Ohio Department of Transportation Project near Grant Birthplace reveals large number of artifacts

 As an archaeologist, I get to do some pretty cool things: I get to excavate sites and analyze artifacts that most people haven’t touched or seen in over a century (or more), I get to write about these discoveries and interact with colleagues and the public about this data.

One great pleasure that I get working at the Ohio Historical Society (OHS) is interacting with local historical societies, the general public and with various agencies.  I had the chance to do all three recently at the Grant Birthplace in Point Pleasant, Ohio  for an Ohio Department of Tranportation (ODOT) project.  The project and its results are detailed in the link below:

http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2013/05/odot-project-near-us-grant-birthplace_21.html

With the discovery of the pipes, saggers and medicine bottle fragment and the historic information that we at OHS were able to recover about the medicine bottle, I have been thinking about doing a paper on some of the pipes and pipe factories that helped influence this Point Pleasant during an interesting time in American history. 

Stay tuned for more discoveries!

Adena pipe is now the official state artifact!!

I had the pleasure of being at the statehouse yesterday with other members of the ohio historical society (Sharon dean, brad Lepper, Linda Pansing and juli six amongst others) and approximately 100 young ladies from the Columbus school for girls who started trying to get the adena pipe added as the state artifact of ohio about a year ago. Through perseverance, these young ladies have brought attention to the importance of archaeology in the state of ohio.

It was a pleasure and honor being in attendance as governor John kasich signed the adena pipe into law as the state artifact of ohio.

The adena pipe is a pipe that depicts a figure in a crouching stance and possibly dancing or singing. The pipe is made from pipestone from Portsmouth, ohio and dates to around
10 AD. The pipe was found in a mound at adena, the home of Thomas worthington, who is the father of ohio statehood. The name “adena” refers to the name of the home that Thomas worthington chose and means “pleasant valley” in Hebrew. The artifact was chosen over other artifacts due to its ties with with the state of Ohio’s founding father.

Teachers who helped students from csg get the adena pipe through the process were able to dot John kasich’s “I” on the bill..and did so with a smiley face 🙂

It’s an exciting time for archaeology in the state of ohio right now with a new state artifact and other sites- such as zoar village going through renovations and the unesco world heritage drive for the earthworks as a world heritage site- coming to the forefront.

I currently don’t have Internet at home and can only post on my phone as of now, but please stay tuned for more on archaeology!! 🙂

Congrats again to the state of ohio on its new artifact- the adena pipe!!! 🙂

Intro

Hello out there and welcome to my Blog. 

My name is Chandler S. Herson and I am currently working as a Collections Assistant in the Archaeology Division of the Ohio Historical Society.  I was born and raised in Central Ohio, a place that has always been near and dear to my heart.  

Most recently, I worked for 5 years on the Great Northern Plains in a six state region doing Cultural Resource Management for numerous clients in energy, transportation and infrastructure.  I returned back to home sweet home ohio to be closer to family and for our children to know their grandparents better. 

In this blog, I’ll be exploring subjects that are my passion (archaeology, history, GIS), while also doing small book reviews, commentary on some current events, maybe a short story or two about my time on the northern plains.  I’ll also be giving some small nuggets on thoughts of the day and current events that range from work, family, church and even some beloved sports teams that I follow.  I hope that you take this journey with me and that you enjoy it as much as I do. 

Sincerely,

Chandler S. Herson

“Jack of all trades, master of none”..(well, maybe one ;))