered numerous vestigial road segments that have historic integrity. We also established an "archaeological signature" for the campsites and applied it to confirm the surviving encampment locations. We prepared a successful multiple-property National Register nomination for the route remnants, campsites and related components of the march. Two of the encampments have been designated State Archaeological Preserves.
The State of Connecticut is presently undertaking a major redevelopment project in the capital city of Hartford. Designed to reconnect the city with the Connecticut River, this complicated project included a major archaeological and historical component. The complexity and prohibitive cost of large-scale excavation in this urban area necessitated a creative and innovative mitigation approach, which was achieved by a combination of borings, trenches, documentary research, geological research, and paleobotanical study. Geological data were combined with pollen and phytolith data and radiocarbon dates to reconstruct the stratigraphic development of the floodplain from the Holocene period to the 20th century. Results of the survey are being incorporated into the new Connecticut Science Center. This project also involved the identification and documentation of numerous historic structures, including a pump station, brewery and newspaper building.
The state of Rhode Island is planning a passenger railroad station on the site of several early 20th-century houses. The project area is within the ancestral homeland of the Narragansett Indian Tribe, and a short distance away from a large 17th-century Narragansett cemetery at which, some years ago, dozens of unmarked Native graves were disturbed. Because the project received federal funds through the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, an archaeological study was necessary in order to identify and mitigate any adverse effects to significant cultural resources. AHS, under contract to Jacobs, Edwards and Kelcey, conducted an archaeological survey to identify any possible archaeological remains, particularly Narragansett burials. Following careful shovel testing, we removed the topsoil with a smooth-bladed machine bucket to expose possible grave shafts without disturbance. No burials were found.
Geoarchaeology
At AHS geological considerations are fundamental components of nearly every project. Many archaeological sites are connected to the physical landscape in important ways, and geologists supply specialized knowledge that can enlighten site interpretation. For prehistoric sites geologists can help archaeologists understand complicated soil concepts and the properties and sources of artifactual materials; at historic-period sites geological expertise can assist in evaluating landscape modification. For these reasons AHS has established strong relationships with a broad range of specialists working in the fields of geology, pedology, and paleoenvironmental research to allow detailed interpretations of archaeological sites.
Archaeological Site Data Recovery Excavation
AHS staff have excavated the buried remains of five 18th-century homesteads found in the paths of new roadways and a proposed redevelopment area. Four of the homestead sites were investigated under contract to the Connecticut Department of Transportation: the 1712 Daniels homestead in Waterford, the c. 1731 Goodsell homestead in North Branford, the c. 1704 Ephraim Sprague homestead in Andover, and the c. 1713 Benedict homestead in Wilton. Three of the four sites were found buried in farm fields and the fourth site was buried under a lawn next to a major road. None could be feasibly avoided by highway redesign, necessitating mitigation in the form of Data Recovery excavation. A fifth homestead, the Revolutionary War period Story House and Tavern, was found along the Thames River under fill. Each of the five sites was excavated, almost entirely by hand, and the results have provided the first solid baseline for reconstructing the 18th-century lifeways of the "middling sort." The Goodsell homestead was occupied solely by women for most of its history, women who mended earthenware and etched their initials into bottles. The Daniels homestead housed a coastal family that was probably involved in the West Indies beef trade. The Sprague homestead lets us into the world of a rural militia captain and deacon from one of the area's first white families. The deep stone-lined cellar of the Benedict homestead not only offers a glimpse into the lives of families from a sparsely populated region of Connecticut, but the recovery of a unique locally manufactured slipware tells the story of an emerging ceramic industry in the area. The Story site opens a window into a riverine-oriented fishing family that capitalized on the American Revolution by leasing land for the building of a Continental frigate and opening a tavern for the shipyard workers. Each of the Data Recovery excavations was done under intense time constraints, but was completed with no project construction downtime.
Industrial Archaeology and History
As required by state and federal law, the construction for the Thread City Crossing Bridge in Willimantic, affectionately known as the Frog Bridge, was coordinated with archaeological studies requested by the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office, in order to mitigate effects on archaeological features that might be disturbed in the course of the project. The area was determined to have sensitivity for historic-period archaeology because this was the location, in the 1820s, of Asa, Seth, and William Jillson's first cotton mill, one of Willimantic's earliest textile enterprises. Working for the Connecticut Department of Transportation, we surveyed and photographed stone walls that marked the foundations of manufacturing buildings and a former company house rented to mill workers, as well as a gatehouse, the headrace, and the remnants of a waterpower turbine. Some of these features were exposed during the course of construction, and others were uncovered by directed archaeological excavation. The data from the project are permanently archived in the Connecticut Historic Preservation Collection of the Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut. We prepared a website to summarize the project.
The Rhode Island Department of Transportation is planning the replacement of two historic bridges over the Wood River. The historically significant portions of the bridges will be preserved beneath a new steel span; however, there will be significant impacts to the surrounding landscape. As a subconsultant to Dewberry-Goodkind, Inc., AHS completed an archaeological survey of the project area, which falls within the National Register-listed Wyoming Village Historic District. The project area included sections of the 18th-century Brand Iron Works and 19th-century mica mill and blacksmith shop. Using a combination of machine-assisted trenching and shovel test pits, we identified three historic-period industrial sites and a single small prehistoric site within the project area. AHS determined that all four sites had been adversely affected by the late 19th-century expansion of on-site industrial facilities.
AHS Historian Bruce Clouette assisted the University of Massachusetts Archaeological Services in researching and interpreting the remains of a 19th-century railroad roundhouse and turntable in Cohasset, Massachusetts, an excavation undertaken in connection with the extension of Boston-area commuter rail along the Greenbush line. In addition to field consultation, AHS contributions to the project included complete map research showing railroad-related buildings in the area in the 19th and early 20th centuries and photographic research in the Cohasset Historic Society and the Interstate Commerce Commission archives in College Park, Maryland, which produced numerous ca. 1900 images of the roundhouse and turntable.
Cultural Resource Management Planning, Preservation, and Impact Mitigation Strategies
AHS developed creative strategies to identify and protect a cluster of prehistoric sites in Canterbury, Connecticut. Seven prehistoric sites were identified in the floodplain and terrace of the Quinebaug river in the course of an archaeological survey of a new wetland basin area to be created by the Connecticut Department of Transportation. AHS, working under intensive pressure, as construction was underway, developed and implemented an impact mitigation plan which involved a partial Data Recovery, archaeological monitoring of the basin construction, and protective burial of the sites beneath Geotextile and fill. AHS also prepared State Archaeological Preserve and National Register Historic Places documentation, a public education booklet, and a website for the project.
AHS has conducted archaeological investigation and historical research for many historic house museums, including the Jonathan Trumball, Jr., Nathan Hale Family, Webb-Deane-Stevens, Cady-Copp and Governor Samuel Huntington homesteads in Connecticut. We have advised the museums on the preservation of significant archaeological deposits, the incorporation of archaeological data into interpretive programs, and historically appropriate planning and restoration strategies.
National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmark Documentation
Under contract to the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office, AHS's Historian completed a National Historic Landmark nomination for the U.S. Coast Guard's sail-training ship, the barque Eagle. In addition to a complete technical description, the nomination included an exposition of the vessel's significance for the history of World War II (Eagle was acquired as a war prize from the German navy) and for its role in the education of officers for the Coast Guard. Sail training, part of the Coast Guard's officer preparation since its inception in 1790, is highly valued by the Coast Guard because it offers hands-on experience in teamwork, individual initiative, and respect for the sea.
Under contract to the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office, AHS prepared the documentation for the National Historic Landmark designation of the Coltsville Historic District in Hartford, Connecticut. The district includes Armsmear, the mansion of Samuel and Elizabeth Colt; firearms factory buildings from the 1850s through the World War I period; thirteen multifamily houses that formerly were worker tenements; Colt Park, originally laid out as the grounds for Armsmear; and two architecturally distinguished memorial buildings given by Mrs. Colt, the Church of the Good Shepherd and the Caldwell Colt Parish House. The Landmark nomination discusses the multi-faceted significance of the district in terms of technological and economic developments, American folk culture, philanthropy, urban planning, architecture, and landscape architecture. In addition to the document itself, AHS services included two presentations in Washington, D.C. before the Parks Advisory Board's National Historic Landmarks Committee.
State- and Federal-Level Building and Structure Documentation
As part of a package of services that included archaeological monitoring of the sites of three former railroad roundhouses, AHS prepared Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) documentation of ten historic buildings in the New Haven Rail Yard that were slated for demolition. Ranging in age from ca. 1870 to the 1950s, the buildings included an early machine shop, freight-car building shops, the yard's central steam plant, and a pioneering electro-mechanical central track-control facility. In addition to large-format photography, archived in the American Memory Collection of the Library of Congress as HAER No. CT-160, the documentation included historical drawings and photographs of the buildings from the 1918 Interstate Commerce Commission valuation inventory, photographs from the New Haven Railroad's employee magazine Along the Line, and a series of map overlays that show the rail yard at various points in time. A brochure on this historic railyard was also produced.
AHS undertook a Phase Ia Archaeological Assessment Survey of the former Central Vermont Railway pier in New London in connection with proposed utilities improvements. The pier, built in 1876, is 1,100 feet long and 150 feet wide and consists of granite perimeter walls and earth fill. Background research indicated that the onshore portions of the property were heavily modified during construction of the pier by blasting away bedrock, grading, and filling. As a result, the survey concluded that the archaeological sensitivity of this portion of the project area was low; no further archaeological studies were recommended. The pier itself was recommended as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places based upon its historical engineering significance and its role in the history of transportation in New England. The steamships berthed at the pier were a vital link between the port of New York and the Central Vermont Railway, which provided rail service to the interior of New England and southern Canada. In addition to the Phase Ia archaeological report, the contract required AHS to produce additional products, including a State of Connecticut Historic Resources Inventory - Buildings and Structures form, digital photography documenting the current appearance of the pier, and a National Register of Historic Places Registration form. The pier was formally listed on the National Register on January 26, 2005.
Historic Bridge Documentation and Advising
AHS bridge expert Bruce Clouette conducted state-wide surveys of historic bridges for the departments of transportation in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont. In each case, hundreds of historic trusses, stone arches, and concrete arches were inventoried and evaluated for their engineering and historical significance, and management plans were prepared to guide state-highway officials in their ongoing decisions affecting historic bridges. Three publications resulted from these surveys: Historic Highway Bridges of Rhode Island, Connecticut's Historic Highway Bridges, and Where Water Meets Land: Connecticut's Historic Movable Bridges.
Working with McFarland-Johnson, Inc. consulting engineers, AHS provided historic preservation research and recommendations for the 1873 Comstock Bridge across the Salmon River between Colchester and East Hampton. One of only three historic covered bridges in Connecticut, Comstock Bridge was deteriorating and in need of rehabilitation. The project conducted a complete condition survey and recommended methods of repair and stabilization consistent with the bridge's historic character. AHS's role in the project was identifying the character-defining features of the main span and what is probably an even older approach span, as well as developing a chronology of past episodes of repair and modifications.
Historic Rehabilitation Consultation
AHS personnel frequently advise developers on rehabilitation of historic buildings. One example is the Phoenix Development Group's rehabilitation of the historic Yantic Woolen Mill in Norwich, Connecticut for re-use as a hotel. The project was a Certified Rehabilitation that was approved by both the Connecticut Historical Commission and the National Park Service in 2002. AHS provided all historic-preservation services for the project, including consulting with owners, architects, contractors, suppliers, and public officials and preparing the Historic Preservation Certification Application - Part 2. Earlier, AHS personnel had written the National Register of Historic Places documentation for the site, which was listed on the National Register in August of 1996.
Public Education Projects
In the last few years, public-oriented brochures, books and web sites have become common across the country, and AHS staff have produced some stellar examples.
Website examples by AHS staff include:
Public-oriented book examples include Pathways to the Past, a volume of essays on Connecticut historic sites, the Quinebaug River Prehistoric Archaeological District (a State Archaeological Preserve book), the Peter Grohman House and Cigar-making Shop, and The Clark Farm Tenant House: A Resource for Understanding the Lifeways of Connecticut's Farm Laborers.
AHS personnel have also created numerous permanent museum exhibits, among them a legislative history exhibit at the State Capitol, an exhibit on the archaeological documentation of early torpedo boats in New London, and an installation on the history of mental health treatment in Hartford. We wrote the texts, assembled artifactual material, laid out the design, and oversaw their construction and installation.
Native American Consultation
Native American consultation is a key component of Cultural Resource Management. Native groups hold important information about sites of traditional cultural importance and are often key stakeholders in projects which may affect heritage sites. AHS has excellent relationships with New England tribal groups and regularly works productively with them to identify and avoid impacts to important sites.