History Commons^™

Oral History And Archaeology Of The Keith's Siding Site Location, Amanda Kay Flannery

Theses and Dissertations

At the beginning of the 20th century railroad logging camp settlements dotted the landscape in Northern Wisconsin in order to supply growing city populations and immigrants moving west with building materials. Many temporary towns were created in order to house the workers and their families and provide basic amenities needed to survive in an isolated environment. These communities typically lasted until the extraction of the hardwood was complete and then communities would abandon their makeshift dwellings and move on to the next stand of trees. Very few of the lumber siding settlements have been documented within the archaeological record. Great …

Archaeological Geophysics, Excavation, And Ethnographic Approaches Toward A Deeper Understanding Of An Eighteenth Century Wichita Site, Michael Don Carlock

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research exemplifies a multidirectional approach to an archaeological interpretation of an eighteenth century Wichita village and fortification located on the Red River bordering Oklahoma and Texas. A battle that is believed to have occurred at the Longest site (34JF1) in 1759 between Spanish colonials and a confederation of Native Americans led to several Spanish primary documents describing the people that lived there, the fortification and surrounding village, and of course the battle itself. Investigation of the Longest site (34JF1) in Oklahoma presents a remarkable opportunity to combine extensive historical research, archaeological prospecting using geophysics, and traditional excavation techniques in …

Vice In The Veil Of Justice: Embedding Race And Gender In Frontier Tourism, Daniel Richard Maher

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes how "frontier" discourses in Fort Smith, Arkansas simultaneously constitute mythological narratives that elide the deleterious effects of imperialism, racism, and sexism, while they operate as marketing schemes in the wager that they will attract cultural heritage tourists. It examines material exhibits and interpretive history programs at locations including the Fort Smith National Historic Site, Fort Smith Museum of History, Miss Laura's Visitor's Center, and the Clayton House; in texts such as the 1898 book by Samuel Harman whose title forever branded Fort Smith as Hell on the Border; in the subsequent branding and marketing derived from the …

Indigenous Cuisine: An Archaeological And Linguistic Study Of Colonial Zapotec Foodways On The Isthmus Of Tehuantepec, Michelle R. Zulauf

Graduate Masters Theses

Cuisine refers to the ethnically idiosyncratic food choices and the manner and methods in which these foods are prepared and served. In this investigation I will explore traditional Zapotec cuisine and its early colonial changes and continuities on Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec by examining available food sources, food preparation techniques and equipment, and food serving traditions evidenced at the archaeological site of Rancho Santa Cruz. In order to achieve this I developed a two-fold analysis. The first component was the analysis of the Vocabulario en Lengua Zapoteca published by Fray Juan de Córdova in 1578. This historical dictionary provides an …

An Archaeology Of Capitalism: Exploring Ideology Through Ceramics From The Fort Vancouver And Village Sites, Dana Lynn Holschuh

Dissertations and Theses

The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), a mercantile venture that was founded by royal charter in 1670, conceived, constructed and ran Fort Vancouver as its economic center in the Pacific Northwest, a colonial outpost at the edge of the company's holdings in North America. Research into the history of the HBC revealed that the company was motivated by mercantile interests, and that Fort Vancouver operated under feudal land policies while steadily adopting a hierarchical structure.

Following the work of Marxist archaeologist Mark Leone whose work in Annapolis, Maryland explored the effects of capitalist ideology on archaeological assemblages of ceramics, this study …

Irish Travellers And The Transformative Nature Of Media Representation, Aisling Kearns

Honors Theses

The Travellers, a nomadic group of people indigenous to Ireland, have long been marginalized in Irish society as a result of discrimination. The Travellers themselves have had a history of working to keep themselves separate from the settled Irish, essentially maintaining their own ethnic identity. Traveller culture has undergone a number of changes since the 1960s, a period of increasing urbanization and economic transformation in Ireland. With the changes in both Traveller culture and Irish society as a whole, there has been a corresponding shift to a more positive relationship between the media (newspapers, documentaries, and commercial films and television) …

Medicina Del Barrio: Shadow Medicine Among Milwaukee's Latino Community, Ramona Chiquita Tenorio

Theses and Dissertations

As a result of exclusionary state and federal policy decisions on immigration and health care, marginalized immigrants often seek health care in the shadows of U.S. cities through practitioners such as curandera/os (healers), huesera/os (bonesetters), parteras (midwives), and sobadora/es (massagers). under the radar of biomedical practice. This research focuses on this phenomenon in the context of globalized social networks and health care practices of marginalized Latino immigrants in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and within the broader economic and political context in this country. Latino immigrants continue practicing forms of their medicine even after immigrating to this country. People do not just throw …

"An Ample Provision For Our Posterity": Transportation, Ceramic Diversity, And Trade In Historic Arkansas, 1800-1930, Katherine Rose Cleek

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I present a method to study transportation using ceramic diversity and access to transportation infrastructure. Ceramic tableware richness, or the number of types present, is analyzed over time as a proxy for access to local transportation infrastructure at seven sites in Arkansas, dating from approximately 1800 to 1930. Previous efforts to look at trade in historical archaeology including Adams (1976), Riordan and Adams (1985), and Adams, Bowers, and Mills (2001) have not thoroughly assessed transportation as a means of trade. This dissertation looks at the many ways of assessing diversity in archaeology, biology, business, and economics, as …

Re-Examining Late Chalcolithic Cultural Collapse In South-East Europe, Harvey Benjamin Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research into the Balkan Chalcolithic often overlooks the dramatic changes in society that occurred beginning in the late Fifth Millennium BCE. Most settlements were abandoned along with changes in mortuary customs, ceramic and decorative traditions, domestic rituals, crafts, housing styles, mining, and metallurgy. These changes happened at a time when these Chalcolithic societies seemed to be at their peak. Theories as to what caused these changes include migrations/invasions, anthropogenic environmental degradation, gradual internal changes through innovation and outside contacts, and climate change. This thesis attempts to synthesize, and critique material relating to this topic, and ultimately provide my own opinions …

Agricultural Production And Stability Of Settlement Systems In Upper Mesopotamia During The Early Bronze Age (Third Millennium Bce), Tuna Kalayci

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the relationship between rainfall variation and rain-fed agricultural production in Upper Mesopotamia with a specific focus on Early Bronze Age urban settlements. In return, the variation in production is used to explore stability of urban settlement systems. The organization of the flow of agricultural goods is the key to sustaining the total settlement system.

The vulnerability of a settlement system increases due to the increased demand for more output from agricultural lands. This demand is the key for the success of urbanization project. However, without estimating how many foodstuffs were available at the end of a production …

The Impacts Of Colonial And Environmental Processes On Ceramic Plainware At Salinas Province, New Mexico, Lindsey Elizabeth Daub

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis investigates whether Spanish demands on native time, labor and diet resulted in changes to the plainware ceramics used by the Salinas Pueblo Indians of New Mexico from the early 1600s to the 1670s. Increased pressures on native women's time may have resulted in a decline in the quality of the ceramic pastes, an increase in the presence of mend holes, changes in household size and composition that may have resulted in changes in the sizes of cooking vessels, and a decrease in food availability that may have resulted in decreased sizes or quantities of storage jars. While the …

Community Building After Emancipation: An Anthropological Study Of Charles' Corner, Virginia, 1862-1922, Shannon Sheila Mahoney

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The half-century marked by the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War I was a critical period of cultural, social, and economic transition for African Americans in the southern United States. During the late nineteenth century, while African Americans were rebuilding communities and networks disrupted by enslavement and the ensuing Civil War, several settlements developed between Williamsburg and Yorktown on Virginia's lower peninsula. One of the settlements, Charles' Corner, is an optimal case study for understanding the gradual process of community building during a particularly challenging period of African American history dominated by systemic racism and …

Derogatory To The Rights Of Free-Born Subjects: Racialization And The Identity Of The Williamsburg Area's Free Black Population From 1723-1830, Rebecca Anne Schumann

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Social Piracy In Colonial And Contemporary Southeast Asia, Miles T. Bird

CMC Senior Theses

According to the firsthand account of James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, it appears that piracy in the state of British Malaya in the mid-1800s was community-driven and egalitarian, led by the interests of heroic figures like the Malayan pirate Si Rahman. These heroic figures share traits with Eric Hobsbawm’s social bandit, and in this case may be ascribed as social pirates. In contrast, late 20^th-century and early 21^st-century pirates in the region operate in loosely structured, hierarchical groups beholden to transnational criminal syndicates. Evidence suggests that contemporary pirates do not form the egalitarian communities of their …

Ontological Blackness: A N Investigation Of 18th Century Burial Practices Among Captive Africans On The Island Of Barbados, Brittany Leigh Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

The Nottoway Of Virginia: A Study Of Peoplehood And Political Economy, C.1775-1875, Buck Woodard

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This research examines the social construction of a Virginia Indian reservation community during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Between 1824 and 1877 the Iroquoian-speaking Nottoway divided their reservation lands into individual partible allotments and developed family farm ventures that mirrored their landholding White neighbors. In Southampton's slave-based society, labor relationships with White landowners and "Free People of Color" impacted Nottoway exogamy and shaped community notions of peoplehood. Through property ownership and a variety of labor practices, Nottoway's kin-based farms produced agricultural crops, orchard goods and hogs for export and sale in an emerging agro-industrial economy. However, shifts in Nottoway …

"A Medley Of Contradictions": The Jewish Diaspora In St Eustatius And Barbados, Derek Robert Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

During the 17th and 18th century a number of Jews settled on the English island of Barbados and the Dutch island of St. Eustatius. The Jews on both islands erected synagogues and a number of key structures essential for a practicing religious community. Although they had strong connections that spanned across geo-political boundaries, the synagogue compounds on each island became key places for the creation and maintenance of a Jewish community. I argue that these synagogue compounds represented diasporic places that must be understood through a tri-partite model that explores the relationships between the Jewish community and its hostland, other …