Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Social Movements And Charitable Dress: An Examination Of 19th Century Adornment At The Industrial School For Girls In Dorchester, Massachusetts, Madelaine A. Penney

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis is an examination of the 19th century adornment assemblage recovered from the archaeological excavation of two features (1859-1884) at the Industrial School for Girls in Dorchester located at 232 Centre Street in Dorchester, Massachusetts. The school was administered by middle class Bostonian women that wished to train working class girls from broken, abusive, or unfit homes in professionalized domestic work. This thesis is a rare examination of a site that is single-gendered, and predominantly single-classed and aged with a large collection of documented activity. This investigation was conducted in order to question the values that the administration of …

Potters' Norms: Examining The Social Organization Of Ceramic Production Of Panamanian Majolica And Criolla Wares In Panama La Vieja (1519-1673), Jean-Sebastien Pourcelot

Graduate Masters Theses

During the 16th and 17th century, the colonial city of Asunción de Panamá (now known as Panamá la Vieja) rose to regional prominence as a strategic geopolitical and commercial port due to its pivotal role along a transcontinental commercial network that connected Spain and its South American colonies. In the 154 years it was occupied by residents from diverse cultural backgrounds, contemporary but technologically- and compositionally-distinct ceramic industries developed and flourished in this city. Panamá la Vieja’s ceramic record presents a unique opportunity to examine how coexisting but seemingly distinct potting communities organized their craft and to explore whether their …

Eat This In Remembrance: The Zooarchaeology Of Secular And Religious Sites In 17th-Century New Mexico, Ana C. Opishinski

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines the faunal remains from LA 20,000, a 17th-century Spanish estancia near Santa Fe, New Mexico that was inhabited by a family of Spanish colonists and indigenous laborers. The data collected from these specimens are examined to better understand the diet of the site’s inhabitants, especially in conjunction with existing data on the plant portion of the diet at this site. Creating a more complete picture of the diet, the analysis covers Number of Identified Specimens (NISP), Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI), potential meat weight represented by the various species, bone modifications, and ageing and kill-off patterns. These …

Cultures And Comfort: A Study Of Personal Adornment At Avery's Rest, Julianne Danna

Graduate Masters Theses

Avery’s Rest was a diverse, thriving plantation in Sussex County, Delaware in the late 1600s and early 1700s. John Avery, a flavorful character from England by way of Massachusetts and Maryland, settled the plantation in the late 1600s and made his final home there with his wife and children. After his death, the same site was then occupied by his daughter, Jemima, and her husband.

Excavated by the Archaeological Society of Delaware, the numerous artifacts from the archaeological site provide a glimpse into the lives of settlers on the colonial frontier as they fought to survive environmental challenges, negotiated continuous …

Regional Variation In Grass, Sedge, And Cereal Cultivation During The Viking Age In Skagafjörður, North Iceland, Melissa M. Ritchey

Graduate Masters Theses

In Viking Age and Medieval Iceland, livestock forage was a critical resource in the Norse agropastoral economy. Cereal cultivation, typically an important part of the Norse economy, may have been more limited in marginal sub-Arctic Iceland. An analysis of macrobotanical seed assemblages from archaeological excavations at 42 Viking Age and Medieval farmsteads in the Skagafjörður region of North Iceland suggests both broad trends and substantial variation over time and space in agropastoral production practices. This study finds that the main components of livestock forage (grass, sedge, and perhaps cereal) are highly variable between regions and over time. Interestingly, barley (Hordeum …

Set In Stone: Recontextualizing The Lithic Assemblage Of A Seventeenth-Century Storage Cellar In Charlestown, Massachusetts, Anna M. Greco

Graduate Masters Theses

Feature 43 is a domestic structure that belonged to the wealthy seventeenth-century merchant community of Charlestown, Massachusetts, and was excavated in the early 1980s as part of the Maudlin Archaeological District. The extant collection has remained in storage for the last thirty years, demanding a recontextualization of the site, both in provenience and in historical context. Primary sources portray an image of a predominantly European settler household; however, a counter-narrative emerges from lithics found within the assemblage. While the ultimate goal is to analyze the patterns of lithic sourcing and production in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the findings hinge on …

Environments Explored: An In-Depth Analysis Of Soil Movement In Northern Iceland, Lauren Welch O'Connor

Graduate Masters Theses

The initial colonization of Iceland in the late 9th century had a profound impact on the fragile environment of the North Atlantic island. Settlement and the introduction of livestock resulted in widespread erosion and the replacement of woodlands with meadows and heaths. Changes in the environment are assumed to have played a role in determining settlement patterning and subsistence strategies. While marginal highland areas were most seriously affected, resulting in farmstead abandonment, the nature of changes in lowland areas and their impact on the productivity of individual farms is poorly understood. Local patterns of landscape change in Iceland could be …

Comales And Colonialism: An Analysis Of Cuisine And Ceramics On A 17th-Century New Mexican Estancia, Adam C. Brinkman

Graduate Masters Theses

The archaeological site of LA 20,000 is an early colonial Spanish estancia, or ranch, in New Mexico that was occupied between A.D. 1630 to 1680. Spanish estancias became the homes and work spaces for people with a wide range of cultural backgrounds. In this thesis, the author analyses the ceramics and ground stone assemblage of LA 20,000 to understand the daily practice of cuisine on this rural frontier. Cuisine has important symbolic components related to an individual’s identity. Through the practice of cuisine, inhabitants consumed foods that fit conceptions of acceptability, enacted preparation and cooking methods that were taught intergenerationally, …