Archaeological Investigations of the Tabby House Ruins

1964
Lloyd M. Pierson, superintendent of De Soto National Memorial, conducted archaeological investigations of the Tabby House Ruins. Pierson concluded that the structure originally had been 16 feet square, with walls that were fourteen inches thick. He described both the wall and the floor as masonry made from a mixture of lime, sand, and shell. Pierson recovered both prehistoric and historic ceramics, but noted that the aboriginal pieces were almost all water-worn, having probably eroded out of the shell mound site one hundred yards to the west.

1997
Margo Schwadron, archaeologist at the National Park Service's Southeast Archeological Center, conducted archaeological testing at De Soto Point in the area around the Tabby House Ruins. Schwadron recovered both prehistoric and historic materials, and also detected the presence of a buried prehistoric midden.

The historic artifacts recovered by Pierson and Schwadron include pieces of ceramics and glass, a bottle, a wooden toothbrush, pipe stem fragments, a button and machine-cut nails. The ceramic fragments are predominantly from refined earthenwares such as those that might have been used by the William Shaw family, but also include coarse earthenwares that might more closely typify items used at fishing ranchos or the Angola settlement.

 
"Palestine" pattern by William Adams
Brown transfer-printed ceramics were produced from 1829-1861

 

 
Salt-glazed stoneware
Produced from the 1720s-1900

 

 
Blue transfer-printed ceramics

 

 
Blue transfer-printed ceramics

 

 
Blue transfer-printed ceramics

 

 
Coarse earthenware, possibly Reyware from the Iberian Peninsula
Produced from 1725-1825
Photo courtesy of Southeast Archeological Center

 

 
Coarse earthenware of unknown origin

 

 
Bottle base

 

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