Sponsor Spotlight: Navarro & Wright Consulting Engineers, Inc.
June 2023
WTS Member Firm Navarro & Wright Consulting Engineers, Inc. Discovers Rare Archaeological Artifact
Performing archaeological surveys for bridge replacement projects is a task Navarro & Wright Consulting Engineers has been providing for clients in the Mid-Atlantic for over twenty years. This past spring, N&W encountered a rare artifact while on a project in north-central Pennsylvania.
As part of the archaeological survey, N&W’s Archaeologist, Timothy A. Carn, M.A., RPA, scanned the surface of the field, searching for artifacts amongst the noise of corn chaff, pebbles, and modern debris. “With enough experience and practice, you learn to ignore the noise and home in on things that were modified by humans. In Pennsylvania, this is most commonly flakes of stone, waste from stone tool production,” explains Carn.
This ability to find a needle in a haystack enabled Carn to locate an artifact of great rarity, a bead made from the fossilized remains of a crinoid, a marine animal related to starfish. The fossil intrigued Carn, as it was the only crinoid fossil he had seen that day. “It was small, but it stuck out like a sore thumb.” Upon closer inspection, it appeared to have use wear indicating it was strung as a bead. This was later confirmed under the microscope in N&W’s Archaeology Lab.
“It is uncommon to find items used for adornment by the pre-contact inhabitants of what is now Pennsylvania. The apparent use-wear of the fossil indicates it was used as a bead or similar type of adornment. It was found associated with other prehistoric artifacts at the site. The archaeological site is located along a path known to be heavily travelled by Indigenous Americans during the colonial period, and likely for hundreds of years before.”
Under Pennsylvania law, the artifact is the property of the landowner. In this case, the landowner chose to keep the artifact, rather than donate it to the State Museum for permanent curation. Before its return to the landowner, N&W will photograph, video record, weigh, and draft a detailed description of the bead and the other artifacts from the site. These records will be curated at the State Museum in lieu of the actual artifacts so they are available to researchers in perpetuity.
Please contact Kristen Janowski, Director of Cultural Resource Services for Navarro & Wright Consulting Engineers, Inc. at [email protected] for further information.
Established in 1996, N&W is a multi-disciplined civil engineering firm servicing public, private and institutional clients throughout the Mid-Atlantic. We are a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE). Navarro & Wright offers a wide range of services, including transportation, environmental, cultural resources, geotechnical, drilling, site/civil infrastructure, structural, survey and mapping, construction inspection, landscape architecture, and water/wastewater engineering. N&W’s corporate office is located in New Cumberland, PA, with branch offices located in Pittsburgh, Allentown, King of Prussia, Baltimore, Maryland and Dover, Delaware.