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CHAPTER 3
AN UPDATED ANALYSIS OF CHRISTIAN-THEMED MATERIALS IN
SENECA TERRITORY
Since Alice Wood’s seminal 1974 study, several additional excavations on
sites in Seneca territory have taken place. As the corresponding table demonstrates,
my newer findings, incorporating ring finds from post-1974 digs, have drastically
increased total site ring counts, almost tripling Wood’s original figures. In order to
conduct my research, I consulted the collections housed at the Rochester Museum and
Science Center by hand in order to both confirm and recalibrate Wood’s data with the
newer findings. To ensure the data is as complete as possible, I have also included
artifacts accounted for by the Geneva Historical Society, as well as newer findings
from excavations undertaken by Dr. Kurt Jordan at Cornell University. Additionally,
the numbers of other Christian-themed artifacts, such as religious medals, crucifixes,
and crosses have been documented. These objects have never been seriously studied
before, and so the significance of their occurrence on Seneca land has largely been
overlooked. The new data thus reflects all known findings of Christian-themed
artifacts from 1974-2010 (see Tables 1-3).
Wood’s total ring count for all Seneca sites was 137; the updated total works
out to approximately 442. While some of the biggest ring increases do occur in the
earlier, pre-1687 sites, the later seventeenth and eighteenth century sites such as
Snyder McClure and Huntoon had high ring counts in the sample to begin with and
thus do not show as much change between the two sets of data.
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