We find Rouen faience in the northeast as well, sometimes in 1750s contexts
in places like Newport, probably smuggled by merchants trading with the
French islands in the Caribbean. Occasionally, it turns up in small
quantities on later sites as well.  Possibly the all-time prize for ballast
artifacts though, may be from Newburyport, MA, where I seem to remember
hearing that Alaric Faulkner found a Paleolithic hand axe in what was pretty
definitively a WWII-era fill deposit.  This was back in the '70s.

Lauren J. Cook, RPA
Senior Archaeologist
Richard Grubb & Associates, Inc.
30 North Main Street
Cranbury, NJ 08512

Ph: 609 655-0692 ext 312
Fx: 609 655-3050
email: [log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Carl
Steen
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2005 8:21 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Heirlooms or ballast


In a message dated 2/10/2005 7:55:30 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

I saw a  sherd of medieval Saintonge ware (probably pre-1500- it wasn't
recognisable  as Saintonge at all to the Parks Canada ceramacists) in
Quebec City a few  years back. I suppose it had probably arrived as
ballast or just possibly  as a very archaic hierloom. I know Roman sherds
have turned up in the  Chesapeake as ballast. I was wondering out of mere
curiosity if there any  further such archaic finds from north America
apart from later  collectors.

paul courtney
Leicester
LE2  1WJ



Paul - We get ballast artifacts here in the southeastern US. I've  seen more
stone tools than anything else. But we also find Saintonge  wares, (red
earthenwares with bright green glazes) in archaeological contexts.  These
usually
date to around the time of the American Revolution (fourth quarter  of the
18th
c.). We also find Rouen Faience in similar temporal  contexts... Is it
possible that what you saw was not medieval? But if it  is, again, it
wouldn't be
that big of a surprise.

Carl Steen