December 2011, Archaeological Digs

Excavating Fort Shirley

By Jonathan A. Burns   Mon, Dec 05, 2011

By Jonathan A. Burns

Jonathan A. Burns, PhD, is a Lecturer in History at Juniata College (Huntingdon PA), Instructor of the Penn State University archaeology field school, and Research Director of a non-profit organization, AXIS Research, Inc. A native of Huntingdon County Pennsylvania, Jonathan attended Penn State University (University Park, PA) to complete a BA in Anthropology, followed by Colorado State University (Fort Collins CO) for his MA in Anthropology, and Temple University (Philadelphia, PA) for his PhD in Anthropology. His academic training is in North American archaeology with emphases on hunter-gatherer behavior, human ecology, and the analysis of archaeological spatial structure. He specializes in the detailed excavation of rockshelters, stratified sites, and colonial fortifications. He has directed 15 cultural resource management projects in Pennsylvania, and was mapping crew chief and heavy machinery monitor for the National Constitution Center site in Philadelphia. As the Research Director of a non-profit research organization, he strives to promote historic preservation and public awareness of cultural resources. Jonathan is an active instructor and lecturer, currently teaching at Juniata College, Penn State University, and Penn State Altoona. His current research explores trade and conflict on Pennsylvania’s colonial frontier through the mapping of archaeological site structure and investigation of the agents of trade and globalization.

Comments(2):

1. Documenting the cultural landscape

   Wednesday, December 21, 2011 George John

   What Dr Burns does not tell the reader is how this site was almost lost in 1986 during a Federal Highway project. Had there not been a "watcher," a cultural geographer, the site of Fort Shirley would have been an unprotected temporary roadway, used by heavy equipment pulverizing the subsurface. Initially in 1983, working with GAI Consultants, under Ron Michaels, we did a preliminary test trench that was 52 meters to the east of the fort. No features of the fort were located. In the winter of 1983, Betty Hall and I did a field visit with a metal detector. Walking in an area described in W.A. Hunter (1960), "Forts on the Pennsylvania Frontier," and later found in the writings of J. Simpson Africa, who described the fort location in his newspaper the Standing Stone Banner (1853-1855), Hall and I found the first indication of a site related to the French and Indian Period. In a letter sent to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission ( attention S. Warfel) we described the finding of flint lock frizen, .32 caliber lead balls, English gun flint, a pewter button ( dimensions and description matching a period military item) and a pipe stem of the 1750's. It wasn't until 2009, that I was able to locate a third drawing of the land Fort Shirley was to be located. This was found in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in the John Armstrong papers. Of all the plot drawings showing the land claimed by George Croghan for merchant Jeremiah Warder, only the one found in the Huntingdon, PA. office of Africa Engineering (the company founded by J. Simpson Africa) showed an icon representing a fort. At my suggestion, we asked for assistance from Bryan Young, Huntingdon County Mapping, to assist with over laying the Africa map onto a modern GIS data base. With the overlay we were able to ascertain the accuracy of the fort location on the modern landscape. What this exercise showed was the icon for Fort Shirley was off from the actual location by 507 meters, a considerable distance. The discovery of Fort Shirley by Jonathan Burns was based on the previous work of others. Had there not been a "Watcher" looking over the site, the discoveries in 2010 and 2011 would have no provenance. And the proposed third year of excavating could never have been. George John Drobnock

2. Temporary roadway?

   Monday, January 09, 2012 Pat

   so the road was to be diverted through the fort site behind the existing house while they fixed the bridge?