McKendry Archaeological Site
Our team leads small-scale public digs at the McKendry Site, located near Irving, NY, allowing students and volunteers of all ages to participate in responsible and respectful excavation, artifact collection, radiocarbon dating and documentation.
The McKendry Archaeological Site is a multi-component pre-contact site created by millennia of human activity on a ridge above the Cattaraugus Creek and Lake Erie flood plains. Since the purchase of the parcel in 1989, John McKendry has been funding, organizing and conducting excavations to support countless community members who wished to gain archaeological experience by actually digging at a real site.
Excavations at the site since the 1990s have resulted in the identification and recovery of numerous artifacts and features, including projectile points, pottery and ground stone tools from hearths and storage pits, offering important insights into the lives of the people who inhabited this area thousands of years ago.
Since 2007, excavations have been conducted in cooperation with and under the supervision of the UB's Archaeological Survey. The UB team leads public digs through the generous support of John McKendry and other grants, allowing students and volunteers of all ages and skill levels to participate.
Opinions are changing about the appropriateness of excavation at non-threatened Pre-Contact archaeological sites for experiential and learning purposes, and Indigenous voices are raising awareness of the unnecessary destruction of their material past as preserved beneath the ground surface. For these reasons, we are moving away from large-scale excavations at the site. We are focusing our efforts on the incredible amount of material now in the lab and the careful mapping and documentation of what has transpired over the years at the site.
In 2023, the UB Undergraduate Anthropology Club was awarded funding through the UB Experimental Learning Network to create opportunities for student engagement in site excavation, artifact collection and radiocarbon dating. This project provided real-world experience in conducting archaeological field and laboratory research and working towards a publication of the results.
Students assisted in the on-going excavations at the McKendry Archaeological Site and used existing charcoal samples to obtain a radiocarbon (C14) date for the site. The radiocarbon data will be used to produce a report on the McKendry site for publication in the Bulletin of the New York State Archaeological Association and the Ohio Archaeologist bulletin.
Are you in need of UB Archaeological Survey services?
Does your property have historical artifacts or historical significance? Does your project require work with the US Army Corps of Engineers and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)? Are you seeking Historical Tax Credits for a commercial project? For these projects and more, contact: Doug Perrelli at perrelli@buffalo.edu or call 716.645.2297.
