Carroll Cabin: Excavation, Dendrochronology, and Geochemical Analysis

Carroll Cabin is a National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)-eligible property located in southwestern Pennsylvania on land stewarded by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). Master’s thesis research conducted between 2015 and 2016 provided DCNR with a cultural context of the extant building and associated woodland to assist with their stewardship of the resource. Amongst the five methodologies utilized to research the resource and property were geochemical sampling, archaeological excavation, and dendrochronological study. Used as the first step to geochemically analyze the landscape, soil chemistry results revealed several locations of cultural activity. Excavation of foundations revealed secondary deposition and activity associated with the mid-nineteenth to twentieth-centuries, matching part of the available documentary record. Collected dendrochronology samples indicated that the original hewn-log building was likely constructed between c.1775-1810 and ultimately supported the determination of eligibility due to age and association with the American Frontier.