A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts , sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache . This would usually be with the intention of later recovery by the hoarder; hoarders sometimes died or were unable to return for other reasons (forgetfulness or physical displacement from its location) before retrieving the hoard, and these surviving hoards might then be uncovered much later by metal detector hobbyists, members of the public, and archaeologists .
28-581: Conestoga Town is an historic archaeological site memorializing the Native American tribal village which stood on the site from the late 17th into the mid-18th-century; it is located at what is now Manor Township in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania . The town is a settlement at the southern end of the once vast range of the Susquehannock nation or Conestoga Indian nation , which once extended from
56-494: A Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and that will contain both locational information and a combination of various information. This tool is very helpful to archaeologists who want to explore in a different area and want to see if anyone else has done research. They can use this tool to see what has already been discovered. With this information available, archaeologists can expand their research and add more to what has already been found. Traditionally, sites are distinguished by
84-445: A finished state. These were probably buried with the intention to be recovered at a later time. A merchant's hoard is a collection of various functional items which, it is conjectured, were buried by a traveling merchant for safety, with the intention of later retrieval. A personal hoard is a collection of personal objects buried for safety in times of unrest. A hoard of loot is a buried collection of spoils from raiding and
112-683: A sequence of natural geological or organic deposition, in the absence of human activity, to constitute a site worthy of study. Archaeological sites usually form through human-related processes but can be subject to natural, post-depositional factors. Cultural remnants which have been buried by sediments are, in many environments, more likely to be preserved than exposed cultural remnants. Natural actions resulting in sediment being deposited include alluvial (water-related) or aeolian (wind-related) natural processes. In jungles and other areas of lush plant growth, decomposed vegetative sediment can result in layers of soil deposited over remains. Colluviation ,
140-412: A site as well. Development-led archaeology undertaken as cultural resources management has the disadvantage (or the benefit) of having its sites defined by the limits of the intended development. Even in this case, however, in describing and interpreting the site, the archaeologist will have to look outside the boundaries of the building site. According to Jess Beck in "How Do Archaeologists Find Sites?"
168-453: A site worthy of study. Different archaeologists may see an ancient town, and its nearby cemetery as being two different sites, or as being part of the same wider site. The precepts of landscape archaeology attempt to see each discrete unit of human activity in the context of the wider environment, further distorting the concept of the site as a demarcated area. Furthermore, geoarchaeologists or environmental archaeologists would also consider
196-500: Is a branch of survey becoming more and more popular in archaeology, because it uses different types of instruments to investigate features below the ground surface. It is not as reliable because although they can see what is under the surface of the ground, it does not produce the best picture. Archaeologists still have to dig up the area in order to uncover the truth. There are also two most common types of geophysical survey, which is, magnetometer and ground penetrating radar. Magnetometry
224-412: Is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and represents a part of the archaeological record . Sites may range from those with few or no remains visible above ground, to buildings and other structures still in use. Beyond this,
252-500: Is more in keeping with the popular idea of " buried treasure ". Votive hoards are different from the above in that they are often taken to represent permanent abandonment, in the form of purposeful deposition of items, either all at once or over time for ritual purposes, without intent to recover them . Furthermore, votive hoards need not be "manufactured" goods, but can include organic amulets and animal remains. Votive hoards are often distinguished from more functional deposits by
280-629: Is the technique of measuring and mapping patterns of magnetism in the soil. It uses an instrument called a magnetometer, which is required to measure and map traces of soil magnetism. The ground penetrating radar is a method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface. It uses electromagnetic radiation in the microwave band of the radio spectrum and detects the reflected signals from subsurface structures. There are many other tools that can be used to find artifacts, but along with finding artifacts, archaeologists have to make maps. They do so by taking data from surveys, or archival research and plugging it into
308-420: The 1670s, after which the village moved to different sites within a 414-acre tract. It was an important meeting place between various Native American tribes and Pennsylvania government officials, including William Penn . Of the early neighbors of Conestoga we find that thirty eight of them were signers of the petition in 1728 to create the county of Lancaster, out of 188 signers from the entire county. The Jones
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#1732845264668336-622: The East to the Delaware nation and to the West to Shawnee lands. The town is the earliest established known surviving settlement of the tribe, and it is known that William Penn himself visited to negotiate with the tribal leaders. The site is also one known to be among the last occupied of the Susquehannock town sites in Pennsylvania as they faded into obscurity. Throughout the majority of the seventeenth century,
364-572: The English and the Swiss took part in public affairs. The beginning of the little group of houses called Conestoga town started in 1715 by James Hendricks, who in that year secured the right to 1,166 acres of land, reaching from Rock Hill up the Conestoga River , eight miles— almost to Wabank and east along and south of "Stehman's run," nearly to New Danville Old Mennonite Church. This settlement differed from
392-579: The Hendrickes, Postlethwaites, Gales, Swifts, Linvills, Worleys, Pattersons, McCurrys, Bakers, Middletons, and Wilkinses, Hughs, Willises, Mitchells, Brians, Powells, and Ludford representing the English. Stoneman, Steh, man, Ferr, Barr, Punk, Lemon, Hans, packer, Miller and others representing the German-Swiss. All signed it. The Court records in Chester county as to Conestoga township in those days show that both
420-711: The Pequea settlement to the east. While the Pequea colony, at Willow Street, were all Swiss Mennonites, the settlement along the Conestoga consisted of a Scotch-Irish and English core, bordering on both sides of that river, surrounded by scores of German-Swiss on all sides. In 1763, the Paxton Boys raided a later Conestoga Town village. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Conestoga, Pennsylvania Archaeological site An archaeological site
448-597: The Susquehannock-Conestoga were a strong fierce Indian people who also came to be known locally as the Conestogas (meaning "Buried Pole Place" or "town," much like "Can-ah Da" means "Buried Pole Place" or "town" in other Iroquois languages). Excavations revealed log-cabin like structures and cemeteries. The village was occupied from the 1690s to about 1725—well after the collapse of the Susquehannock nation in
476-573: The area, and if they have the money and time for the site, they can start digging. There are many ways to find sites, one example can be through surveys. Surveys involve walking around analyzing the land and looking for artifacts. It can also involve digging, according to the Archaeological Institute of America, "archaeologists actively search areas that were likely to support human populations, or in places where old documents and records indicate people once lived." This helps archaeologists in
504-573: The areas with numerous artifacts are good targets for future excavation, while areas with a small number of artifacts are thought to reflect a lack of past human activity. Many areas have been discovered by accident. The most common people who have found artifacts are farmers who are plowing their fields or just cleaning them up, and they often find archaeological artifacts. Many people who are out hiking and even pilots find artifacts, and they usually end up reporting them to archaeologists for further investigation. When they find sites, they have to first record
532-428: The burial of a site by sediments moved by gravity (called hillwash ) can also happen at sites on slopes. Human activities (both deliberate and incidental) also often bury sites. It is common in many cultures for newer structures to be built atop the remains of older ones. Urban archaeology has developed especially to deal with these sorts of site. Many sites are the subject of ongoing excavation or investigation. Note
560-959: The burial of hoards, of which the most famous are the Hoxne Hoard , Suffolk; the Mildenhall Treasure , the Fishpool Hoard , Nottinghamshire, the Water Newton hoard, Cambridgeshire, and the Cuerdale Hoard , Lancashire, all preserved in the British Museum . Prudence Harper of the Metropolitan Museum of Art voiced some practical reservations about hoards at the time of the Soviet exhibition of Scythian gold in New York City in 1975. Writing of
588-428: The definition and geographical extent of a "site" can vary widely, depending on the period studied and the theoretical approach of the archaeologist. It is almost invariably difficult to delimit a site. It is sometimes taken to indicate a settlement of some sort, although the archaeologist must also define the limits of human activity around the settlement. Any episode of deposition, such as a hoard or burial, can form
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#1732845264668616-476: The difference between archaeological sites and archaeological discoveries. Hoard Hoards provide a useful method of providing dates for artifacts through association as they can usually be assumed to be contemporary (or at least assembled during a decade or two), and therefore used in creating chronologies. Hoards can also be considered an indicator of the relative degree of unrest in ancient societies. Thus conditions in 5th and 6th century Britain spurred
644-420: The future. In case there is no time or money during the site's discovery, archaeologists can come back and visit the site for further digging to find out the extent of the site. Archaeologist can also sample randomly within a given area of land as another form of conducting surveys. Surveys are very useful, according to Jess Beck, "it can tell you where people were living at different points in the past." Geophysics
672-422: The nature of the goods themselves (from animal bones to diminutive artifacts), the places buried (being often associated with watery places, burial mounds and boundaries), and the treatment of the deposit (careful or haphazard placement and whether ritually destroyed/broken). Valuables dedicated to the use of a deity (and thus classifiable as "votive") were not always permanently abandoned. Valuable objects given to
700-599: The northern reaches of Maryland to the along the southern width of southern New York State and southern Catskills where a related people, the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy held western settlement in check for 200 years. Their territory encompassed the entire drainage basin of the Susquehanna River which shares the tribe's root name and extended to the drainage divides of the flanking mountains both to
728-523: The original group. Such "dealer's hoards" can be highly misleading, but better understanding of archaeology amongst collectors, museums and the general public is gradually making them less common and more easily identified. Hoards may be of precious metals , coinage , tools or less commonly, pottery or glass vessels. There are various classifications depending on the nature of the hoard: A founder's hoard contains broken or unfit metal objects, ingots , casting waste, and often complete objects, in
756-465: The presence of both artifacts and features . Common features include the remains of hearths and houses. Ecofacts , biological materials (such as bones, scales, and even feces) that are the result of human activity but are not deliberately modified, are also common at many archaeological sites. In the cases of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic eras, a mere scatter of flint flakes will also constitute
784-615: The so-called "Maikop treasure" (acquired from three separate sources by three museums early in the twentieth century, the Berliner Museen , the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology , and the Metropolitan Museum, New York), Harper warned: By the time "hoards" or "treasures" reach museums from the antiquities market, it often happens that miscellaneous objects varying in date and style have become attached to
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