RECAP || First Annual ASNJ Conference 2024


FIRST ANNUAL
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF NEW JERSEY CONFERENCE

FEBRUARY 16-18TH, 2024
THE HOLIDAY INN, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY



The ASNJ Conference Committee and Executive Board would like to thank all the attendees, presenters, and sponsors who joined us for our first annual conference in Princeton on February 16-18, 2024! The conference successfully brought together researchers and students from across the East Coast who were willing to share their research on New Jersey and its surrounding area. We had a great time listening to interesting research and meeting everyone in between paper sessions and at our poster session, reception, and networking event in the evenings. The conference weekend finished with an excursion to the Princeton Battlefield State Park on Sunday, where Resource Interpretive Specialist William Krakower provided a fantastic tour of the Clarke House and battlefield.

Conference presentations encompassed a wide variety of topics, from pre-Contact site and artifact analyses to experimental archaeology to historic and archaeological research on tenant farms, historic cemeteries, free and enslaved African American communities, and unique artifacts. Student research was a highlight of the conference, and included impressive presentations by students from Rutgers University, TCNJ, CUNY, and Montclair University. Julia Fuchs from Rutgers University won our student poster competition with her research on the Egyptian mummy housed at the Rutgers University Geological Museum. 

Special thanks are due to our conference sponsors: the New Jersey Historic Trust, Passaic County, Richard Grubb & Associates, Inc., AECOM, EDR, and Michael J. Gall.

Please join us for the March 2024 Quarterly Meeting, which is planned for Saturday, March 16th, 2024, at the Passaic County Arts Center (John W. Rea House) in Hawthorne, NJ. Elections for the Executive Board will also be held. Click here for more details!


One presenter from the Saturday morning session of the Conference, “Early Inhabitants: Native American Sites in New Jersey” has recorded their presentation and has allowed us to share!


A Peculiar Pre-Contact Encampment: The New Brunswick Avenue Pre-Contact Site (28-Mi-293)

Michele Troutman (Richard Grubb & Associates, Inc. and Binghamton University) and Sean McHugh (Richard Grubb & Associates, Inc. and Monmouth University)


The four presenters from the Saturday afternoon session of the Conference, “A Varied and Diverse Landscape: Encampments, Tenant Laborers, Weavers, Farmers, and Enslaved Individuals in West Windsor” have recorded their presentations and have allowed us to share them! Please follow our YouTube channel because they will be posted every Friday for the next four weeks! Enjoy the presentations!


The Stuart L. Reed Farmstead Site: Archaeology of a Doctor’s Plantation in West Windsor, NJ

Richard P. Adamczyk, Richard Grubb & Associates, Inc.

 

Laboring for the Clarkes: Archaeology of a Late Eighteenth- to Early Nineteenth-Century Potential Enslaved Laborer Dwelling

Matthew Craig, Richard Grubb & Associates, Inc.

 

Cottagers and their Homes: Archaeology of Tenant Farm Laborers at the Area Y Site

Michael Gall, Richard Grubb & Associates, Inc.

Weaving through History: Archaeology of the Area AC-Site

Allison A. Gall, Richard Grubb & Associates, Inc.


Take a look at the photos from the conference taken by various Executive Board members throughout the weekend!

These are the photos from the excursion to Princeton Battlefield on Sunday afternoon!