David Degner

Boston Photographer and Photojournalist

The Berkshires are Mohican

After finding the first evidence of a hearth the team opened another hole above one of the other magnetic imaging disturbances. All afternoon they found charcoal, knapped stones, a used cobble stone, and burnt bone. All signs of Mohican settlement, but they didn’t find a second hearth. By 4pm a heavy storm started to come in and they had to cover the holes. The next day would be their last, and was scheduled only as a cleanup day.
After finding the first evidence of a hearth, the team opened another hole above one of the other magnetic imaging disturbances. They found charcoal, knapped stones, a used cobblestone, and burnt bone all afternoon. All signs of Mohican settlement, but they didn’t find a second hearth. By 4 pm, a heavy storm started to come in, and they had to cover the holes. The next day would be their last and was scheduled only as a cleanup day.

Colonists displaced the Mohicans from their homeland in the 1780s. This summer, the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians and Williams College opened two archeology digs to search for new evidence of their history in the Berkshires. Historians have said they felt that the Berkshires were more seasonal hunting grounds. But the digs found evidence to suggest that there were many permanent residents over a more extended period.

I found this story while working on a project about old-growth forests for the Smithsonian Magazine.

Archeologists and volunteers walk to the Stockbridge, Massachusetts Archeology site

On a bend of the Housatonic river where their sachem (ambassador with the English) had a plot of land, the archeologists, students, tribe members, and volunteers were looking for evidence of a 1780s ox feast roast that signaled the Mohican departure from the grounds.

After four days of digging exploratory holes and sifting through mud and sand, little was unearthed. Until the 5th day, when they found a living floor with a charcoal hearth, signifying a house. And there were layers of charcoal separated by flood deposits, indicating that the Mohicans returned to the same spot year after year.

When looking at magnetic imaging of the area, the strange thing is that it is one black disturbance in a line of about six black disturbances.

This had the archeologists scratching their heads most of the morning because it would be strange for houses to be lined up so close together and in a straight line. Then, over lunch, they consulted with a geomorphologist who suggested it could have been a line of hearths in a longhouse used for meetings.

The dark dirt on the bottom and the wall of the hole are evidence of a hearth, and the light dirt is a compacted living floor.
The dark dirt on the bottom and the wall of the hole are evidence of a hearth, and the light dirt is a compacted living floor.
Charcoal collected at the site will be radiocarbon dated to determine the age of the site.
Charcoal collected at the site will be radiocarbon dated to determine the age of the site.
Grain plants still growing around the site give weight to the idea of a longer term settlement.
Grain plants still growing around the site give weight to the idea of a longer term settlement.
Knaps of flint were also found in the hole.
Knaps of flint were also found in the hole.
Proving or disproving the longhouse theory will require another dig. But the bigger story is how the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe will continue working with Williams college to identify and repatriate artifacts, and bodies of their ancestors. They are also working with the city of Stockbridge to identify and document their historic homes.

Portrait of Larry Summers

Portraits for a story about Lawrence H. Summers in the New York Times.

Larry Summers has split his pandemic time between houses in Massachusetts and Arizona. He also seems to live inside the collective mind of the Washington economic establishment.

When the 66-year-old veteran of the Clinton and Obama administrations talks, Washington’s policy apparatus — journalists and think-tank types, economists and communications people, administration researchers and Capitol Hill staff — stops to listen. It disputes, debates and ultimately disseminates his ideas. Sometimes, it does so almost in spite of itself. Deploring the way he dominates the narrative is its own catalyst to his dominance, though his critics often miss the paradox.

– Jeanna Smialek

Boston Business Struggles in Pandemic

Photography of Boston's iconic restaurant...a Dunkin' Donuts.

Downtown Boston, the heart of New England’s largest city typically pulses with office workers, tourists and shoppers. Since the coronavirus pandemic struck–canceling vacations and clearing out office towers–once-bustling weekdays feel more like sleepy Sundays.

“Most buildings are not able to crack 7%” occupancy, said Rosemarie Sansone, chief executive of the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District, or BID, a 34-block area in Boston’s core normally teeming with office workers.

-Published in the Wall Street Journal

Portrait of Ferguson Herivaux in his store "One Gig"

One Gig Chief Executive Ferguson Herivaux in the skateboard and streetwear shop. Sales have been strong at One Gig, which reopened in early June.

One Gig, a streetwear and skateboard shop, opened its new two-story, 4,000-square-foot location on March 2, after five years in a much smaller basement space around the corner. It temporarily shut operations 20 days later in response to state orders, then reopened in early June, initially for pickups and appointments only.

One of a series of portraits for this story.

A portrait of Levent Berksan in his shuttered Cafe De Boston on December in Boston, Massachusetts.

Levent Berksan has kept his Café de Boston restaurant closed since the pandemic hit because he relies so heavily on downtown workers. The marketplace eatery occupies a large space on the ground floor of two connected office buildings that are now mostly empty, he said.

“Our biggest strength is our biggest weakness right now,” Mr. Berksan said, of his office-based customers. “We put all our eggs in one basket, and we lost all of the eggs.”

The restaurant grossed $2.7 million last year on about 1,000 customers a day, plus an office-catering business that has also dried up. The cafe can’t break even when business drops more than 25%, he said, noting that a break on rent has allowed him to stay in hibernation until customers return.

Buildings of downtown Boston are reflected in the Millennium Tower in Boston, Massachusetts.
Brattle Book Shop

Kenneth Gloss, co-owner with his wife, Joyce Kosofsky, of Brattle Book Shop, reopened in early June, as soon as he could. His family has owned the three-story antiquarian bookstore for 71 of its 195 years. “Our goal this year is not to lose too much money,” he said.

Normally, the bookshop would be bustling in December, with holiday shoppers and families taking in “The Nutcracker” and other special events. But sales, already down 40% for much of the year, fell further this holiday season in comparison with previous years. “A lot of the regulars just aren’t here,” Mr. Gloss said.

Stephanie Horn of Boston Diamond Company

When the pandemic temporarily shut down the Boston Diamond Company, Stephanie Horn’s business on Washington Street, she worried it could be a fatal blow. “The rent is really expensive in Downtown Crossing,” she said.

The 400-square-foot jewelry shop has managed to hang in there, even without pop-in visits from local office workers and tourists. Ms. Horn has been buoyed by referrals while taking customers to the small shop on an appointment-only basis to avoid crowding.

Emerson Paramount Center

Chelsea, A Covid-19 Hotspot

Ambulance Ride-Along in a Covid-19 Hotspot

Chelsea, Massachusetts was designated as a Covid-19 hotspot with the highest infection ratio in the state. For weeks the local ambulance services and fire-fighters work circling the Boston suburb picking up suspected cases, transferring them between hospitals and trying not to get infected themselves.

These photos are from a ride-along with the Cataldo Ambulance service out of their Chelsea headquarters but ranging to other Boston suburbs like Cambridge and Revere.

Behind the scenes of a contact tracing study

Proximity Pilot, A Contact Tracing App

A video produced for Julie Shah’s team and their study of a contact tracing app, Proximity Pilot. It is long and descriptive because it was designed for the longform TEDxMIT.

This talk describes the launch of a study on the effectiveness of digital contact tracing and aims to mature new privacy-preserving technologies. This research is a collaborative project initiated by students, involving four research labs at MIT, MIT Medical and MIT Lincoln Lab. The MIT Proximity Pilot Study, soon to be launched, is approved by MIT‘s Committee on the Use of Humans as Experimental Subjects (COUHES) and participation in the study is voluntary.