Avocational archaeologists

I began my training in archaeology with a field-school in "Long Island Archaeology" taught by R. M. Gramly, Ph.D who works in the Northeast in finding and exploring prehistoric sites. We worked on the prehistoric "Pipe Stave Hollow Site" on Mt. Sinai Harbor, NY and visited important paleo sites, e.g., West Athens Hill, NY (once the oldest site in the Northeast, that he had worked on with a former NY State Archaeologist William Ritchie) and Mt. Jasper, Berlin, NH, a rhyolite adit quarry and "curated assemblage" lithic site, now on the National Register. I have worked on a number of prehistoric sites as part of the CRM review process in New York/New Jersey for different companies. I was the crew chief on the "Wickers Creek Site" on a former Jay Gould estate next to Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, NY above the Hudson River. A multi-component prehistoric site on the river terrace, twelve (12) C-14 radiocarbon dates, from over five millennia and various prehistoric tools, various projectile point types, and some faunal remains were found, where a previous avocational archaeologist had also worked. A new aboriginal pottery type was also discovered in the "informally reviewed" site, where no State or Federal funds were involved, flagged in the "eleventh hour" in the town's review process and insisted on by their town historian. I wrote up the fieldwork. I've worked in Dutchess County's "Bowdoin Park" on another Hudson River terrace, in winter, as a crew chief, and as crew on the multi-stage archaeological investigations for the proposed sewerage treatment plant now there ceded from the park. The work impacted a small early 18th century Dutch village, and had a disturbed burials chapter. It was an early ferry to Marlboro, NY, across the Hudson River. Once the former J.P. Morgan "summer place" the park became, the State Archaeologist excavated in a rock shelter fall, and other prehistoric resources in the park were earlier excavated by avocational archaeologists. I was also part of a prehistoric recovery at the "Marathon Battery" EPA National Priority Superfund site in Cold Spring, NY in the remains of the West Point Foundry houses. Under the historic dirt road, next to foundation remains of "workers houses" a multi-component prehistoric area was found and recorded, then mapped by me. It become the "Haul Road" for a massive convoy of trucks to create an earthen dam in Foundry Cove marshlands, drained and dredged to remove the cadmium contamination, the marsh in restoration today. I worked on many phases of that project and other EPA projects while HAZMAT certified, in trying to determine if prehistoric resources were present in the historic landscape.