Archaeological Anthropology Commons^™

Transatlantic Traditions: The History Of Welsh Quarrying And Its Connections To Newfoundland Slate, Alexa D. Spiwak, Johanna Cole

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Previous archaeological investigations have conclusively shown that the presence of Welshmen has co-occurred with the practice of local slate quarrying in Newfoundland since the early colonial ventures of the 17th century. The island experienced a resurgence in Welsh culture in the 19th century when a number of small slate quarries were established overlooking both the Bay of Islands on the west coast and Smith Sound in Trinity Bay. The following article outlines the history of these 19th-century Newfoundland quarries, as well as the social, political and economic factors which encouraged the migration of Welsh quarrymen across the Atlantic to remote …

Forging Identity: Learning About Craft Production And Identity Through The Analysis Of Hand-Made Nails, Linda Zuniga

Anthropology and Sociology Student Research

Nails may not seem exciting. After all, their function is self-evident: nails hold things together. On closer examination, however, nails are quite useful. They can help to determine a site’s chronology, reveal variability in commodity consumption, and reflect the economic activities that occurred in an historic village. Here, I present the analysis of nails from Stoddartsville, a 19th century milling village in northeast Pennsylvania. Different blacksmiths introduce subtle variability into the finished form of a nail, yielding differences in attributes such as nail head length, nail head thickness, and number of head facets. I used these attributes to determine the …

Not Just Playing With Toys: Enculturation And Identity In A Historic Village In Northeast Pennsylvania, Amarah Karlick

Anthropology and Sociology Student Research

The archaeology of early industrial communities can yield material evidence of the pervasive, interrelated impacts of industrialization on work and domestic life. Archaeologists and historians investigating industrial communities have increasingly pivoted from a focus on great men and firsts in technological development to the local sociocultural contexts and consequences of industrialization. Here, I use the study of toys from Stoddartsville, a milling village in northeast Pennsylvania, to examine the lived experiences of children during the mid-nineteenth century. I suggest that children learned powerful lessons about identity, especially gender, as they played with toys at Stoddartsville. These lessons cemented the social …

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 …

Sisters And Stewards: Women And Community-Building At The African Meeting House On Nantucket, Ma, Sean A. Fairweather

Graduate Masters Theses

Despite the underrepresentation of the achievements of Black women in the historical record, scholars have recognized the centrality of their participation in social institutions such as the church. This thesis uses a documentary archaeology approach to highlight the tactics employed by Black and other women of color on Nantucket Island to foster community through the Black Baptist church housed in the African Meeting House during the nineteenth century. In the free but racially marginalized neighborhood of New Guinea, the African Meeting House was one of two churches that facilitated dignity and uplift for its members. The maintenance of the church …

North Of The Grid: The Black Experience Of 17th -19th Century Rural New York City, Stephanie E. Barnes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the United States, transatlantic slavery was a racial project and template for race-making which created a country that relied on institutions that were organized and performed through social stratification. Today, the nation still operates on systemically racist institutions that have benefited whites while disadvantaging ‘others.’ The narratives presented in American history are rooted in whiteness and benefit the white community while marginalizing nonwhites. Over two hundred years of slavery history in this country has been purposely manipulated and left out. My research focuses on using an historical archaeological framework to research and share the lives of free and enslaved …

Evidence Of Lives Not Seen: The Bioarchaeology Of Material Personhood At The Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery, Catherine Rebecca Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Cadaverized individuals in nineteenth and twentieth-century America were overwhelmingly poor, indigent, institutionalized, and unidentified. Their bodies were utilized to transform medical students into professionals while they, in turn, were transformed from human to medical waste, and disposed of as such. The Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery was one such disposal site utilized from 1882-1925. Archaeological excavations at the site recovered cadaverized remains in multiple individual burial contexts. Analysis of mortuary patterns provides a richly nuanced medium through which this project examines the creation of social personhood and the formation and maintenance of community boundaries. These shared patterns, evident in burial …

Examining Segregation Between Chinese And Euroamerican Residences Using Suitability Modeling Within The Built Environment At Terrace, Utah: A Case Study, Kelly N. Jimenez

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Suitability modeling is a useful approach for exploring human interactions with their environments. Within a geographic information system (GIS) environment, locations are weighted relative to each other, resulting in a landscape hierarchy that displays regions from least to most suitable. Suitability modeling is used in various disciplines, from urban planning to natural resources, but a gap exists in research concerning social human behavior. This method can especially contribute to the investigation of social inequality at archaeological sites by considering multiple attributes within a site. In this thesis, I use method to determine social inequality between cultural groups at the historic …

Spaces Of Time: An Archaeological Perspective On The Deborah Newman Homesite, Gary L. Ellis

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis serves as an archaeological perspective of a Nipmuc family and their land at Hassanamisco, combining documentary and archival research with archaeological, environmental, and conservational methods. Hassanamisco was the third Indigenous community in New England to accept the teachings of John Eliot during the mid-17th century. In 1727, seven Nipmuc families sold portions of their land in what is today Grafton, MA to 40 English families. Deborah Newman was the granddaughter of one of the original Nipmuc proprietors from this sale of ancestral Hassanamisco land, and through her grandfather’s claim she held rights to land and monetary compensation from …

Environmental Archaeology In Recent Contexts: Migration, Scale, And Landscapes, Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Environmental archaeology is a diverse field of study focused on understanding the complexity of human ecological relationships. Environmental archaeologists use a wide range of approaches to examine human-ecosystem interactions, including zooarchaeology, paleoethnobotany, geomorphology, archaeomalacology, and geochemistry, among others. Human-environment interactions, and research in environmental archaeology, occurs at many scales, from local to global. This is particularly true for environmental archaeological research from the past few hundred years as human environmental impacts became increasingly far-reaching and global in scale. The last 500 years has been particularly significant for human-ecosystem relationships as a result of the global movement of human populations, the …

The Political Work Of Memory In Collaborative Caribbean Archaeology, Elena Sesma

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is the product of a community-based research project that sought to understand how descendants of the 19th century Millars Plantation on the southern end of Eleuthera, Bahamas continue to use and reinterpret the landscape that they have called home for over a century and a half. In 1871, the last owner of the Millars Plantation left the estate in her will to the descendants of her former slaves and servants. That descendant community still upholds their right to this land today, although in recent years, a Bahamian developer has attempted to gain title to the acreage through the …

Consuming Appalachia: An Archaeology Of Company Coal Towns, Zada Komara

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

Material culture is an understudied aspect of social life in Appalachian Studies, the multi- disciplinary investigation of social life in the Appalachian region. Historically, material culture in the region has been largely studied for its semiotic properties, decoded as a tangible symbol of “a region apart,” lagging behind the rest of America in terms of moral, mental, economic, and social development. Critical material studies from archaeology and other disciplines paint a different picture, however, and construct a region as American as any other. This study utilizes discourse analysis of material rhetoric about Appalachia and archaeological and oral historical data from …

Gender, Social Networks, And Labor Disputes: Household Archaeology At The Industrial Mine Camp, Laura Gwynne Vernon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Industrial Mine at Superior, operating from 1895 to 1945, was one of many coal mines situated within a region known as the Colorado Northern Coal fields. It is exceptional only in that it was one of the largest coal producers in the area and because it was the sole mine in the region with both a company town and company store. Through comparative analysis with the previously investigated mine camp in the southern Colorado coal fields at Berwind, this thesis examines how camp housing structured the lives of women living at the Industrial Mine, as well as how women's …

Life In Lincoln: Deciphering The Archaeological Material Culture Of A Turn Of The 20th Century Neighborhood, Amy Neumann

Anthropology Department: Theses

In June 1999, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) conducted a two-week salvage archaeology project during the early construction phase of the Kauffman Residential Center, an honors dormitory on campus. Nineteen archaeological features were discovered and fourteen were excavated from this historically residential area covering approximately one city block. The excavated archaeological materials include a large number of glass bottles, ceramics, metal artifacts, faunal remains, and personal items dating to the turn of the 20th century.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Lincoln, Nebraska experienced substantial population growth. The city thrived on manufacturing and purchasing goods allowing the economy …

A Shifting Island Landscape: Changes In Land Use And Daily Life In The 19th And 20th Century Village Of Inishark, Co. Galway, Ireland, Lauren Marie Couey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates changes to village spatial arrangement and land use patterns in the nineteenth and twentieth century village of Inishark, Co. Galway, Ireland. To understand how spatial changes within the historic village were shaped by interactions between villagers and outside groups, including landlords and government agencies, a landscape approach was utilized. An examination of historic maps, valuation documents, and Irish Census documents, combined with ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey and archaeological excavation, were used to understand how historical pressures impacted island life. Inishark's geographic isolation creates a unique case study to understand the impact of historical pressures on rural Irish …

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, …

Black-Americans In Michigan’S Copper Mining Narrative, Brendan Pelto

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis details the Phase 1 archaeological investigation into Black-Americans who were active on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan during the mining boom of the 1850s-1880s. Using archaeological and archival methods, this thesis is a proof-of-concept for future work to be done that investigates the cultural heritage of Black Americans in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

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 …

Landscape Legacies Of Sugarcane Monoculture At Betty's Hope Plantation, Antigua, West Indies, Suzanna M. Pratt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sugarcane cultivation has played a key role in the development of the Caribbean since the seventeenth century A.D. The Eastern Caribbean island of Antigua in the West Indies was almost exclusively dedicated to sugarcane monoculture from the mid-1600s until its independence from Britain in 1981. This research seeks to better understand the landscape legacies left by long-term sugarcane monoculture at the site of Betty's Hope Plantation in Antigua. This study creates a 400-year simulation of crop yields using the USDA's Erosion Productivity Impact Calculator (EPIC), and evaluates the simulated trajectory of landscape change using historical information about the plantation's agricultural …

Did Money Matter? Interpreting The Effect Of Displayed Wealth On Social Relations Within An Enslaved Community, Matthew Clark Greer

Master's Theses

Social relationships structure daily life in a startling, and important, variety of ways. However, when considering the social world that existed inside slave quarters across the Virginia Piedmont (and the Antebellum South), archaeologists have not been able to come to a clear consensus on how to approach the study of social networks; with some researchers focusing on social standing, seen most often through the role of material wealth to create connections, and others focusing on how interactions can be meaningfully interpreted from the archaeological record. This thesis represents an attempt to bridge these two theoretical stances, by looking to see …

The Decline And Fall Of The Hudson’S Bay Company Village At Fort Vancouver, Douglas Wilson

Douglas C. Wilson

Archaeological exploration of the remains of the Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Vancouver and its Village (also known as “Kanaka Village”), including its demise in the 1850s, provides the means to explore a difficult but important period in history that continues to shape modern relations between indigenous peoples and other Americans. Historical archaeology provides an independent measure of the Village, supplementing and enlarging its history, and shifting the focus to its inhabitants. Exploration of the human use of space, investment in houses, and ceramics use by households offer new insights into the fur trade community. These data provide us a means …

The Revolution Before The Revolution? A Material Culture Approach To Consumerism At George Washington’S Mount Vernon, Va, Eleanor E. Breen

Doctoral Dissertations

Before the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) profoundly impacted the lives of colonial Americans, another revolution of sorts was taking place. This one occurred in the realm of the daily lives of all colonial Americans – free and enslaved, poor and wealthy. What made the 40-year period before the American Revolution unique was that access to consumer goods appears to have opened up for larger segments of the colonial population through a more sophisticated and far-reaching system of distribution for imported items. But just how equal was this access? What can be learned about colonial culture and the maintenance of power …

Addressing An Historic Preservation Dilemma: The Future Of Nineteenth-Century Farmstead Archaeology In The Northeast, Terry H. Klein, Sherene Baugher

Northeast Historical Archaeology

This summary article identifies the goals of the volume and a framework for evaluating, interpreting, and preserving farmstead sites. The article also discusses how to apply this framework and mentions the roles of the government, academia, and the public.

De-Essentializing The Past: Deconstructing Colonial Categories In 19th-Century Ontario, Matthew A. Beaudoin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study engages with both the archaeology of colonialism and historical archaeology in a manner that brings them into direct dialogue with each other to explore how essentialized identity tropes are used to frame our conceptualizations of the past. The archaeology of colonialism and historical archaeology have been conceptually bifurcated along a colonized/colonizer dichotomy and continuously reified by the insertion of research into one category or the other. The archaeology of colonialism generally focuses on the experiences of the colonized within the colonial process, while historical archaeology focuses on the experiences of Europeans and/or people of European descent. This is …

Which Way To The Jook Joint?: Historical Archaeology Of A Polk County, Florida Turpentine Camp, Deborah Ziel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The extraction and distillation of pine sap for the naval stores industry reached its apex of production in the early decades of the twentieth century. Post-emancipation, the industry employed African American labor in the long leaf pine forests of the southeastern United States under a system of debt peonage that replaced the master-slave dynamic with a similar circumscriptive construct. Laborers rented company housing and were paid in scrip, a monetary system that limited their purchase of the basic goods of subsistence to the company commissary at inflated prices, resulting in an endless cycle of debt. Despite the oppressive circumstances of …

Introduction, David B. Landon

Northeast Historical Archaeology

A brief overview of the publications in this volume. This includes the awards for excellence in service, the winners of the student paper ocmpetition, the paper topics of the volume including use of material culture from a 19th century laborer's home, archaebiology and urban salvage archaeology in downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Award For Excellence In Service, Ann-Eliza Lewis

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Mary Beaudry was given the Award for Excellence in Service for encouraging future generations of archaeologists, her commitment and professional service to CNEHA and for her many presentations over the years.

A Bibliography Of Northeast Historical Archaeology, 1987–2006, David R. Starbuck

Northeast Historical Archaeology

A bibliography of Northeast Historical Archaeology, 1987- 2006. A list of published articles, books, master’s theses and doctoral dissertations

Editor's Introduction, David B. Langdon

Northeast Historical Archaeology

David Langdon highlights the articles present in the 40th anniversary issue of the Journal of Northeast Historical Archaeology.

“… Unto Seynte Paules”: Anglican Landscapes And Colonialism In South Carolina, Kimberly Sue Pyszka

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the role of the Anglican Church in early colonial South Carolina, using for case studies the sites of St. Paul’s Parish Church (1707) and its associated parsonage, located near Charleston, South Carolina. The combination of archaeological excavations, historical documentary research, material culture analysis, and geophysical testing allows for three broad topics to be discussed - the architecture of St. Paul’s Parish Church, the use of the landscape by the Anglican Church, and studies of early-18^th century life within a developing frontier. These topics contribute new information about colonial South Carolina on a number of scales. At …