Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Constructing Spaces, Deconstructing Meaning: An Examination Of Architecture And Labor At A 17th-Century New Mexican Ranch, Katherine A. Albert

Graduate Masters Theses

There are few archaeological studies of the architecture of 17th-century New Mexican ranches (estancias) due to the paucity of surviving examples. Even fewer archaeological treatments of architecture from 17th-century New Mexico consider the cost of constructing estancias in terms of resource and labor extraction. Using a variety of methods to analyze archaeological evidence from LA 20,000, as well as comparative research of reports from other 17th-century colonial sites, this study presents a hypothetical reconstruction of the three main structures at LA 20,000—the house, the barn, and the corral—and provides estimates of the total quantity of materials and labor needed to …

More Than Just A School: Medicinal Practices At The Abiel Smith School, Dania D. Jordan

Graduate Masters Theses

The Abiel Smith School, located on the North Slope of Beacon Hill in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the oldest Black schools in the United States in one of the oldest free Black communities. The Abiel Smith School was constructed between 1834 and 1835 as a means to resist racial discrimination in the public school system. The Smith School is central to Beacon Hill’s Black history because it helped Black Bostonians advance in society and mitigate against the effects of racism through education. However, the Smith School may have served a dual role in the Black community. Medicinal bottles excavated …

Small Towns And Mining Camps: An Analysis Of Chinese Diasporic Communities In 19th-Century Oregon, Jocelyn Lee

Graduate Masters Theses

Chinese Diaspora archaeology has focused historically on urban contexts or in-depth case studies, with minimal comparative studies. To expand such research, this thesis is a multisited analysis in Oregon using archaeological assemblages from the Jacksonville Chinese Quarter and four remote Chinese mining camps, museum material collection from a Chinese store in John Day, and store ledgers written in Chinese and English dating to the late-19th century. By situating the research in the framework of race, this thesis seeks to understand the ways that race and racialization impacted market access and affected consumption choices for Chinese immigrants in different classes. Chinese …

Form, Function, And Context: Lithic Analysis Of Flaked Stone Artifacts At A 17th-Century Rural Spanish Estancia (La 20,000), Santa Fe County, New Mexico, Clint S. Lindsay

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines the flaked stone artifact assemblage recovered from LA 20,000, a 17th-century (ca. 1630-1680 AD) rural Spanish colonial estancia located near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Settlements like LA 20,000 were important locations of cultural interaction between Spanish colonists and local Indigenous peoples who often worked and lived together in multi-cultural households. By analyzing the procurement, production, and use of flaked stone artifacts to identify choices and activities performed at the site by the people who lived and labored there this study helps to fill gaps in the knowledge and understanding of 17th-century flaked stone artifact production and use …

“We May Have Profitable Commerce And Trade Together”: An Analysis Of 17th-Century Ceramics In Plymouth Colony, Elizabeth G. Tarulis

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis analyzes the formation of early English colonial trade networks through an examination of three Plymouth Colony sites. This research compares the 17th-century ceramics from Burial Hill (a recently discovered section of the core of the initial settlement, 1620-c. 1660) to two homesteads established later by Plymouth colonists, the Alden First Home Site (c. 1627- c. 1697) and the Allerton/Prence/Cushman Site (1631-c. 1691). A minimum number of vessels was established for each site and the country of origin was established for each vessel to determine the origin of consumer goods, specifically ceramics, in Plymouth Colony. These vessels were then …

Useful Materials: Pxrf Analysis Of 17th-Century Flat Glass From Plymouth Colony, Grace E. Bello

Graduate Masters Theses

This master’s thesis uses a portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) spectrometer to date and identify flat green glass fragments from English colonial sites in New England. Three sites from the 17th-century Plymouth Colony produced flat glass tested in this thesis. These sites include the Burial Hill site (164 samples), the Alden site (764 samples), and the Standish site (21 samples). Based on the pXRF testing conducted, it was determined that 17th-century flat glass samples can be identified and dated using elemental and physical characteristics. Green window glass produced between 1567 and 1700 can be identified by the presence of a relative …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

A View From Within: Notes And Insight From An Institutional Ethnography Of The National Commission For Natural Protected Areas In Tulum, Mexico, Maxwell J. Martin

Graduate Masters Theses

National parks and protected areas are an integral component of the Mexican government’s long-term natural resource conservation strategy. They comprise over 90 million hectares throughout the country. However, the establishment and upkeep of these protected areas often incites conflict both between and among local actors. From poachers taking protected resources to indigenous peoples exercising their rights, protected areas have become a source of political, economic, and moral contention across the globe. In addition, their effectiveness in either ecological or sustainable development terms has been ambiguous at best.

Tulum, Mexico exemplifies this dilemma. The site of pre-Columbian Mayan architecture, Tulum is …

Tools Of Teaching: Metal At Magunkaquog, Nadia E. Waski

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis provides the results of a comprehensive analysis of the metal artifact assemblage from Magunkaquog, a mid-17th- to early-18th-century “Praying Indian” community located in present-day Ashland, Massachusetts. Magunkaquog was the seventh of fourteen “Praying Indian” settlements Puritan missionary John Eliot helped in gathering between the years of 1651-1674 as part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s attempts to convert local Native American populations to Christianity. Originally the site was discovered during a cultural resource management survey conducted by the Public Archaeological Lab (PAL), and further investigated by the Fiske Center for Archaeological Research (then known as the Center for Cultural …

An Analysis Of Form And Function Of Ceramic Rim Sherds From La 20,000, A 17th Century Estancia Outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, Caitlin M. Connick

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines a sample of ceramic sherds from LA 20,000 to determine the functional uses of the locally made ceramics and their relationship to food preparation, consumption, and identity. LA 20,000, the Sanchez site, is a Spanish colonial estancia, or ranching headquarters, located in La Cienega, New Mexico, roughly 12 miles southwest of Santa Fe and was occupied during the seventeenth century before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. It is important to understand Pueblo, or native made, ceramics because all ceramic assemblages recovered from 17th-century Spanish sites in New Mexico consist of a majority of native made ceramics. I …

Palynological Investigations Of Agropastoralism And Ecological Change At La 20,000, New Mexico, Anya Gruber

Graduate Masters Theses

How did Spanish colonialism alter the landscape of north-central New Mexico? Agropastoral practices imported by Spanish colonists made indelible impacts on an anthropogenic landscape already shaped by hundreds of years of Pueblo agriculture. However, the precise nature of these changes is poorly understood. This project uses two sets of archaeological pollen data from LA 20,000, a Spanish rancho in New Mexico, to demonstrate how 17th century agriculture and animal husbandry made geographically specific, multifaceted changes to the environment. First, patterns analyzed from a pollen column illuminates fluctuations in plant communities over time, indicating localized ecological shifts. Second, sediments collected from …

“The True Spirit Of Service": Ceramics And Toys As Tools Of Ideology At The Dorchester Industrial School For Girls, Sarah N. Johnson

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines the ceramics, both full-scale and toy, and dolls recovered from the Industrial School for Girls (1859-1941) in Dorchester, MA, in order to assess the ways in which the Managers who ran the School used material culture to enculturate the girls, as well as how the girls used material culture to shape their own identities. This site provides a unique opportunity to study the archaeology of a single-gender, and predominately single-class and single-age. The Industrial School for Girls, as an institution whose aim was to better the lives of poor girls and give them economic opportunities, as well …

Household Activities And Areas: A Reanalysis Of The John And Priscilla Alden First Home Site, Caroline Gardiner

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis seeks to further understanding of early colonial life within New England through an examination of the John and Priscilla Alden First Home site in Duxbury, MA, excavated in 1960 by Roland Robbins. It specifically focuses on the composition and spatial distribution of the ceramic assemblage to discuss household activities and the spaces in which they were performed. The findings of the ceramic analysis detail a collection composed primarily of utilitarian vessels that indicate multiple subsistence farming activities including dairying. The spatial study reveals the significant patterning of these artifacts. It is proposed that these denote specific activity areas …

Identity Behind Glass: The Second Gore Place Greenhouse, Sean P. Romo

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines the second greenhouse at Gore Place, a historic country estate in Waltham, Massachusetts. Gore Place was owned by and named for Christopher and Rebecca Gore, members of the 18th- and 19th-century political and economic elite in New England. The greenhouse was constructed in 1806, and excavation at the site took place in 2004, 2008, and 2012. The latter two projects were data recovery excavations, which exposed portions of the greenhouse’s foundations and interior, as well as several features in the yard surrounding the building. Historic greenhouses were prestigious structures, financially accessible only to institutions, governments, and the …

Seeing The Forest And The Trees: Tracing Fuel Use And Landscape Change On The Eastern Pequot Reservation 1740-1850, Kalila Herring

Graduate Masters Theses

Gathering fuel wood was a regular chore for most people throughout time and certainly was a part of life for people living in 18th- and 19th-century Connecticut. During this period, the landscape was being altered due to rapidly expanding agriculture and, by circa 1850, would be at the peak of deforestation. During this period, the Eastern Pequot, a Native American nation in North Stonington, were living on their reservation (established in 1683) in a colonial environment and dealing with timber theft, a reduced land base, overseer control, and the overall environmental changes occurring in Connecticut. This thesis examines the charred …

Smoking As A Form Of Persistence In A Christian Nipmuc Community, Jessica Ann Rymer

Graduate Masters Theses

The goal of this thesis is to determine the role that smoking played in the gatherings taking place at the Sarah Burnee/Sarah Boston farmstead and what its presence meant for the Nipmuc who gathered there. Previous work has firmly established that the farmstead functioned as a site of communal feasting for the Hassanamesco Nipmuc using ceramic and faunal evidence, and Heather Law in her 2008 thesis suggested that the site may have operated as an “informal tavern” based on her analysis of the glass assemblage. In all of these studies clay tobacco pipe fragments were utilized for stem bore diameter …

Ceramic Consumption In A Boston Immigrant Tenement, Andrew J. Webster

Graduate Masters Theses

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Boston’s North End became home to thousands of European immigrants, mostly from Ireland and Italy. The majority of these immigrant families lived in crowded tenement apartments and earned their wages from low-paying jobs such as manual laborers or store clerks. The Ebenezer Clough House at 21 Unity Street was originally built as a single-family colonial home in the early eighteenth century but was later repurposed as a tenement in the nineteenth century. In 2013, the City of Boston Archaeology Program excavated the rear lot of the Clough House, recovering 36,465 artifacts, including …

'Improvement The Order Of The Age': Historic Advertising, Consumer Choice, And Identity In 19th Century Roxbury, Massachusetts, Janice A. Nosal

Graduate Masters Theses

During the mid-to-late 19th century, Roxbury, Massachusetts experienced a dramatic change from a rural farming area to a vibrant, working-class, and predominantly-immigrant urban community. This new demographic bloomed during America’s industrial age, a time in which hundreds of new mass-produced goods flooded consumer markets. This thesis explores the relationship between working-class consumption patterns and historic advertising in 19th-century Roxbury, Massachusetts. It assesses the significance of advertising within households and the community by comparing advertisements from the Roxbury Gazette and South End Advertiser with archaeological material from the Tremont Street and Elmwood Court Housing sites, excavated in the late 1970s, to …

Chase Home For Children: Childhood In Progressive New England, Katherine M. Evans

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis aims to further the study of childhood in archaeology through the examination of a children’s aid institution in Progressive New England. Specifically, this research explores how the Progressive and Victorian aims of Chase Home for Children, as expressed in primary sources, are manifested in the material culture. Chase Home participated in the larger Progressive movement in its mission to train children “in the practical duties, to encourage habits of honesty, truthfulness, purity and industry, to prepare them to take their position in life as useful members of society” (Children’s Home Pamphlet 1878). An analysis of small finds from …

From Horse To Electric Power At The Metropolitan Railroad Company Site: Archaeology And The Narrative Of Technological Change, Miles Shugar

Graduate Masters Theses

The Metropolitan Railroad Company Site in Roxbury (Boston), Massachusetts, was first excavated in the late 1970s by staff of the Museum of Afro American History. Researchers recovered nearly 20,000 artifacts related to the site's life as a horsecar street railway station and carriage manufacturer from 1860 to 1891, its subsequent conversion into an electric street railway until around 1920, and finally its modern use as an automobile garage. Using the framework of behavioral archaeology, this project uses GIS-based spatial methods and newly collected documentary evidence to reexamine the site's assemblage of horse accoutrements and carriage manufacturing byproducts. Artifact distribution maps …

Disturbed But Not Destroyed: New Perspectives On Urban Archaeology And Class In 19th Century Lowell, Massachusetts, Katelyn M. Coughlan

Graduate Masters Theses

Through the artifacts from the Jackson Appleton Middlesex Urban Revitalization and Devolvement Project (hereafter JAM) located in Lowell, MA, this research explores social class in nineteenth-century boardinghouses. This thesis is a two-part study. First, through statistical analysis, research recovers interpretable data from urban archaeological contexts subject to disturbance. Pinpointing intra-site similarities between artifacts recovered from intact and disturbed contexts, data show that artifacts recovered from disturbed and intact contexts in urban environments are not as dissimilar as previously believed. In the second phase using both intact and disturbed JAM contexts, the analysis of four boardinghouse features highlights two distinct patterns …

Altered Lives, Altered Environments: Creating Home At Manzanar Relocation Center, 1942-1945, Laura W. Ng

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis seeks to understand how individuals exiled from their homes due to racial prejudice cope with institutional confinement. Specifically, this study focuses on the World War II mass incarceration of individuals of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast of the United States after Japan's attack on the American naval base Pearl Harbor. Under the guise of national security and without due process, the United States government forcibly removed over 110,000 Japanese Americans from their homes and imprisoned them in camps spread throughout the country. This thesis examines institutional confinement at one Japanese American carceral site: an incarceration camp …

Final Rest At The Hilltop Sanctuary: The Community Of Mount Gilead Ame Church, Meagan M. Ratini

Graduate Masters Theses

The Mount Gilead AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church, perched on a mountain in Buckingham, Pennsylvania, has been a focal point of African American heritage in the area for over a hundred and seventy-five years. Though the second church building, dated to 1852, is still standing with its cemetery beside it, very little about its history has been thoroughly explored. Oral histories link the church with the Underground Railroad, a highly clandestine operation--yet the church itself was built of stone and advertised its location during the height of the movement of self-emancipated people out of the South. While it is said …

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 …

Understanding Slave Subsistence In The Context Of Changing Agricultural Practices: Paleoethnobotany At Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest, Samantha J. Henderson

Graduate Masters Theses

During the 18th and 19th centuries, enslaved people at Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest utilized provisioned, gardened, and wild plants from local environments surrounding their homes to provide for their own subsistence. The Wingo's quarter was home to a number of these enslaved individuals at the end of the 18th century. Using macrobotanical data, I describe the subsistence strategies of the people living at this quarter, showing how enslaved Africans and African Americans at Wingo's utilized different sources of food to shape their foodways. Additionally, edible and inedible botanical remains provide a picture of the local environment around Wingo's within which …