Archaeological Investigations at Yourhaney Plantation (38GE18)

ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT YOURHANEY PLANTATION195SummaryIn many of its characteristics it resembles the Yaughan variety. However, it is far too thick.Nonetheless, perhaps the vessel is just a form found rarely found in Yaughan.There were two notable characteristics of this collection. Village wares are relatively sparse, whichperhaps should not be surprising given the fact that Yauhannah Bluff represents a main housecomplex. What is interesting is that the Yaughan village wares and the Lesesne trade wares arefound in more features than the presumably Native American inspired Colonial Burnished and RiverBurnished types. The Colonial Burnished wares are almost exclusive to Feature 124/124a (MCD1749) while River Burnished wares are almost exclusive to Feature 208 (MCD 1791). Lesesnewares predominate the collection, suggesting that the local enslaved African-American populationmay have been manufacturing colonoware to sell or trade to the planter class. The relative sparsityof village wares suggest that while there was an African American presence on the site and thatthey were probably cooking on site, the planter class assemblage predominates the collection.While in the urban context of Charleston the Colonial Burnished collection is probablyappropriately considered a trade ware, on the plantation at Yauhannah Bluff, particularly in itcontext in Feature 124 which appears to be associated with a low status individual, it may havebeen made for village use. In short, the classifications of village and trade wares should be used incontext. Examination of the adjacent associated slave village (38GE560) may shed more light onthe uses and economic purposes of the colonoware found at Yauhannah Bluff.OTHER KITCHEN GROUP ARTIFACTSA total of 177 fragments of bottle glass were recovered from the excavations at Yauhannah Bluff(Table 27). The vast majority were olive green wine bottle fragments, although there were a fewcase bottles represented in the collection. Much of the clear and aqua glass, although placed inthe kitchen category, may represent medicine or toiletry bottle fragments. Condiments may havealso been bottled in clear glass containers. Generally speaking, the olive green bottles with baseswere forms dating to the 18 th century.One of the clear embossed bottle fragments is a Whittemore Shoe Polish bottle, which post datesthe occupation of the plantation site. The polish was bottled by Whittemore and Sons ofCambridge, Massachusettts and was popular in the 1890s. Another embossed bottle was markedDR. CHARL___. It is unknown what this bottle contained or what it dates to.Other kitchen group artifacts consisted of glass tableware. Unfortunately the fragments were smalland the vessel form (tumbler, stemware, etc.) is unknown. The metal lid fragments post date theoccupation of the plantation site. Both the knife and fork probably contained bone handles,although the handles are missing. The fork contains two prongs.