Paleoethnobotany at Sylvester Manor Heather Trigg

Northeast Historical Archaeology Volume 36 The Historical Archaeology of Sylvester Article 10 Manor 2007 Cider, Wheat, Maize, and Firewood: Paleoethnobotany at Sylvester Manor Heather Trigg Ashley Leasure Follow this and additional works at: http://orb.binghamton.edu/neha Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Trigg, Heather and Leasure, Ashley (2007) "Cider, Wheat, Maize, and Firewood: Paleoethnobotany at Sylvester Manor," Northeast Historical Archaeology: Vol. 36 36, Article 10. https://doi.org/10.22191/neha/vol36/iss1/10 Available at: http://orb.binghamton.edu/neha/vol36/iss1/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion in Northeast Historical Archaeology by an authorized editor of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). For more information, please contact [email protected]. Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 36, 2007 113 Cider, Wheat, Maize, and Firewood: Paleoethnobotany at Sylvester Manor Heather Trigg and Ashley Leasure The paleoethnobotanical analysis program at Sylvester Manor is designed to investigate the rela- tionships between the Sylvesters, their workers, and the botanical environment. Most of the contexts sampled provide information about domestic household consumption. The site residents used large quantities of oak for fuel and possibly building construction. Documents provide more robust information about the production of crops and interactions with Native peoples, suggesting that local Native Americans provided a source of labor for the production of crops. Le programme d’analyse paleoethnobotanique au site du Sylvester Manor a été conçu pour exam- iner les relations entre les Sylvesters, leurs employés et l’environnement botanique. La majorité des contextes échantillonnés fournit des informations à propos de la consommation d’une maisonnée. Les résidents ont utilisé de grandes quantités de chêne comme combustible et peut-être même pour la construction. Les documents écrits offrent quant à eux des informations plus solides à propos de la production de plantes cultivées et des interactions entre les Autochtones. Ces documents suggèrent en effet que les Autochtones locaux consti- tuaient une source de main d’œuvre pour la production de plantes cultivées. Introduction examine the role of plants in plantation activi- As a provisioning plantation, Sylvester ties. Because of preservational issues and Manor supplied basic goods to its sister estates behavioral patterns, one difficulty is finding in the Caribbean. Documents indicate that physical evidence for the plants used at the many of the provisioning activities centered manor. A more important challenge, how- on the production and export of food, pri- ever, is to provide a more detailed and refined marily meat. The manufacture of these goods, understanding of the nature of the relation- however, was only one of the activities under- ships among the various peoples associated taken at Sylvester Manor. Sustaining the export with the manor and with the environment. endeavors and the manor household required Through the paleoethnobotanical research housing for the family, buildings for livestock we attempt to answer some basic questions and other activities, food for the inhabitants regarding the nature of these interactions: what and perhaps livestock, fuel for heating the plant foods did the Sylvesters eat; what crops home and cooking food, and the production were grown or exported; what was exchanged of commodities for exchange. These mundane with the Native Americans? To what extent activities drew the Sylvesters, their African did the Sylvesters maintain traditional Dutch slaves, and the local Native Americans into a and English foodways and to what extent were web of interactions, both among themselves these traditions modified? How was labor for and with the physical environment. crop production scheduled and how was this During colonial times, plants played a labor negotiated? What woods were used in large role in peoples’ lives. It is known from the plantation buildings and for firewood? ethnographic and documentary data that in How did these activities impact the landscape? most regions plants make up a majority of The paleoethnobotanical research is ongoing the foods eaten; and it is likely that plants and cannot provide answers to all these ques- were the dietary staples at the manor. In the tions, but the analysis is beginning to explore 17th century, plant products were not only the plantation’s dynamics. used for food, but also as exports, medicines, clothing, firewood, fencing, building materials, and tools large and small—parts for plows, Current Landscape and Vegetation mixing spoons, and handles of hoes to name a The current landscape and vegetation at but a few. the manor are highly managed and largely The goal of the paleoethnobotanical anthropogenic. The results of these processes research in the Sylvester Manor Project is to are reflected not only in the formal garden and 114 Trigg and Leasure/Paleoethnobotany at Sylvester Manor Figure 1. Sylvester Manor North Peninsula in the late-19th century. manicured lawns adjacent to the house, but also in the vegetation throughout the manor’s current landholdings including areas in and around the marshes. Gardiner’s Creek is a small inlet, which by family legend was nearly Figure 2. North Peninsula. closed off in the 17th century. This small wet- land is fed by a spring at the southeast end of is possible that the Native Americans on the the marsh. Freshwater vegetation such as cattail island, as in other areas of the Northeast, used grows immediately adjacent to the spring, but fire as a vegetation control tool. Such practices the marsh itself is brackish and sustains stands would have provided the Sylvesters with a of cordgrass and other salt-tolerant plants. The previously managed landscape in which large area is terrestrializing, and roughly half the oaks dominated and smaller trees and shrubs marsh is now firm enough to walk on. This were removed (Cronon 1983). The 17th-century process has been rapid and occurred during the vegetation provided not only a landscape upon last 50 years, within memory of the last inhab- which the Sylvesters and their household built itant of the manor house (Alice Fiske, personal the plantation, but also raw materials with communication 2003). Around the marsh today, which to create a living. Assessing the changes there are large stands of pine, maple, oak, black due to plantation activities are among the goals locust, hawthorn, and walnut; however photo- of the landscape research. graphs taken in the late-19th or early-20th century show this area completely cleared of large Sampling Strategy trees (FIG . 1). Like the terrestrialization of the At Sylvester Manor, we employ a sampling marsh, the current vegetation is quite recent, strategy designed to collect several types of but modification of the landscape has occurred paleoethnobotanical data: macrobotanicals, since the 17th century and perhaps earlier. primarily seeds and wood, to explore specific Broad scale vegetation reconstruction for types of plants used; and pollen to examine eastern Long Island suggests that at the time vegetation and ultimately landscape changes. the Sylvesters established the plantation, the Through the years, the sampling strategy has island was covered by oak woodland (U.S. changed from the selective collection of bulk Fish and Wildlife Service 1991). The island sediment samples from features to systematic would have supported a variety of plant habi- collection from all contexts. During the first five tats including grasslands, salt marshes, and years of excavation, we have taken nearly 1000 localized maple and pine swamps. The under- flotation samples and analyzed just over 20% story consisted of shrubs such as huckleberry, of them. All analyzed samples were examined blueberry, and blackberry and grasses, ferns, for charred seeds and wood, and an additional and herbaceous plants. Pre-colonial landscape 100 samples from the screens were examined management has yet to be examined, but it for charred wood. The analysis of the screened Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 36, 2007 115 Figure 3. South lawn with midden, underlying features, and Feature 226. wood focused on two areas of the site where permanently wet places are more promising the wood density was the highest, Features 226 because these environments are more condu- and 221, but flotation samples from all areas cive to pollen preservation than the open exca- of the site were analyzed and provide a broad vation units. While the pollen in these cores has overview of the plant remains. not been fully analyzed, preliminary examina- Because examination and identification of tion indicates that preservation is excellent and pollen is also integral to the botanical program, that the cores have the potential for yielding we have tested several terrestrial areas immedi- information about landscape changes associ- ately adjacent to the excavation units and in the ated with the plantation activities. marshy areas near the manor. The marsh is too small for regional vegetation reconstruction, Macrobotanical Remains but it should yield information about the land use and landscape modification immediately The analysis of the macrobotanical mate- adjacent to the plantation core. Other inlets rials is more complete and is the basis for the near the manor house have been sampled, and remainder of the discussion. Since flotation these cores await analysis. The pollen from samples were systematically taken, we have a some terrestrial contexts has been extracted and good sampling of various areas of the site: the analyzed, but these samples yielded a poorly North Peninsula, with its late woodland Native preserved pollen assemblage. The counts were American habitation area and shell middens so low and many grains so damaged that those (FIG . 2); the midden associated with the planta- recovered are not likely to yield an accurate tion core; features under this midden (FIG . 3); reconstruction of the vegetation (Bryant and small features on the north lawn; Feature 226 Hall 1993; Hall 1981; Pearsall 1989).

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