Artifacts

The combined artifact assemblage analyzed from Sites 44PY178 and 44PY181 consists of more than 5,000 items and is quite diverse. It includes kitchen, clothing, personal, and architectural objects. Most of the assemblage dates to the third and fourth decades of the twentieth century. The assemblage consists of mass-produced goods, including items of local, regional, national, and international manufacture. The range of objects details mill life in Danville during the early decades of the twentieth century. As a group, the items suggest a middle-class standard of living, not an impoverished, bland existence often portrayed in historical accounts.

More details on the various artifact types from each site can be found by clicking on the links below. These are some of the categories archaeologists use routinely to group artifacts according to their function and interpret sites. Using these categories helps other archaeologists make useful comparisons with artifact assemblages from other sites. The mill families as consumers page provides detailed interpretation of the artifacts found on the sites.

Kitchen Items

Artifacts in this category include various types of ceramics for serving and preparing food, glass storage containers such as jars and bottles, animal bone representing food remains, and metal utensils and cookingware. Site 44PY181 included a fairly large number (293) of kitchen artifacts from the late nineteenth/early twentieth century.

Both sites yielded larger collections of kitchen items from the 1920s-1930s. The majority of this group consisted of bottles and other glass.

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Medicine/Hygiene

Various bottles and pots for items like ointment, tonic, and medicine fall in this group. Other items include a toothbrush, a comb, a wash basin, and a chamber pot.

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Personal, Clothing

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Furniture

Of course, on archaeological sites usually only the more durable components of furniture like knobs, casters, and pulls made of glass, ceramic, or metal survive. This category also comprises lighting devices. Fragments of glass from oil lamps were the most common item (104 for both sites).

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Architectural

Nails were the most abundant item in this group, followed by window glass, and pieces of brick. A door knobs, and a few pieces of window hardware also were recovered from the sites.

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