Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Burned But Not Forgotten: Foodways Analysis Of Cooking Spaces From The First Kitchen On Thomas Jefferson’S Monticello Plantation, Peggy Marie Humes

Masters Theses

This thesis research evaluates the macrobotanical assemblage identified in soil samples from contexts collected throughout the South Pavilion kitchen space (44AB089) at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation in Charlottesville, Virginia. My primary research objectives strive to establish what types of plant remains are represented in soil samples recovered from three stratigraphically assigned temporal periods in this late eighteenth-century kitchen space. As the first kitchen at Monticello, where enslaved cooks prepared meals influenced by African American and French dishes for the Jefferson family until 1809, this site can help better establish an understanding of the cultural foodways and dishes within this time …

Urbanization On The Landscape Of The Old City: An Archaeological Investigation Of Site 40kn223 In Knoxville, Tennessee, Garrett B. Wamack

Masters Theses

In this thesis, I examine the effects of urbanization on the landscape and the people who lived upon it at archaeological site 40KN223 within the Old City in Knoxville, Tennessee. This landscape analysis focuses particularly on the decades from 1850 to 1920 during the birth and growth of the Old City. Amid the rising tides of commercialization, industrialization, and the flood-prone waters of First Creek, residents established a working-class neighborhood on the fringe of a substantial African American community. I examine this neighborhood and the transformation of its immediate landscape to understand how urbanization impacted its transformation, to learn who …

Creating And Implementing Strategies For Nrhp Eligibility Assessment At The Fort Polk Military Reservation, Matthew Thomas Hoover

Masters Theses

Large U.S. military installations, such as Fort Polk military reservation in south-central Louisiana, have for decades been the sites of cultural resource management (CRM) investigations, primarily due to the corpus of federal legislation developed to protect archaeological resources. These projects have yielded massive amounts of material and geospatial data and allowed researchers to develop sophisticated methodologies for analyzing site distribution, lithic tool manufacture, and many other avenues of inquiry. However, the cultural chronology represented on Fort Polk is still not well understood, and as a result assignation of National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)significance to sites on Fort Polk has …

The Rhythm Of The Land: Women’S Use Of Plants During The Pigeon Phase Of Magic Waters (31jk291) In Cherokee, North Carolina, Kelly Dean Santana

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the paleoethnobotanical remains of the Pigeon phase village component of the Magic Waters site, 31JK291. The Pigeon phase represented the early Middle Woodland period in the western North Carolina region and spans from approximately 200 BC to AD 200, situated in between the earlier Swannanoa phase (1000 BC to 200 BC) and the later Connestee phase (AD 200 to AD 800; Ward and Davis 1999). The site of Magic Waters is located adjacent to Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and Hotel in Cherokee, Jackson County, North Carolina, among the Blue Ridge ecoregion of the Appalachian Summit. The site …

Exchange And Social Interaction In The Tennessee River Valley: A Geospatial Approach To The Analysis Of Late Archaic Archaeological Sites, Justin S. Bailey

Masters Theses

The cultural manifestation known as the Shell Mound Archaic persisted in the lower Midwest and Midsouth region of the Eastern United States for over four millennia beginning in the Middle Archaic ca. 8900 cal BP and terminating at the end of the Late Archaic ca 3200 cal BP. A geospatial approach is applied to the analysis of exotic material exchange of the Late Archaic (ca. 5800-3200 cal BP) to assess how foraging peoples in the Tennessee River Valley interacted and persisted during this time. Exotic material items manufactured from copper, marine shell, steatite, and other nonlocal materials demonstrate distinct spatial …

No Tunes Chime Amidst The Bones: A Zooarchaeological Analysis Of Saltpeter Cave (3nw29), An Ozarchaic Bluffshelter In Northwest Arkansas, Nathanael G. Fosaaen

Masters Theses

The Southeastern Ozarks region is a karst limestone environment featuring many sheltered sites, including Saltpeter Cave in Newton County, Arkansas. Early and Middle Archaic components of this site assemblage contain abundant faunal materials that illustrate how Ozarchaic peoples modified their subsistence strategies to accommodate significant climate change that began ~10,000 years ago. I have employed several quantitative techniques, including, density-mediated attrition analysis, diet breadth models, and bone fragmentation patterns to investigate the hunting and trapping practices at this southern Ozarchaic site. I have also employed small mammal representation and correspondence analysis using datasets from Dust Cave, Modoc Rock Shelter, and …

Hiwassee Island: The Research Value And Limitations Of Legacy Collections, Erika Leigh Lyle

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the research value and limitations of WPA-era archaeological collections at the University of Tennessee’s McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture from the Hiwassee Island site (40MG31) in east Tennessee. Excavations on Hiwassee Island were conducted from 1937–1939 and uncovered a multicomponent site with Woodland, Mississippian, and historic Native American occupations. The most common artifact from all time periods was pottery, numbering more than 80,000 sherds and 70 whole vessels (Lewis and Kneberg 1946:80). This ceramic assemblage was used to determine the research significance of the Hiwassee Island legacy collection by comparing it to modern excavation samples …

In Pursuit Of A Good Glass And Good Company, Esther Louise Rimer

Masters Theses

While glass appears rather homogeneous compared to ceramics and pipes, these small bits of amorphous solid silica can still reveal hidden information when aspects of their chemical composition are tested using a means as simple as short-wave UV light or as complex as X-Ray Fluorescence. Using short-wave UV light and a comparative approach, this thesis reevaluates archaeological table glass collections from Southern Maryland and the Northern Neck of Virginia dating from the mid-17th century to the early 18th century to find evidence for the presence and absence of English lead glass (flint glass). Using these data, the patterns in access, …

Faunal Remains As A Potential Indicator Of Ritual Behavior: Griffin Rockshelter (40fr151), Connie Marie Randall

Masters Theses

Faunal remains are typically interpreted with a focus on utilitarian activity. However, animals were used for a variety of purposes, with some species having special cultural associations. This thesis explores the potential for a faunal assemblage to enhance the belief that Griffin Rockshelter (40FR151), a relatively small sandstone rockshelter, was a space where ritual activity occurred.

This project makes use of a comprehensive analysis of the archaeofauna recovered from Griffin, with data from previous analyses of the lithics and pottery, along with the petroglyphs that cover the shelter’s back wall. To further demonstrate the uniqueness of the material, the faunal …

A Morphometric Examination Of Cranial Vault Modification In The Middle Cumberland Region Of Central Tennessee, Gregory James Wehrman

Masters Theses

Cranial vault modification (CVM) is a physical manifestation of intersections between culture and biology. Cultural practices that apply pressure to the head during infancy result in significant reshaping of the skull and can be either intentional or unintentional. Occipital flattening is present among many Mississippian skeletal samples from the Middle Cumberland Region (MCR) of central Tennessee and is thought to be an unintentional result of childcare practices. Traditional methods for CVM classification have concentrated on visual assessment of location and means of flattening; however, this method is subjective. This thesis seeks to evaluate visual assessment of CVM through a morphometric …

Slave Subsistence Strategies At Thomas Jefferson’S Monticello Plantation: Paleoethnobotanical Analysis And Interpretation Of The Site 8 (44ab442) Macrobotanical Assemblage, Stephanie Nicole Hacker

Masters Theses

Throughout the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, millions of enslaved Africans and African Americans were crucial to the success of plantations in the American South, but despite their numbers little exists in the written record to provide an accurate history for the African American slave community. However, archaeological and historic research shows that even under the constraints of slavery, enslaved African Americans were active in forming their own families and communities, countering ill-treatment and nutritional deprivation, maintaining their cultural and spiritual identities, and establishing ways to enhance their well-being. The research presented in this study emphasizes the utility of studying carbonized …

Deeply Rooted: A Feasibility Study Testing The Potential For Ams Dating Through Paleoethnobotanical Recovery Methods At The Topper Site (38al23), Sarah Elizabeth Walters

Masters Theses

Archaeologists often make limiting operational choices that — though considered and logical — are (sometimes) necessarily selective in nature. One such a priori framework posits that costly paleoethnobotanical recovery and associated analyses are not worthwhile when working in sandy, acidic soils; as dateable organic remains are too rapidly destroyed by inherent chemical and mechanical processes to allow for differential preservation. This research demonstrates that these destructive processes are largely misunderstood. Indeed, the successful collection of significant paleoethnobotanical material is possible from certain types of sandy soils previously thought to be organically sterile. Moreover, such paleoethnobotanical recovery efforts can yield viable, …

Tracking Trajectories: Charting Changes Of Late Archaic Shell Ring Formation And Use, Martin Peter Walker

Masters Theses

For the past fifty years the shell rings of the North American, southeastern, Late Archaic period, have been a continuous object of archaeological research. They have been studied within contexts of the initial creation and use of ceramics in North America, mounding and monumentality of hunter-gatherers, early sedentism and social complexity, forager feasting, ritual, and ceremonialism, and human-environment interactions. The aim of this project was to bring together the cumulative data generated by this continuous research focus and centralize it within a single database, the Late Archaic Shell Rings Repository. In utilizing this consolidated data set, it is possible to …

A Geoarchaeological Analysis Of Ground Stone Tools And Architectural Materials From Mitrou, East Lokris, Greece, Lee Bailey Anderson

Masters Theses

Important but seldom asked questions in the study of practice in Bronze Age Aegean society (ca. 3100-1100 B.C.) pertain to the acquisition and usage of stone material in architecture and ground stone tools. My main research questions are, “How did people’s choice of stone material change over time?” and “Why did stone usage change over time?” During the 2013 and 2014 study seasons at Mitrou, I studied the stone inclusions in clayey architectural materials, as well as stone types used in the site’s architecture, and stone types used for ground stone tools at the site. My geological identifications allowed me …

A Comparative Faunal Analysis Of British Military Contexts At Brimstone Hill Fortress, St. Kitts, West Indies, Callie Roller Bennett

Masters Theses

The Caribbean island of St. Kitts was one of the wealthiest colonies in the British Empire during the late 17^th through early 19^th centuries because of its production and export of sugar. The British sought to defend the island from foreign invaders by building a large military fortification on the island called Brimstone Hill Fortress. Built beginning in 1690, the fort was home to a community of enslaved Africans, British army officers, British Royal Engineers, and enlisted soldiers up until its abandonment in the mid 1800s. To feed such a diverse workforce, the British military utilized imported provisions …

Casting Stones: An Analysis Of The Late Archaic Period At The Big Pine Tree Site, South Carolina, Based In Behavioral Ecology, Adam Daniel Russell

Masters Theses

The Big Pine Tree site (38AL143) is located in the Central Savannah River Valley in the coastal plain of South Carolina. A chert quarry site, it has been used since the Late Paleoindian period (12,850-11,200 cal yr BP) and is in fact still utilized to this day by employees of the nearby Archroma facility. The site has been extensively excavated under the direction of Albert C. Goodyear III for many years, resulting in a large assemblage. This research addresses an unusual 30-centimeter thick dark-brown soil stain located between 60-90 centimeters below ground surface that dates to the beginning of the …

The Vertebrate Fauna Of Zebree’S Big Lake Phase, Lydia Dorsey Carmody

Masters Theses

Excavated during the late 1960’s and mid 1970’s, Zebree (3MS20) serves as a well-known yet under-analyzed example of a Terminal Late Woodland/Early Mississippian (A.D. 800 to 1000) site in the Eastern Lowlands of the Central Mississippi Valley. In particular, a large portion of the vertebrate fauna collected during Zebree’s multi-season excavations has remained unidentified and unanalyzed since the initial site report. This research seeks to readdress the Terminal Late Woodland/Early Mississippian Big Lake phase (A.D. 800 to 1050) faunal collection in order to gain a more in-depth understanding of subsistence strategies at the Zebree site during a transitional time frame …

Clovis Lithic Manufacturing Variability At The Allendale Chert Quarries: A Preliminary View From 38al228, Allendale County, South Carolina, Andrew James Weidman

Masters Theses

This research is the result of archaeological testing that occurred from 2010–2012 at 38AL228, a multi-component quarry related site in Allendale County, South Carolina. This thesis 1) provides a summary of the testing in order to define the cultural sequence and isolate the Clovis component for further analysis, and 2) compares the Clovis lithic assemblage from 38AL228 with the Clovis lithic assemblage from the Topper site (38AL23) to explore possible manufacturing variability based on distance from the source of raw material within the Allendale chert quarries.

The premise for the comparative analysis is framed around the concept of differential lithic …

Plant Remains From The Smokemont Site In The Appalachian Mountains Of North Carolina, Gabrielle Casio Purcell

Masters Theses

Smokemont (31Sw393) is a multicomponent site consisting of deposits from Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian, Cherokee, and Euro-American occupations. Located in Swain County in the Smoky Mountains in western North Carolina, two structures have been identified at Smokemont, one as a Mississippian Pisgah phase house, and the other a Contact period Qualla phase house. Beneath the Pisgah house are several Connestee period pit features. Archaeobotanical remains have been collected from Woodland, Mississippian, and Cherokee contexts. Floral analysis of Middle Woodland features indicate some horticultural activity, with wild plants remaining important but supplementary to maize agriculture during the Mississippian and Cherokee occupations. This …

Encapsulating History Of Place, Ashley Linn Lenentine

Masters Theses

Architecture has the ability to reveal the culture and history of a place, to support the community and educate society. The design becomes the vessel that retains the history of the place and increases cultural appreciation throughout society. This thesis looks to reinterpret how design responds to a historic context and incorporates culture and memory into the method for new design. A place is an accumulation of layers that tell a story of the past and overlay conditions of the present that enhance the experience of the place. The site, context, history, and culture can be identified as various layers …

A Gis Analysis Of The Dynamics Of Power: An Example From 18th-Century Piedmont Virginia, Crystal Lynn Ptacek

Masters Theses

The neighborhood surrounding historic Indian Camp plantation located in Virginia’s eastern piedmont provides an opportunity to examine past identity formation and power dynamics. Using public records and ArcGIS, I researched this historical community to explore networks in which these individuals were involved. Historic land patents and transactions surrounding the Indian Camp property were given a geographical context, and based on resulting maps, research has identified a dynamic neighborhood whose members were deeply entangled in one another’s lives. Many who patented lands around Indian Camp did not do so because of a lack of opportunity in their home counties or due …

“It All Began, Like So Many Things, With An Egg,” An Analysis Of The Avian Fauna And Eggshell Assemblage From A 19th Century Enslaved African American Subfloor Pit, Poplar Forest, Virginia., Kathryn Elizabeth Lamzik

Masters Theses

During the 2003-2004 archaeological investigations at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest Plantation, a small, subfloor pit feature was discovered on the Southeast Terrace, in an area well known for its historical connection to the plantation’s 19^th century enslaved African American laborers. Among the collected artifacts, the subfloor pit feature yielded over 33,000 faunal materials; not included in this calculated total are several thousand eggshell fragments. Although eggshell and avian faunal materials continue to be an understudied, peripheral component to faunal analyses, this thesis aims to show how, based on a few selected measurements and morphological variations observed in eggshell structure, …

Faunal Analysis Of Sachsen Cave Shelter: A Zooarchaeological Approach To Site Function, Meagan Elizabeth Dennison

Masters Theses

Faunal remains are not often utilized to explore settlement practices and site use by prehistoric hunter-gatherers in the southeastern United States. Instead, lithic reduction sequences and site features are generally relied upon when making these kinds of interpretations. Faunal analysis, however, can offer an additional line of support to these interpretations, especially when seasonal indicators, transport of large animal remains and diversity of species are taken into account. This thesis is an attempt to address the prehistoric use of Sachsen Cave Shelter through the lens faunal analysis. Sachsen Cave Shelter is a large sandstone rock shelter located on the Upper …

An Archaeological And Historical Investigation Of A 19th Century Leprosarium At Hassel Island, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Amanda Marie Barton

Masters Theses

Located on Hassel Island, a small island off the coast of Charlotte Amalie, in St. Thomas, USVI, a small leprosarium, or quarantine hospital for those affected with leprosy, was in operation from 1833 to 1861 as a way to isolate those with leprosy from the general population. Surface and sub-surface excavations took place over the spring and summer of 2008 in preparation for proposed National Park Service hiking trail that would be laid parallel to the site remains.

Firstly, this thesis provides a historical background on leprosy, as well as a background on how leprosy and disease has been studied …

Contextualizing The Tipton-Haynes State Historic Site (40wg59): Understanding Landscape Change At An Upland South Farmstead., Daniel Whitaker Howard Brock

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on a contextual archaeological approach to investigate the historic landscape of the Tipton-Haynes State Historic Site. Tipton-Haynes is a late eighteenth- through twentieth-century upland south farmstead located in Johnson City, TN. Home to two prominent Tennessee families and occupied until acquired by the state in the 1960s, the site has experienced many alterations to the landscape over time. The analysis presented views the landscape as material culture investigated through a multidisciplinary approach including historic research, architectural survey, geophysical survey, dendrochronology, and archaeology. To make sense of the complex nature of the Tipton-Haynes site, multiple methods were used …

Chenopodium Berlandieri And The Cultural Origins Of Agriculture In The Eastern Woodlands, Daniel Shelton Robinson

Masters Theses

The development of agriculture in the New World has been a topic of prominent historic interest, but one that has ignored some regions in favor of others. The woodlands of Eastern North America have felt this bias in the investigation of agricultural origins, but this has not prevented the development of theories to explain the emergence of a complex of indigenous agricultural plants in the region. Data collection and technological advances have in large part validated these theories, creating a model for domestication. By emphasizing farming over other cultural practices, however, these theories lack explanatory power with regards to the …

Plant Remains, Investment Strategies, And Site Processes: Two Sites Along The Nolichucky River In Greene County, Tennessee, Jessie Luella Johanson

Masters Theses

Sites 40GN228 and 40GN229, located in Greene County, Tennessee, provide a record of subsistence change and variation in landscape management practices spanning from the Late Paleoindian to the Pisgah phase of the Mississippian period. The botanical remains from these sites detail changing plant-human relationships over a 12,000-year time span in the upper Ridge and Valley of eastern Tennessee. The expansive temporal and spatial scale of the two sites presented an opportunity to evaluate the plant assemblages on several levels. The substantial cultural deposits allowed a synchronic and diachronic look into plant use. In addition, the geographic proximity of the two …

A Tale Of Two Shelters: Using Xrf Analysis To Assess Compositional Variability Of Pottery From Two Sites In Franklin County, Tennessee, Sierra May Bow

Masters Theses

The Southern Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee is an area characterized by the presence of thousands of caves and perhaps tens of thousands of rock shelters which served many purposes during the prehistoric Woodland Period (ca. 1000 B.C.-1000 A.D.). This thesis will discuss two Woodland rockshelter sites situated along the western escarpment of the South Cumberland Plateau.

The Griffin Rockshelter is a relatively small sandstone shelter which contains a predominantly Late Woodland archaeological component. Recovered artifacts consist of a wide assortment of material remains including fauna, shell, and lithics, and over 700 pottery sherds. In addition, the shelter contains engraved petroglyphs …

The Distribution Of Paleoindian Debitage From The Pliestocene Terrace At The Topper Site: An Evaluation Of A Possible Pre-Clovis Occupation (38al23), Megan King

Masters Theses

The lithic debitage excavated from units where pre-Clovis material was found were analyzed using mass analysis as well as individual flake analysis. Statistical analyses were performed to test whether or not the assemblages associated with known occupation were similar to those associated with pre-Clovis levels. No significant difference was observed between the physical attributes of the lithic debitage found within strata associated with known prehistoric populations and the lithics found within pre-Clovis aged deposits. Two alternate explanations for these patterns exist: one which argues for the presence of a legitimate pre-Clovis occupation at the Topper Site and the other citing …

Comparative Analysis Of The Faunal Remains From British Royal Engineer And Enslaved African Occupations At Brimstone Hill Fortress, St. Kitts, West Indies, Ann Marie Ramsey

Masters Theses

During the 17^th through 19^th centuries, economic interests favoring sugarcane production and export over domestic animal husbandry, necessitated an import-based subsistence strategy in many Caribbean colonies. British military stationed on the island of St. Kitts also adopted this practice of provisioning its soldiers and the enslaved Africans who served at Brimstone Hill Fortress. Comparative analysis of the faunal materials recovered at BSH 3 Terrace 1 (Royal Engineers Officer’s quarters) and Terrace 3 (enslaved Africans’ occupation) show that military personnel and enslaved Africans alike supplemented their rations (i.e. salted fish or barreled pork or beef) with locally obtained foods …