A seventeenth-century house at Ferryland, Newfoundland (CgAf-2, area B)

Nixon, Douglas (1999) A seventeenth-century house at Ferryland, Newfoundland (CgAf-2, area B). Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

This thesis focuses on the remains of a 17th-century house excavated at Ferryland, Newfoundland (CgAf-2, Area B). The goal of this research was to date the period of occupation and to learn more about the origins, social standing and activities of its occupants. The structural remains of the house are examined and compared with contemporaneous houses in colonial North America and England. To date the house occupation, the ceramic, tobacco pipe and bottle glass assemblages are analysed. This analysis also indicates the nature of 17th-century trade with Newfoundland and suggests the social standing and activities of the household. Metal artifacts are studied in an attempt to identify other activities carried out within the house and to determine the social position of the household. -- The results of these analyses indicate that the house at Area B was a timber-framed structure built ca.1660 and abandoned in 1696. The permanent residents appear to have been of the middling sort and were participants in the cod fishery. The evidence suggests they also were engaged in other seasonal activities, including hunting and boat-building, or repair.

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