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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Feasting On Broken Glass: Making A Meal Of Seeds, Bones, And Sherds, Mary C. Beaudry
Feasting On Broken Glass: Making A Meal Of Seeds, Bones, And Sherds, Mary C. Beaudry
Northeast Historical Archaeology
Drawing on various lines of evidence that provide insight into late 18th- and early 19th-century episodes of dining at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, Massachusetts, I explore ways in which historical archaeologists can move from discussions of food and foodstuffs to explore menus, meals, and dining. I argue that by drawing together many lines of evidence—food remains such as bones, seeds, and shells; documentary sources; and ceramics, glassware, and utensils—archaeologists are able to “feast” upon the evidence and to go beyond merely reporting on what people ate in the past. They do so by exploring ways of interpreting food on …
Modeling Communities Through Food: Connecting The Daily Meal To The Construction Of Place And Identity, Karen Bescherer Metheny
Modeling Communities Through Food: Connecting The Daily Meal To The Construction Of Place And Identity, Karen Bescherer Metheny
Northeast Historical Archaeology
Foodways are an aspect of community building that find expression in the physical and cultural landscape. Using family reconstitution, food maps, and other archaeological and anthropological approaches to study foodways and commensality in the mining town of Helvetia, Pennsylvania (ca. 1891–1947), I lay out a program to reconstruct the spatial relationships associated with food procurement, preparation, and consumption in historic-period communities. Particular emphasis is placed on food sharing and shared food activities in the context of the daily meal. These reconstructed relationships or food connections reflect the varied networks and boundaries within the community, based on ethnicity, gender, age, sex, …
Applying Concepts From Historical Archaeology To New England's Nineteenth-Century Cookbooks, Anne Yentsch
Applying Concepts From Historical Archaeology To New England's Nineteenth-Century Cookbooks, Anne Yentsch
Northeast Historical Archaeology
This article describes a study of New England cookbooks as a data source for historical archaeologists. The database for this research consisted of single-authored, first-edition cookbooks written by New England women between 1800 and 1900, together with a small set of community cookbooks and newspaper advertisements. The study was based on the belief that recipes are equivalent to artifact assemblages and can be analyzed using the archaeological methods of seriation, presence/absence, and chaîne opératoire. The goal was to see whether change through time could be traced within a region, and why change occurred; whether it was an archetypal shift in …
Decline In The Use And Production Of Red-Earthenware Cooking Vessels In The Northeast, 1780-1880, Meta F. Janowitz
Decline In The Use And Production Of Red-Earthenware Cooking Vessels In The Northeast, 1780-1880, Meta F. Janowitz
Northeast Historical Archaeology
Ceramic collections from archaeological sites dating to and before the early 19th century are often dominated by red-earthenware vessels used in the foodways complex. By the late 19th century, redware vessels are much less common in New England and the Middle Atlantic region. This decline in the use and production of red earthenwares has many causes, including decreased costs of alternative materials (stoneware, refined earthenware, metal, and glass) and an awareness of the harmful effects of lead glazes, but the most important factor is the change in food-preparation technology from open-hearth to stove cooking.
Op-Ed: The Influence Of New Technologies, Foods, And Print Media On Local Material Culture Remains In Nineteenth-Century America, Marie-Lorraine Pipes, Meta F. Janowitz
Op-Ed: The Influence Of New Technologies, Foods, And Print Media On Local Material Culture Remains In Nineteenth-Century America, Marie-Lorraine Pipes, Meta F. Janowitz
Northeast Historical Archaeology
This opinion piece is a brief discussion of documentary and graphic sources, such as cookbooks, works of fiction, advertisements, and genre paintings, available to archaeologists for use in interpreting food-related artifacts and faunal materials from 19th-century domestic deposits. At that time American society experienced a surge in print and visual media that shaped the consumption and preparation of new foods. The scale of influence a particular form of media has on consumers varies in relation to the time sensitivity of the media.This article considers the range of sources that exist and suggest a comprehensive approach to the analysis of archaeological …
Consumerism And Control: Archaeological Perspectives On The Harvard College Buttery, Christina J. Hodge
Consumerism And Control: Archaeological Perspectives On The Harvard College Buttery, Christina J. Hodge
Northeast Historical Archaeology
Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, offers a unique setting through which to explore cultural changes within 17th- and 18th-century America, including shifting foodways and consumerisms. Harvard’s early leaders constructed their collegiate community by controlling many aspects of scholars’ lives, including their eating, drinking, and purchasing practices. Between 1650 and 1800, the college operated the “Buttery,” a commissary where students supplemented meager institutional meals by purchasing snacks and sundries. As a marketplace, the buttery organized material practices of buying and selling as people and things flowed through it. Archaeological and documentary evidence reveals how college officials attempted to regulate, but lagged …
Historic Philadelphia Foodways: A Consideration Of Catfish Cookery, Teagan Schweitzer
Historic Philadelphia Foodways: A Consideration Of Catfish Cookery, Teagan Schweitzer
Northeast Historical Archaeology
This article explores the consumption of catfish in the Philadelphia area during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Although not extremley popular in the region today, in the past this fish was an important part of the culinary landscape, in particular as part of a meal referred to as "catfish and waffles." Evidence from zooarchaeological and documentary research is used to justify this claim.
Dining With John And Catharine Butler Before The Close Of The Eighteenth Century, Eva Macdonald, Suzanne Needs-Howarth
Dining With John And Catharine Butler Before The Close Of The Eighteenth Century, Eva Macdonald, Suzanne Needs-Howarth
Northeast Historical Archaeology
The partial excavation of the homestead of Colonel John Butler in the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake has afforded the opportunity to explore the daily activities of one Loyalist family after the establishment of the British colony of Upper Canada in the 1780s. In particular, the large collection of zooarchaeological material (over 14,5000 specimens) can provide information about the availability of wild animal species, as well as the types of domestic animals that the Butlers kept on their farm. Butchering marks provide further insight into the types of meat cuts used in cooking meals for the family and guests. These are compared …
The Power Of Choice: Reflections Of Economic Ability, Status, And Ethnicity In The Foodways Of A Free African American Family In Northwestern New Jersey, Megan E. Springate, Amy Raes
The Power Of Choice: Reflections Of Economic Ability, Status, And Ethnicity In The Foodways Of A Free African American Family In Northwestern New Jersey, Megan E. Springate, Amy Raes
Northeast Historical Archaeology
The choices people make concerning food involve decisions well beyond biological sustenance. Food procurement and consumption, as well as the way in which a dish is served, are choices that are embedded with both overt and less obvious implications of social aspirations and validations (McKee 1999; Reitz, Ruff, and Zierden 2006). Food and the means by which it is prepared and consumed embody and communicate cultural traditions, as well as factors such as social identity, ethnicity, status, class, and consumer choice. In this article, we examine the faunal remains, tablewares, and food-preparation vessels recovered during excavations within a free African …
Introduction: Bringing More To The Table, Karen Bescherer Metheny
Introduction: Bringing More To The Table, Karen Bescherer Metheny
Northeast Historical Archaeology
Introduction to the special volume on foodways.
Aerial Archaeology At The Moland House: Balloon-Elevated Videography In Search Of Colonial Period Structures, Richard E. Gambler Iii, Andrew Notarfranceso, P. J. Capelotti
Aerial Archaeology At The Moland House: Balloon-Elevated Videography In Search Of Colonial Period Structures, Richard E. Gambler Iii, Andrew Notarfranceso, P. J. Capelotti
Northeast Historical Archaeology
Archaeological excavations have taken place for more than twenty years at the Colonial Period Moland House site in Hartsville, PA (36BU301). These have unearthed thousands of artifacts, and numerous buried features, that support historical accounts pertaining to the site. In the summer of 2009, field school students from Penn State University Abington College deployed a balloon-elevated digital video system to gather remote imagery of the site at altitudes from 10-100’ above the ground. The resulting images gathered by the aerial videography suggest a variety of potential additional buried structures on the site. These data will guide future excavations aimed at …
A Dendroarchaeological Study Of Wood From Fort Lennox National Historic Site, Île-Aux-Noix, Québec, Emilie Young-Vigneault, Louis Filion, Allison Bain
A Dendroarchaeological Study Of Wood From Fort Lennox National Historic Site, Île-Aux-Noix, Québec, Emilie Young-Vigneault, Louis Filion, Allison Bain
Northeast Historical Archaeology
Samples of wood excavated from the Fort Lennox National Historic Site, on Île-aux-Noix in the Upper Richelieu River, were entrusted to Université Laval by Parks Canada for tree-ring analysis in 2004. These samples consisted primarily of coniferous species, namely 29 samples of white cedar (Thuja occidentals), 18 of white pine (Pinus strobus), and a single sample of hemlock (Tsuga canadensis). Tree-ring and historical data suggest an alternative explanation for the use of this wood than that originally proposed by archaeologists. The wood originally was thought to have been part of a late 18th-century structure that was torn down, and the …
A Battle Of Remembrance: Memorialization And Heritage At The Newtown Battlefield, New York, Brant Venables
A Battle Of Remembrance: Memorialization And Heritage At The Newtown Battlefield, New York, Brant Venables
Northeast Historical Archaeology
On 29 August 1779, Loyalist soldiers and Native American warriors fought against overwhelming numbers of invading Continental forces in the Battle of Newtown. After Newtown, the Continental forces destroyed 40 Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) towns. In 1879, Newtown Battlefield, near present-day Elmira, New York, was transformed into a heritage landscape memorializing the victors and the early expansion of the United States. To analyze the changing rituals of memorialization from 1879 to 2012, I examined monuments, interpretive signage, and primary-source documents, such as speech transcripts and newspaper accounts. I concluded that the rituals of memorialization at Newtown reflected the U.S. national attitudes and …
Stable-Isotope Bone Chemistry And Human/Animal Interactions In Historical Archaeology, Eric J. Guiry, Stéphane Noël, Eric Tourigny
Stable-Isotope Bone Chemistry And Human/Animal Interactions In Historical Archaeology, Eric J. Guiry, Stéphane Noël, Eric Tourigny
Northeast Historical Archaeology
Stable isotope–based paleodietary work is ideally suited for answering questions about a wide variety of human/animal relationships in historical archaeological contexts in northeastern North America and farther afield. To date, very few published studies have approached historical animal husbandry and trade from an isotopic perspective. We advocate for increased attention to the possibilities of stable-isotope work by (1) explaining why the technique is well suited to address some problems of human/animal relations encountered by historical archaeologists, (2) presenting a literature review of previous stable-isotope work on human/ animal interaction in historical North America, and (3) offering a short case study …
It's Elemental! A Case Study In The Use Of Multi-Element Geochemical Analysis As An Aid In Locating Cultural Features At The Foundation Site, Michael J. Gall
It's Elemental! A Case Study In The Use Of Multi-Element Geochemical Analysis As An Aid In Locating Cultural Features At The Foundation Site, Michael J. Gall
Northeast Historical Archaeology
Analysis of soil pH and anthropogenic multi-element chemical residue distribution patterns has proved a valuable prospecting method for locating areas of concentrated human and/or domesticated-animal activity within archaeological sites. The application, analysis, and results of a geochemical study at the Foundation site (28MO352), a significant ca. 1733 to 1790s farmstead site in Manalapan Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey, is presented as a case study. Multi-element geochemical analysis using Mehlich-3 and ICP-AES was employed as a critical, cost-efficient method to aid in targeting areas for intensive excavation. The method enabled the identification of numerous activity areas and buried cultural features, assisted …
Dates For Suction Scarred Bottoms: A Chronology For Early Owens Machine-Made Bottles, George L. Miller, Tony Mcnichol
Dates For Suction Scarred Bottoms: A Chronology For Early Owens Machine-Made Bottles, George L. Miller, Tony Mcnichol
Northeast Historical Archaeology
For much of the 20th century the Owens automatic bottle-blowing machines were used to produce glass containers around the world. This machine and others revolutionized glass production and led to the end of hand production of commercial glass containers. Bottles produced on the Owens machines have distinct suction scars on their bases that make them easy to identify. Because of the way the rights to the Owens machines were licensed, these licenses have a great potential to establish the dates when the production of major categories of glass containers on the Owens bottle-blowing machine began. The first lease for the …
A Plantation Transplanted: Archaeological Investigations Of A Piedmont-Style Slave Quarter At Rose Hill, Geneva, New York, James A. Delle, Kristen R. Fellows
A Plantation Transplanted: Archaeological Investigations Of A Piedmont-Style Slave Quarter At Rose Hill, Geneva, New York, James A. Delle, Kristen R. Fellows
Northeast Historical Archaeology
Although a relatively short-lived phenomenon, plantation slavery was established in the Finger Lakes region of New York State by immigrant planters from Maryland and Virginia. Excavations at the Rose Hill site, Geneva, NY have located two quarter sites associated with these early 19th-century plantations, including the standing Jean Nicholas house on property once part of the White Springs Farm, the other a subsurface, though largely intact, stone foundation of a similar building at Rose Hill. Analysis of the refined earthenwares recovered from the plowzone at the Rose Hill quarter indicate that the structure was first occupied in the early 19th …
Venison Trade And Interaction Between English Colonists And Native Americans In Virginia's Potomac River Valley, D. Brad Hatch
Venison Trade And Interaction Between English Colonists And Native Americans In Virginia's Potomac River Valley, D. Brad Hatch
Northeast Historical Archaeology
Trade played a crucial role in the relationships that formed between European colonists and Native Americans during the early colonial period. In the 17th-century Potomac River valley the interactions between Native Americans and Europeans laid the foundations for the emergence of a truly creolized society. Much of the research on these relationships has focused on Maryland contexts and post-1660 contexts on Virginia’s Northern Neck. This paper examines the influence of Native Americans on the early settlement of Virginia’s Potomac Valley using the Hallowes site (44MW6) as an example. Skeletal-portion and age-distribution analyses of the deer remains at the site and …
The Seventeenth Century Brewhouse And Bakery At Ferryland, Newfoundland, Arthur R. Clausnitzer Jr., Barry C. Gaulton
The Seventeenth Century Brewhouse And Bakery At Ferryland, Newfoundland, Arthur R. Clausnitzer Jr., Barry C. Gaulton
Northeast Historical Archaeology
In 2001 archaeologists working at the 17th-century English settlement at Ferryland, Newfoundland, uncovered evidence of an early structure beneath a mid-to-late century gentry dwelling. A preliminary analysis of the architectural features and material culture from related deposits tentatively identified the structure as a brewhouse and bakery, likely the same “brewhouse room” mentioned in a 1622 letter from the colony. Further analysis of this material in 2010 confirmed the identification and dating of this structure. Comparison of the Ferryland brewhouse to data from both documentary and archaeological sources revealed some unusual features. When analyzed within the context of the original Calvert …
Editor's Introduction, Susan E. Maguire
Editor's Introduction, Susan E. Maguire
Northeast Historical Archaeology
Editor's introduction to the volume.
Notes On Historical Archaeology, Iain C. Walker
Notes On Historical Archaeology, Iain C. Walker
Northeast Historical Archaeology
No abstract is available at this time.
A Sword From The Taunton River, E. Andrew Mowbray
A Sword From The Taunton River, E. Andrew Mowbray
Northeast Historical Archaeology
No abstract is available at this time.
1971 Spring Symposium Speakers Directory
1971 Spring Symposium Speakers Directory
Northeast Historical Archaeology
Directory of speakers at the 1971 spring symposium held at Bear Mountain State Park, New York.
Archaeology And The Public: Out Of The Ivory Tower And Into The Streets, David A. Armour
Archaeology And The Public: Out Of The Ivory Tower And Into The Streets, David A. Armour
Northeast Historical Archaeology
No abstract is available at this time.
Digging Up An Archaeologist, Gordon C. De Angelo
Digging Up An Archaeologist, Gordon C. De Angelo
Northeast Historical Archaeology
No abstract is available at this time.
Major Contributions In Historical Archaeology, Gilbert Hagerty
Major Contributions In Historical Archaeology, Gilbert Hagerty
Northeast Historical Archaeology
No abstract is available at this time.
Spreading The Word: Some Ideas On Publication And Education, Edward S. Rutsch
Spreading The Word: Some Ideas On Publication And Education, Edward S. Rutsch
Northeast Historical Archaeology
No abstract is available at this time.
1971 Spring Symposium Field Trip
1971 Spring Symposium Field Trip
Northeast Historical Archaeology
A photo survey of the 1971 spring symposium field trip to the Revolutionary War defenses on Constitution Island, New York.
Site Layout And Recording, Edward F. Heite
Site Layout And Recording, Edward F. Heite
Northeast Historical Archaeology
No abstract is available at this time.
Archaeological Field Techniques And Problems, John H. Mead
Archaeological Field Techniques And Problems, John H. Mead
Northeast Historical Archaeology
No abstract is available at this time.