ARCHAEOLOGY AT THE ETHAN ALLEN HOMESTEAD
There have been multiple archaeological digs at the Ethan Allen Homestead since the 1970s.
1977 — Chittenden County Archaeological Survey (we’re still looking for more information about this — please contact us if you know anything.)
1978 — conducted by the University of Vermont Consulting Archaeology Program; conducted to check the landscape before construction of public park facilities (including the picnic shelter, parking lot, and outhouse)
1978-1979 — conducted by the University of Vermont; conducted to check the landscape before construction of Route 127
1979 — conducted by the University of Vermont; conducted to help confirm the historic identity of the site in support of the National Register for Historic Places nomination
1986 — conducted by the University of Vermont Consulting Archaeology Program; conducted to check the landscape before building a septic system
1988 — conducted by the University of Vermont Consulting Archaeology Program; conducted to check the landscape before community gardens added and a back porch/addition built onto the c.1920s barn
1990-1993 — conducted by the Ethan Allen Homestead Trust (renamed the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum in 2009); research to support the public interpretation and presentation of the history of the site for museum exhibition and tours.
WHAT DID THEY FIND IN THE 1990s DIGS?
Between 1990-1993, over 60,000 artifacts were excavated by the Ethan Allen Homestead Trust (renamed the Ethan Allen Homestead Museumin 2009), primarily from the lawn west of the historic Allen House. This was considered the “front” lawn ever since the early 1800s, and the likeliest place for both social congregation and pristine landscaping the 19th and 20th centuries.
The majority of the artifacts found are from the late 18th through mid-20th centuries, with a small amount of Indigenous artifacts from before the 1700s. This is not surprising as the site was a working farm continuously from the 1780s-1970s, and there are numerous archaeological sites that include Indigenous artifacts nearby.
Even though the land was activity farmed for over 200 years, and farming often disturbs archaeological evidence buried in the ground, the archaeological digs at the Ethan Allen Homestead confirmed that there are areas of this site that contain intact deposits located in numerous deep stratigraphic layers dating back to the end of the 18th century
The artifacts found on this site represent what everyday life was like for the people who lived here for the past c.10,000 years.
Images below are from “The 1989-1993 Public Archaeology Program at the Ethan Allen Homestead (VT-CH-0136) Burlington, Chittenden County, Vermont Summary and Synthesis” by NEARC, 2025.
Stone Tools
Fewer than 30 pre-historic artifacts were found in the 1990s digs. They include a Levanna-type projectile point dating from the late-Middle to Late Woodland period, approximately 1500-400 years ago (c.500-1600 AD). This projectile point was likely attached to an arrow used for hunting and/or warfare. Flake tools were also found, inlcuing a Clarendon Springs chert flake, a Cheshire quartzite flake, and two Hathaway chert flakes. All of these are made from stone found relatively locally in Vermont. Flake tools were some of the easiest stone tools to make, and therefore often the most common. They often had sharp edges used for cutting, scraping, and shapping. Two scrappers made of Cheshire quartzite were also found in the 1990s digs. The oldest stone point so far found from this site was excavated in the 1990s digs, and is dated to approximately 6,000 years ago (c.4,000 BC).
Archaeological digs completed before the 1990s also add to our knowledge of prehistoric use of the site. A Levanna-type projectile point, similar to the one found in the 1990s, was excavated in 1979. A chert biface, likely used in hunting for cutting or carving, was excavated in 1978. A side-notched point was excacated in the 1980s. The side notch helped one securely attached the point to an arrow. A small, stemmed, Lamoka-type point from the Late Archaic period (about 3,000-5,000 years ago) was also excavated in the 1980s. The Lamoka-type point was probably used as an atlatl dart. Atlatls are ancient spear-throwing devices used to increase a spear’s speed and force.
All stone tools found at the Ethan Allen Homestead were mixed in with historic artifacts from the 18th-20th centuries in soil that were greatly disturbed by farming. No intact prehistoric sites have yet been found at the Ethan Allen Homestead.
Animal bones
More than 5,500 animal bones from over 100 species were recovered at the Ethan Allen Homestead in the 1990s archaeological digs. Animals represented in this collection include cow, bird, chicken, fish, sheep, goat, porcupine, rat, mouse, turtle, and mollusk. A nearly complete lynx skeleton was found in the east lawn, though we do not know if it was trapped for its fur or killed as a barnyard pest. Several burnt bones were found in refuse deposits alongside charcoal, evidence of cooking animals over a fire.
The animal bones show us what people were eating at the Ethan Allen Homestead over the past few hundred years. Both domestic and wild animal bones were found in the digs, and archaeologists were suprised to find that more wild animals were consumed at the Homestead than domestic animals. This is in direct contrast with the diets of city-dwellers, whose meat intake consisted primarily of domesticated animals. The Ethan Allen Homestead is located only three miles north of Burlington’s city center, but (at least in this aspect) 19th and early 20th-century farmers at the Ethan Allen Homestead led lives more akin to other rural farmers rather than like their urban neighbors just a few miles away. The New North End, the Burlington neighborhood in which the Ethan Allen Homestead is located, has historically been Burlington’s farming neighborhood. Still today the New North End is one of the most sparesely populated areas of Burlington, and still hosts a few farm fields along the Winooski intervale, most notably at the Ethan Allen Homestead and at the Intervale Center.
Of the domestic animals that the farmers at the Homestead raised and managed on the farm, the residents ate more pork than beef. A winter staple on 19th century New England farm was “hog and hash”, a meal consisting of salted pork and corn. Pork is better suited to curing than beef because of its higher fat content, so the farmers at the Homestead likely relied more heavily on pork for their own consumption. Additionally, the cattle raised at the Homestead were managed for dairy production, so these animals were not often slaughered for meat consumption. Of the domestic animals the farmers slaughtered, the assemblage contains more head and feet bones, possibly because these sections were eaten at home versus the other parts that were packaged to sell in town.
There is one type of animal bone that shows that the Homestead’s farmers did often shop in town for meat: the bones of Atlantic cod. Needless to say, these fish were not caught in the Winooski river nor Lake Champlain. 19th-century advertisements in the Burlington Free Press show that salted cod was often imported to Burlington and sold in town. So, although the bones found in the archaeologicl digs indicate that Homestead farmers were able to supply their own meat, both domestic and wild, they still liked to treat themselves by purchasing food items in town (possibly during the winter months when people were getting a little tired of “hog and hash” every night.)
Ceramics
Ceramics was the largest category of artifacts excavated. 14,280 ceramic fragments were excavated between 1990-1993. Many different types of ceramics were excavated at this site. The oldest types of pottery excavated at this site are creamware, a type of ceramic produced in the mid-to-late 18th century dating from 1762 to 1820, and in particular, the Jackfield-type, manufactured from 1740 to 1790. Other types of ceramics excavated here include porcelain (increasingly common after 1775), pearlware (c.1780 to 1840), whiteware (c.1830 to present), and yellowware (c.1840 to 1930).
Another common type of ceramic found at this site is redware; redware was the most commonly produced ceramic in the United States throughout the 17th-19th centuries and was used for utilitarian farm purposes such as pickling, milk pans, pie pans, jugs, crocks, and jars. It was probably made from local clay at a small nearby kiln. Stoneware was also found in abundance, a type of ceramic that was mostly made in the late-18th and 19th centuries. Within the creamware assemblage, there are transfer-printed (c.1780s), hand painted (c.1780s), and dendritic or “mocha” decorated sherds (c.1795).
Within the pearlware assemblage, there are edged (c.1785-1840), transfer printed (c.1784-1840), sponged (c.1780-1830), polychrome hand painted (c.1795-1830), monochrome hand painted (c.1775-1840), and annular decorations (c.1780-1840) on different sherds.
Three pieces of pottery had identifiable makers marks: one from J. W. Pankhurst & Co, an English company that ran from 1850-1880; one from Knight, Elkin, and Co, an English company that ran from 1840-1847; and one from Adams & Sons, a British company in business from 1769-1966 (though this piece of pottery is likely from c.1820-1860). These imported pieces were likely the nicer dishes and fancy tea sets used for parties and guests.
A number of clay smoking pipes were also excavated from this site, from both the 18th and 19th centuries.
Early 20th century ceramics were also found, including whiteware/ironstone with gilt or decal decorations; and 3 pieces of Indigenous ceramics were excavated: 2 ceramic beads from an unknown date and one sherd dating to the Middle Woodland period, c.200-500 BCE.
Building Materials
West of the Allen House, a collection of large cut dolomite stones suggest a structure of some sort was built there in the past. Hand-wrought nails (usually from 1790 and earlier) and cut nails (c.1790-1830), including ones with a “waist” (c.1815-1830), and wire nails (c. late 1800s and on) were also found in great numbers throughout the site, indicating there was a lot of construction over many years, probably for all of the different fences and outbuildings needed to run a farm. (In fact, in the early 20th-century, the site even had its own blacksmith forge, located east of the Allen House). A “builders trench”, from c. late 1800s, was identified in the west lawn. 20th-century building materials (including roofing nails, tar paper, and steel fragments) were found closer to the surface of the ground, showing that active construction for the management of the farm was an ongoing practice.
Well
Well at the Ethan Allen Homestead in 1907, when it was still in use (look in front of the horse)
Well at the Ethan Allen Homestead in 2023, after it was restored in the 1990s
A well was accidentally found when a park visitor’s foot went through the top soil while visiting the site in 1991! Archaeologists excavated the well in 1992 and dated it to c.1830-1920. The well is located southwest of the Allen House. 2,498 artifacts were excavated from the well, including a 1921 Lincoln penny, 4 bullet casings (.30-30 Winchester Super X cartridges), a Prosser-style button, kaolin smoking pipe bowl, a Cheshire quartzite flake, a copper medallion, and over 230 ceramic fragments.
Trash Pits
Excavations off the northern ledge near the house confirmed long-held folklore: people threw their trash off the lip of the ledge. Ledge-dumped garbage occurred primarily after a porch was added to the west side of the house in the mid-1800s. Prior to the porch, occupants of the house dug trash pits just northwest of the Allen House, primarily from the 1780s-1850s. Compost piles were found in the east field, near where barns existed until they burned down in 1914.
Glass
Bottles, windows panes (including pieces of burnt window panes, probably from one of the fires at the Ethan Allen Farm, such as the great fire of 1914 that burnt down all of the outbuildings on the field east of the historic Allen House), and more
Clothing
Straight pins, buttons, buckles; made of metal, wood, and animal bone; and more
Household items
A single gunflint (found in the 1977 survey), leather shoe pieces, coins (including an 18th-century British coin), jewelry (including at least two wedding rings, a silver ring with initials carved in, and a heart locket that may have once contained a precious momento from a loved one), clay marbles, a ceramic doll head, and more
The Ethan Allen Homestead Museum conducted a large archaeological conservation project in 2022-2025. We are still digging through the findings! As more findings are discovered from that project, more will be added to this page.
Please reach out to museum@ethanallenhomestead.org if you have questions or information regarding the archaeological digs at the Ethan Allen Homesead Museum.
VIDEOS
Check out these videos with more information about the Homestead’s 1990s archaeological digs and the conservation project to save the artifacts:
September 2025 update on the Ethan Allen Homestead archaeological conservation project
(start at timestamp 51:14) January 2025 update on the management of the Ethan Allen Homestead archaeological conservation project; presentation hosted by Collections Care & Conservation Alliance
April 2023 update on the Ethan Allen Homestead archaeological conservation project
The Ethan Allen Homestead Museum conducted a major conservation project of its archaeological collection from 2022-2025 in order to save the collection from damage from water and exposure. This project was supported with funding from Vermont Humanities and the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership, supported with consultation by the Vermont Archaeological Heritage Center, supported with research by the Northeast Archaeology Research Center, and greatly supported by time donated by over 100 volunteers. Special thanks to Ethan Allen Homestead Director Angie Grove and volunteer Niels Rinehart for overseeing the project, and to volunteers Colleen Montgomery and Kelly Bartlett for sticking with the project through its completion. Thank you Kate Malmstrom, Eliza Callahan, Liam Rinehart, and Daniel Vasquez for inventorying all of the artifacts. Thank you to the Vermont State Archives internship program and Tessa Brimblecombe for digitizing all of the photos of the archaeological digs. Thank you also to the UVM Communities of Practice internship program, the Vermont Archaeology Society, the UVM Global Connections Living & Learning Community, South Burlington High School, the Jean Garvin School, and many members of the public for donating time for data input, bagging and labeling artifacts, and more for this project.