Something Old Teaches Something New

Hello, all!

We have made an exciting discovery at Fort St. Joseph this past week. I (Danny) and my pit partner (Heidi) were lucky enough to turn up some pipe stem fragments in the blistering heat on Friday afternoon. Luckily, the heat wave has passed, and we can get to researching. 

The number of pipe stems retrieved from the Fort St. Joseph site varies from 10-15 each year. My pit partner and I were able to turn up two fragments, making this discovery all the more exciting.

Europeans had started producing white clay pipes by 1610. They adopted the practice from Native peoples, who they encountered along the St. Lawrence Seaway and into the Great Lakes; however, these European-produced clay pipes were fragile. Stone pipes were another variation of pipe, and were often produced from limestone, catlinite, and sandstone. Through years of research, archaeologists have come up with a system of dating pipe stem fragments based on the width of the bore hole. Judging by the size of the bore holes in pipe stems at Fort St. Joseph, we can judge them to be from approximately the 1760's.

Pipes were most commonly used for smoking tobacco, but use of tobacco had a significant meaning between the Europeans and Indigenous peoples who partook in the substance. Tobacco had become an increasingly popular recreational pastime among Europeans post-contact, i.e. snuff or smoked tobacco. Among the Indigenous people, particularly the Potawatomi in the area of Fort St. Joseph, tobacco (oftentimes dried, unsmoked tobacco) played a vital role in spiritual activities. It was often placed around as an offering to spirits.

Whether European or Indigenous, recreational or spiritual, tobacco smoking was an important aspect of life at Fort St. Joseph, and finding this particular piece of paraphernalia expands our knowledge of daily life practices at the fort. It is very exciting to us practicing archaeologists!

P.S. On Tuesday, we turned up a third pipe stem fragment!!