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An Ossuary near Piscataway Creek with A Report on the Skeletal Remains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 1940

Alice L. L. Ferguson  and
T. D. Stewart
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Extract

The ossuary described in this paper is believed to be at or near the site of Piscataway Fort. Piscataway Fort is of historic interest for it was there, in 1634, that Calvert obtained permission from the “Emperor of the Piscataways” to begin the actual settlement of Maryland.

It is thought that until 1623 the principal town of the Piscataways was at Moyaone on the Potomac just below the mouth of Piscataway Creek. In 1623 Governor Wyatt of Virginia burned Moyaone and the principal site of the tribe was probably moved to Piscataway on the south bank of Piscataway Creek two or three miles east of Moyaone. We know that Piscataway Fort was an important place in 1634 and it continued to be the headquarters of the Piscataways, the most important Indians on the Maryland side of the Potomac, until 1680.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , July 1940 , pp. 4 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1940

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References

1 Ferguson, Alice L. L. Moyaone and the Piscataway Indians. (Privately printed, Washington, 1937.)Google Scholar

2 White, Father Andrew, “A Briefe Relation,” page 29 and also “A Relation of Maryland,”, page 70. Narratives of Early Maryland (Scribners, New York, 1925).

3 Ferguson, op. cit.

4 Marye, William B. “Piscattaway,” Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. xxx, No. 3, page 183, Baltimore 1935.

5 Land Map of John Claggett property, Accokeek, Maryland, at Upper Marlboro.

6 Graham, William J. The Indians of Port Tobacco River, Maryland, and Their Burial Places. (Privately printed, Washington, 1935.)Google Scholar

7 Graham, WM. J. The Indians of Port Tobacco River, Maryland, and Their Burial Places. (Privately printed Washington, 1935.)Google Scholar Stewart, T. D. and Wedel, W. R. “The finding of two ossuaries on the site of the Indian village of Nacotchtanke (Anacostia).” Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, XXVII, No. 5, 1937, pp. 213–219 Google Scholar. Stewart, T. D. “Excavating the Indian village of Patawomeke (Potomac).” From Explorations and Field-Work of the Smithsonian Institution, 1938, publ. 1939, pp. 87–90.

8 This site is referred to as Moyaone in the preceding section. (A.L.L.F.)

9 Only symphyses counted.

10 Stewart and Wedel, op. tit., p. 217.

11 Stewart, T. D. “The problem of the fragmentary human skeleton.” Proceedings of the 8th Annual Meeting American Association Physiological Anthropologist, American Journal Physiological Anthropology, XXII, No. 3, Supplement, Abstract 14, 1937.Google Scholar

12 Stevenson's formula: ; where A is % small, B % medium and C % large.