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Archaeological investigations associated with the Vermont
Agency of Transportation’s Bennington Bypass project in
southwestern Vermont has enriched our understanding of Native
American lifeways and 19th century Euroamerican
life while providing educational and economic opportunities
for the surrounding communities and fostering community
cooperation for the project. The Vermont Agency of
Transportation, in conjunction with the Federal Highway
Administration, proposed the 11 mile Bypass to provide through
traffic with the alternative of a convenient, high capacity,
limited-access highway around urban
Bennington.
This will reduce delay for through and local traffic while
improving safety, decreasing congestion, providing
infrastructure for commerce and tourism to grow in the
Bennington area, and allowing better use of the local street
system for pedestrians and commercial and residential traffic.
The
identification of several dozen Native American sites and a
few historic Euroamerican sites have resulted from the
archaeological studies in advance of the final project design.
This $3 Million effort by the Vermont Agency of Transportation
and the Federal Highway Administration has been in cooperation
with the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, the
Bennington Historic Preservation Commission and the broader
Bennington Community.
One of the
most significant archaeological sites investigated in the
Bennington Bypass project area represents the remains of a
4,000-year-old Native American village, the Cloverleaf site.
The Cloverleaf site is situated on the floodplain of the
Walloomsac River, in close proximity to its confluence with
Furnace Brook in the town of Bennington, Vermont. The site
location is within the middle portion of the
Hudson River drainage; the
Walloomsac
River drains into the Hoosick River to the northwest of the
site.
The
Cloverleaf site was first identified in 1995 as a result of a
large-scale consulting project conducted for the Vermont
Agency of Transportation by the
University of Maine at
Farmington (UMF) Archaeology
Research Center (ARC). An 860-foot, five-span, four-lane
bridge spanning the
Walloomsac
River from the Cloverleaf site west towards New York was
planned for this portion of the bypass project. The results of
the phase I survey and subsequent phase II testing confirmed
the significance of this site and its eligibility for
nomination to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
Given the fact that the project could not feasibly be
redesigned to avoid the site, phase III data recovery
excavations were recommended and subsequently undertaken
during 1997 and 1998.
Archaeological investigations at the Cloverleaf site were
extremely productive and the wealth of information gathered
there offers an unusually detailed glimpse into a relatively
short period of time during the River phase of the Late
Archaic period, dated to between 1900-2000 BC (or 3900-4000
BP). More than 450 square meters of site sediment has been
excavated at the Cloverleaf site as a result of the cumulative
investigations there.
In
conjunction with the archaeology at the Cloverleaf site, an
extremely successful Public Education and Outreach program was
a focal point of the work there. It was the single most well
attended Public Outreach program related to archaeology in the
northeast. Roughly 3,000 individuals, including local school
groups, local summer camp members, and senior groups received
on-site tours at the Cloverleaf site. Local public and private
schools as well as home-schooled children were encouraged to
participate in the project. School children from the Vermont
towns of Bennington, Pownal, Shaftsbury, Brattleboro,
Woodford, and Vergennes, as well as students from nearby
New York
and Massachusetts attended in-class lectures followed by
on-site tours presented by project archaeologists. In addition
a group of international students visited the site from
Montreal, Canada.
Well over
100 volunteers worked with the UMF archaeologists during the
two seasons of data recovery excavations, and 750 other people
visited the site, for a total of nearly 3,900 individuals
involved in the Education and Outreach program. Volunteers and
site visitors came from as far away as South Korea, Japan,
Germany, Canada, California, Arizona, Oregon, Virginia,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York among other distant
places attesting to the tremendous interest there is among the
public for heritage studies.
In
addition, a traveling display, which highlights the
archaeological investigations at the Cloverleaf site, was
developed by the UMF ARC and has been on display at the
Bennington Free Library and currently can be viewed at the
Vermont Agency of Transportation’s Bypass Office at 123
Phyllis Lane in Bennington. When combined, this display, a
web-page hosted by the UMF ARC and several public
presentations conducted since archaeological excavations were
completed in 1998, have provided the local community with more
updated information about the site.
The Public
Education and Outreach program continues today with follow-up
lectures being requested and presented in various forums to
the community including local historical societies and patrons
of the public library. A keen interest in the history and
prehistory of the
Bennington
area is still apparent in the continuous requests UMF receives
for additional volunteer opportunities and public
presentations.
The Vermont
Agency of Transportation and the Federal Highway
Administration have supported these archaeological studies
conducted in advance of the Bennington Bypass and encouraged
community participation. This work has resulted in more than
just a wealth of knowledge of the past, but has allowed the
public to be active participants in the important work of
historic preservation while learning about our heritage.
For more information
contact:
James Harris
Project Manager
123 Phyllis Lane
Bennington, VT 05201
Phone: (802) 447-
6425
Fax: (802) 447-2713
E-mail: James.Harris@state.vt.us
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