GLASS BOTTLES
Wine bottles[125] provided the key to the entire excavation, first by possessing seals (fig. 6) that identified the owner of the property and secondly by providing dating evidence for the construction of the kitchen; thus there was avoided an error of dating that would otherwise have been inevitable. In addition, the group of bottles from Pit B (T.N. 30) provided a valuable series of specimens of varying shapes, all of which were in use together at the beginning of the 18th century. (See fig. 19, nos. 11-20.)
A few small fragments of green pharmaceutical phials were also recovered, but none was sufficiently large to merit illustration.
TABLE GLASS
Although wine-bottle glass was plentiful, table glass was comparatively scarce. It was confined to the three wineglasses illustrated as nos. 16-18 of figure 17, a 17th-century wineglass-stem fragment similar to no. 17 of figure 17 (see footnote 94), heavy tumbler-base fragments of typical 18th-century type (from T.N. 24, 27), and a fragment from a fine gadrooned Romer of late 17th-century date (fig. 20, no. 8).
Conclusions
The Tutter's Neck excavations represented the partial exploration of a small colonial dwelling and outbuilding, both of which ceased to exist by about 1750. On the basis of the excavated artifacts the intensity of occupation seems to fall into two periods, the decade of about 1701-1710 and within the years about 1730-1740. Documentary evidence indicates that these periods relate to the respective ownerships of Frederick Jones and Thomas Bray.
While the groups of artifacts from refuse pits are closely dated by context and are consequently valuable in the general study of domestic life in early 18th-century Virginia, the history of the site is less well served. The limited nature of the excavation, the loss of the overburden through bulldozing, and the destruction of the James City County court records during the Civil War serve to leave a number of important gaps in the chronology. It is to be hoped that at such time as the new trees have grown up and have been cut there will be archeologists ready and waiting to complete the excavation of this small but historically interesting site.
Illustrations
The illustrated items are confined to those that are sufficiently complete or readily identifiable as to be of value to archeologists, curators, and historians who may find comparable items elsewhere. In the interest of brevity, repetitive or unstratified objects have been omitted, although occasional exceptions have been made in the latter category where it is considered that the objects are of significance to the study of the structures or the possessions of Tutter's Neck residents, whether or not they can be closely dated.