(…from BULLETIN of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, Vol. 23, No. 2, January 1962)

SOME CONNECTICUT BURIALS

BERNARD W. POWELL

       The writer is indebted to the following persons, among others, who were instrumental in placing at his disposal data from which this account was prepared: Mr. Richard Roberts of the Stamford Museum and Nature Center, Stamford; Mr. Paul G. Howes of Bruce Museum, Greenwich; Dr. Rudolph Colmers of Stamford, Mr. Lloyd Fowler and Mr. Cliff Hawthorne of the First Stamford Company, Stamford; and especially he is indebted to Dr. Herman S. Rockoff of Stamford for the separately expressed opinion on the dentition from Burial 3.

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THE WISDOM of burdening an overcrowded literature with reports on fragmentary and inconclusive finds is sometimes questioned. In the case of the burials to be described, a twofold defense is offered: 1) We lack altogether any published material on aboriginal burials from this immediate area.  2) Every find of prehistoric material, no matter how fragmentary or unspectacular, that vanishes without record in the archaeological literature, impoverishes the field to some degree, not only for current researchers, but for the researchers of tomorrow.

         Accustomed as we are in archaeology to look backward in time, it might be well occasionally to look forward to the problems of the future. As more and more prehistoric sites vanish before the bulldozer in housing developments, certain it seems that tomorrow’s archaeologists must rely heavily upon previously excavated material.  It would be regrettable indeed, if the broader perspectives and refined techniques of future scientists were blighted because early workers were lax in recording and reporting data.

         The three burials described, hereafter, all come from the general vicinity of the Greenwich-Stamford town line in southern Fairfield County, Connecticut. The Boston Post Road, U.S. 1 traverses the area roughly east and west. Only a short time ago, the tract south of the Post Road was undeveloped woodland.  This area is known loosely as Laddins Rock (sometimes Aladdin's Rock), a corruption derived from the name of an early Dutch settler, Cornelius Labden.  A delightful and rather romantic legend records that this same Labden, absent from his cabin one day, returned to find that Indians had
massacred his wife and daughters. One version holds that on entering the smoking ruins of his house he beheld his family's heads inside the cooking pot.  Be that as it may, the tale records that Labden, pursued by these same Indians, spurred his horse over a rather precipitous ledge (Fig. 4 - NB: a post-publication note seems warranted here: the numbering of the figures is the same as in the original, which reflects this Journal’s rather peculiar editorial style of numbering all figures across several discrete submissions in any given edition, as one complete series rather than numbering them discretely (and more logically) as self-contained series to each submission alone…  This practice creates the impression that some illustrations may be “missing” from given articles – but this is not actually the case. -  Author) and plunged to his death below, taking with him several of his tormentors.  If any faith may be put in this tale, enshrined in local histories, it places Indians of the Historic period upon the scene.

         A gentle valley extends southward through the region, becoming rather steep in the vicinity of the aforementioned ledge.  A small and badly polluted brook follows the channel of an earlier and no doubt purer watercourse. Beyond this, it is possible to read some of the events of glacial times. Flint ^l indicates a local temporary ice lake in the northern portion of the area, and a partially sorted drift spreads southward down the Valley.  A most interesting ridge, once located in underbrush, which was subsequently removed during housing development, was either an esker, or more likely the debris of a drift-filled, lateral ice crevasse butted against the ridge to the west.  This is mentioned in passing, for such features often are taken to be earthworks of man.

BURIAL 1

         An unnumbered collection now in the files of the Stamford Museum and Nature Center, Stamford, purports to be remains of a burial, uncovered September28, 1927 on Acosta Street, Stamford.  Unfortunately, this burial may not be a burial at all, for no human remains of any kind are included among the specimens.  Indeed, the sole reason for terming this a burial rests on an accompanying label, which records that an Indian child was buried in a shell pit from which the material was taken.  Museum officials are not sure that any skeletal material was actually turned over to them. Presumably, the human remains, if any, disappeared into unknown hands. A search through local newspapers of that date reveals nothing.
 
         What is present are 32 sherds of nondescript, exterior cord-marked, grit tempered pottery, including no rim or neck sherds.  Further inventory includes one white quartz blank (triangular)-probably for a large projectile point, and 2 stem fragments of a white clay (kaolin) trade pipe undistinguished by markings.  There are also some miscellaneous deer bones and other bone fragments, most likely food scrap from the shell pit.  A fair amount of oyster and scallop shells - no clam - together with some charcoal grains, also were present.

         The writer believes, on sketchy grounds, true, that a burial may have been uncovered here.  The two following burials are submitted as support for the probability of aboriginal burials in this general region. Further, it seems that whoever dug up this pit must have seen enough to suggest that a child's burial had been disclosed.  However, it is true, great caution is required in evaluating reports of untrained observers, particularly when we do not even know who dug the shell pit.  Also, it is certain that many people frequently attribute all exhumed bones to be human burials – “Indian burials” - despite the fact that 90 percent of such unearthed bones in this vicinity clearly derive from the modern butcher shop.

         As near as the writer can determine at this date, Burial 1 was on the eastside of a valley near its head.  The area is completely developed today, and a cursory surface check suggests further investigation here would not be profitable.

BURIAL 2

         Specimen No. 6796 in the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, is an adult human cranium recovered along with other material during excavations in a gravel pit off Laddins Rock Road in July 1936.  The circumstances of the find, as we shall see, foreshadowed those of Burial 3 found more than 20 years later.  Workmen accidentally uncovered the burial while stripping gravel and turned the skull over to local police.  After a lapse of some days, the find was brought to the attention of P. G. Howes,  Curator of Bruce Museum.  Together with P. T.  Jones, he went to the site and attempted to recover whatever else might be disclosed.  Unfortunately, finds were minimal since most material had by then been removed and rolled into a nearby road foundation.

         The inventory includes: one adult human cranium (without mandible) and with missing zygomatic arches and facial and nasal bones; one broken human ulna; portion of human fibula; human rib fragment; few small miscellaneous bones; some worked white quartz; quantities of oyster, clam and scallop shells, also, the boat shell, Crepidula.

         H. L. Shapiro of the American Museum of Natural History subsequently examined the cranium, and Howes quotes him as having said that such an angular, flat-sided skull (Fig. 5, #4) with pentagonal shaped roof is characteristic of Indians, but Shapiro would not say positively that the find was Indian. Interestingly, this same conservatism reappears in Shapiro's assessment of Burial 3 found a short distance north of Burial 2 many years later, as explained below.  The Bruce Museum record states further that N.C. Nelson, then also of the American Museum of Natural History, verified the quartz objects as fragments of broken artifacts.  The record concludes that the burial was evidently about 3 - ½ feet deep in glacial sands and gravel, and was evidently a midden type interment.  It was Shapiro's opinion that the specimen was that of an adult male between 30 to 40 years of age.

 

 

BURIAL 3

         On October 31, 1958, workmen, digging a foundation trench for a building at the comer of Laddins Rock Road and West Main Street, U.S. 1, uncovered a human burial (Fig. 6).  Police recovered such skeletal fragments as they could and these were brought to the attention of R. Colmers, Medical Examiner for Stamford.  Dr. Colmers, a personal friend, notified the writer of the find, and of his suspicion that it might prove to be Indian. Accordingly, the material was acquired for study.  This included a badly broken cranium and the maxillary portion of the jaw, with upper teeth intact.  There were also a radius and an ulna.

         On the following day the writer explored the site further.  Sifting through the badly disturbed soil, he recovered a few more bones: missing pieces of the skull and the lower jaw or mandible.  A portion of it was poured into the bottom of the concrete footing, and was recovered by the writer by digging beneath the footing and then sliding in on his back, while with hammer and cold chisel he removed the piece of jawbone from the cement - a novel archaeological procedure to be sure.  Interrogation of workmen at the site developed the following account.  Workers for several days bad noticed bones while digging but had thought them only dog bones, which is very possible since there is widespread recent surface trash here.  Evidently, they went right through the burial without knowing it.  A worker with a pick loosened the soil within inches of the skull, and thus it was revealed.  He told the writer that the skull was intact at the time; a point to be often recalled during the hours spent in its restoration.  This, because at the time of discovery, some ignorant fellow workers, fearful of the find, had deliberately smashed the skull with a shovel.

         The foreman for these workers, more observant than they, revealed that the body had apparently been buried extended in dorsal position, and oriented along a SW/NE axis, head to the SW.  Interment was in clean sand about5 - 1/2 to 6 feet deep, actually about 18 inches below the old sod line. The spot is less than 50 feet from the edge of busy U.S. 1, and there has been dumping with trash accumulation on the slopes of this highway for a long time.  The burial lay between a split in a rock ledge. There were no associated goods or cultural materials.

         Shortly after the find was made, the writer showed the skull to Shapiro. His examination was most cursory, to be sure, but while he remarked the find as "interesting," be would not commit himself as to race, sex, or age on the basis of the specimen alone.  Expert opinion may thus decline to fix the race to which an individual specimen belongs in line with orthodox anthropological procedure, which is based upon series in collections. Nevertheless, comments seem appropriate relative to the specimen and indices approved by many fieldworkers as Indian evidence.  Bearing in mind that the skull is restored with some pieces missing, and may be distorted from earth pressure and unavoidable air warping, the writer believes there are present certain racial features commonly associated with North American Indians.  For instance, there is slight, if any, depression at nasion. The skull shows some maxillary alveolar prognathism (Fig. 5, #2). There is some "shoveling" of the upper incisors; and the lower incisors appear rather small.  However, H. S.  Rockoff, D.D.S., says that frequently he encounters mild shoveling in his dental practice among contemporary Caucasoids.  His report on Burial 3's skull follows:

v:shapes="_x0000_s1026">         “There are 32 teeth present in the specimen.  Occlusion appears normal, though slight deviation occurs on the right side in the molar region, which may be attributable to imperfections in skull reconstructing.  Occlusal surfaces of the teeth show some wear.  This probably reflects consumption of rougher foodstuffs than is customary today.  There is no evidence of abnormal trauma, and wear is not excessive on any one tooth or group of teeth.  There is no evidence of either microdontia or macrodontia. The upper right first molar shows evidence of carious exposure with consequent periapical involvement (abscess) as seen in the X-ray (Fig. 7, B). It is assumed that the proximal portion of the crown of this tooth broke (Fig. 7, A) and subsequently decayed in the absence of modern dental care. This assumption is bolstered by the absence of enamel broken away from the underlying dentine on other teeth."

         The bite appears to have been edge-to-edge, or close to it.  Wormian bones are present in the lambdoid suture.  On the other hand, molars do not seem unduly wide, and the face is rather long in contrast with the widely encountered broad face of many Indians.  For whatever value it may have, after restoration, the cranium revealed a maximum width of 134 mm and a maximum length of 190 mm, giving a cranial index of 70.5, indicating dolichocephaly.

         As to sex, the lack of brow ridges and high, smooth forehead would generally be interpreted as female characteristics.  Age-wise, the specimen is adult.  Ectocranial suture closure is by no means marked; apparently the specimen is somewhere in the young-to-middle-age adult range.

         It seems to the writer in considering some of these points, particularly regarding the specimen in context with the nearby finds of aboriginal artifacts- broken bone awl and potsherd from the nearby horizon - that there is little reason to entertain this find as other than Indian.  The same, for similar reasons, might also be said of Burial 2.

         About 25 feet east of the burial, exposed in the same foundation trench, a number of clam and oyster shells appeared about 18 inches below the surface. Further away, perhaps 90 feet SE of the burial, a lens of badly broken marine shells occurred about 18 inches in diameter.  This had probably been a more extensive feature at one time, but earth-grading equipment had nearly obliterated it.  This broken shell matter had a soft, silky texture, dove gray in color.  It was reminiscent of shell fragments noted at the top of Feature 14 at the Indian Field site some few miles away.²  Artifacts recovered consisted of the end of a small polished bone awl and a tiny fragment of cord-marked pottery.  Besides these were quartz flakes, split animal bones and charcoal.  Quite evidently, the feature was a hearth or refuse pit of aboriginal times.  It is presumed to have lain within 10 inches of the surface prior to grading.

         About 180 feet SW of the burial, an irregular area in the ground was noted. It had a diameter of perhaps 15 feet or more, as exposed by a bulldozer. The area was marked by heavy deposits of charcoal and bright orange-red soil.  Samples of the charcoal and soil were retained.  The layer had a thickness of about 10 inches.  If aboriginal, the feature suggests a large hearth of sorts, perhaps even a crematory, although no bone fragments were noted.  However, shortly after this interesting feature was discovered a heavy rainstorm arose.  The rain-wash, coupled with the churning of the omnipresent bulldozers, completely obliterated the feature by the following day.  Possibly the disturbance may have been recent in origin, as the area was once the site of a farm, more recently a golf-driving range. However, if the present soil level can be trusted, the feature was about18 inches down and would suggest aboriginal deposition.

CONCLUSION

         In addition to the three burials described, there have occurred numerous stray artifact finds throughout the area, mostly projectile points, which further substantiates the presence of aborigines in the region at some period in the past.  If credence may be placed in the tale of Labden's adventure, then certainly Indians were also present in historic times, and the occurrence of two white kaolin trade pipe fragments in Burial I may relate to this period.  The burials share some features in common, as shown below:
 

         Burials 1 and 2 share several features.  Both had marine shells, animal bone scrap, and charcoal: possibly evidence of shell pit or midden type interment.  Both had associated fragments of white quartz artifacts.  In addition, Burial 1 was accompanied by cordmarked pottery and contact material in the form of kaolin pipestem fragments.  Ina general way, the traits of these burials are those of Late Woodland (Ceramic) cultures revealed by excavation in contiguous areas.³

         Burial 3, while yielding the best preserved and most extensive skeletal material, is the most unlike of the three, and the hardest to assess, for it seems devoid of clues that might indicate its cultural environment. It might be earlier than, or later than Burials 1 and 2, or contemporaneous with them.  Actually, there is nothing to prevent it from belonging to Late Woodland times.⁴  Perhaps it is noteworthy that a witness reported a SW/NE orientation of the body, lengthwise, with head to the SW, for this is a trait often reported for burials of Late Woodland times in southern New England.⁵

                                                                                                                                                Norwalk, Connecticut
                                                                                                                                     January 1961

Footnotes

¹ See separate map accompanying Flint's report.

²  Powell, 1958,p. 20.

³ See, for instance, the rather abbreviated burial data listed by Smith in Trait Table, p. 113, for foci of the Shantok Aspect in eastern Connecticut and eastern Long Island, and similar data in Trait Table, p. 126, for foci of the East River Aspect near the mouth of the Hudson River and on western Long Island.  Also, Skinner. pp. 57-61, describes what I presume to be Late Woodland burials on Manhattan Island; p. 15 refers to shell-heap interments.

⁴ See, for instance, Skinner, p. 17 and p. 61 in which I believe the references are to burial manifestations of the Late Woodland (?).

⁵ Robbins (1956) records a probable SW orientation for an aboriginal burial near Swansea, Mass.; the same author (1959a) reports the majority of over 20 burials of a very late Woodland complex at the Titicut Site, Bridgewater, Mass., were oriented to the southwest; again, Robbins (1959b) presents data which may indicate SW-orientation for burials in southern New England has considerable antiquity: grave shafts of secondary cremation burials in an Archaic complex at Wapanucket6, Middleboro, Mass., were SW-oriented, and further, calcined human bone when located, was always concentrated in the SW quadrant of the graves. Russell (p. 42) apparently encountered SW-oriented burials. His data pertaining to "positions of bodies in Connecticut Indian graves," are not precise enough, in my opinion, to support some of his conclusions relative to orientation of these burials.  The original version of this footnote considered this problem at some length - and subsequent problems arising from purported relations between burials and positions of the sun, compass points, etc.- but space requirements prohibit presentation of these points at this time. The author, however, has considered this area at some length, - and has attempted to define some of the problems quantitatively.  I derived three basic considerations in the longer footnote, and these dealt respectively with astronomical, physiological and mechanical aspects.  These I cannot elaborate further here, but would welcome inquiry from anyone who may have been, or who may ultimately be, concerned with skeletal position and orientation in graves. Just south of the New England Province, is Manhattan Island.  Skinner (p. 11) refers to a belief of the Historic Manhattans in a home of the dead in southwestern skies.  Farther yet is southern Pennsylvania, but there in an Historic site of the Susquehannocks, Witthoft and Kinsey report the majority of the graves oriented to the southwest.

Continued