Digital Commons Network^™

The Seal Cove Shipwreck Project: Investigating An Historical Wooden Vessel On Mount Desert Island, Maine, Franklin H. Price, Stephen Dilk, Baylus C. Brooks Jr.

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Two one-week field projects, carried out during the summers of 2011 and 2012, investigated an historical wooden shipwreck in the intertidal zone on the western side of Mount Desert Island, Maine. Salvage, tide, ice, and other environmental forces have reduced the wreck to a keel, frames, and outer hull planking. Despite this, some observations can be made from the limited surviving evidence. The vessel appears to have been heavily-built, with a full-bodied hull, and constructed in the mid to late 19th century. Its location, hull, and the wood shavings and brick chips found between its timbers suggest that it may …

A Family Affair: Whaling As Native American Household Strategy On Eastern Long Island, New York, Emily Button

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Nineteenth-century Native Americans from the northeastern United States became locally famous as mariners in the commercial whaling fleet. In the struggle to protect their small land bases and maintain their communities, going to sea became part of household practices for cultural and economic survival. From approximately 1800 through 1880, indigenous whaling families from Long Island used wages from commercial whaling to combat the limitations of land, credit, and capital that they faced on and off reservations. Whaling’s opportunities supported household formation and property accumulation among Shinnecock and Montaukett people for three generations, but whaling’s instability and risk meant that these …

Reservation Subsistence: A Comparative Paleoethnobotanical Analysis Of A Mashantucket Pequot And Euro-American Household, William A. Farley

Northeast Historical Archaeology

In southeastern Connecticut in the 19th century, many Native Americans resided on reservations in close proximity to European American communities. The Mashantucket Pequot, who lived on a government controlled reservation during this period, and their European American neighbors both utilized forestland resources in their subsistence strategies. This article explores the subsistence strategies of both groups and interprets the importance of the reservation to indigenous-identity maintenance.

“New Bottles Made With My Crest”: Colonial Bottle Seals From Eastern North America, A Gazetteer And Interpretation, Richard Veit, Paul R. Huey

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Bottle seals or crests are one of the more intriguing categories of artifacts recovered from historic archaeological sites. These small blobs of glass were applied to the necks or shoulders of bottles. They were embossed with initials, shields, and other insignia. They bear dates, as well as the initials and names of individuals and families, taverns, vineyards, schools, retailers, and military units. Archaeologists seriating blown glass bottles from colonial sites in North America have employed them as important dating tools. They have also been interpreted as status markers. This paper provides a gazetteer of bottles with seals from eastern North …

“An Earthly Tabernacle”: English Land Use And Town Planning In Seventeenth-Century Woodbridge, New Jersey, Michael J. Gall

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The archaeology of townscapes can provide important information about cultural development and the transfer of settlement systems. This close examination of 17th-century settlement in northeastern New Jersey focuses on Woodbridge Township, Middlesex County, between 1669 and 1676. The study highlights the complexity of early colonial settlement systems in East Jersey and also examines the ways in which experimentation with Old World– and New England–style corporation settlement models; strong desires for land accumulation, power, and wealth; inheritance practices; and religion influenced English townscape development within northeastern New Jersey. The aspects outlined herein likely influenced the creation of other township-corporation settlements by …

Hier Leydt Begraven: A Primer On Dutch Colonial Gravestones, Brandon Richards

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Although colonial Dutch gravestones appear in the archaeological record decades later than English gravestones, evidence suggests that New Netherland colonists and their descendants knew of and used grave markers prior to the 1664 conquest by the English. Various factors, such as development pressures, neglect, misidentification, and the likelihood that many were made of wood, have all contributed to the loss of the earliest markers. The oldest surviving colonial Dutch gravestones date between 1690 and 1720, with the most common types being the trapezoidal, tablet, and plank- and post-like forms. It is highly likely that these types are a legacy of …

Editor's Introduction, Susan Maguire

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Editor's introduction to the volume.

Geophysical Survey Of Wisconsin Burial Site Bro-0033 Wixom Cemetery, Rock County, Wisconsin, Peter N. Peregrine

Archaeological Reports

No abstract provided.

25-Archaeological Investigations Of 20ok476: A Late Eighteenth Century Native American Site On Apple Island, Oakland County, Michigan, David S. Brose

Archaeological Reports

Archaeological investigations of Apple Island in Orchard Lake, Oakland County, Michigan, were casually begun in the early decades of the 20th century when the owners of the centrally located Campbell family farm plowed up and then reinterred a Native American burial accompanied by a pewter bowl filled with white shell beads. 2000 and 2003 discontinuous shallow excavations conducted by local middle school students under the direction of Michael Stafford of the Cranbrook Institute of Science, yielded quantities of animal bone and a scattering of European trade goods. Stafford assigned these to a “Fur Trade” site but never fully reported on …

Using Satellite Image Analysis For Locating Prehistoric Archaeological Sites In Alaska's Central Brooks Range, Robert Hickey, J. Keeney

Geography Faculty Scholarship

In this pilot study, we apply satellite image analysis to archaeological site prospection in Alaska's Brooks Range. Our goal was to test whether satellite remote sensing, which has been successful in locating large archaeological features associated with sedentary peoples, could be applied to arctic interior sites associated with mobile hunter–gatherers. In particular, we strove to develop a relatively straightforward and inexpensive model using existing data which could be used to help guide archaeology surveys. Using 1-m resolution IKONOS imagery of Lake Matcharak along the upper Noatak River, we produced a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and tasseled cap transformation of …

Native Interactions And Economic Exchange: A Re-Evaluation Of Plymouth Colony Collections, Kellie J. Bowers

Graduate Masters Theses

This research furthers our understanding of colonial-Native relations by identifying and analyzing artifacts that indicate interaction between Native Americans and English settlers in Plymouth Colony archaeological collections. This project explores the nature of these interactions, exposing material culture's role in both social and economic exchanges. Selected 17th-century collections were excavated in modern Plymouth, Massachusetts, and nearby Marshfield and Kingston. My examination includes identifying materials exchanged between the Wampanoag and English settler groups in archaeological collections through scholarly literature and comparative 17th-century sites. This project draws on the documentary resources to provide contextualized insights on the relationships formed by and around …

Deep Coring, Viking Age Accumulation Rates And Household Wealth In Skagafjörður, Northern Iceland, Eric D. Johnson

Graduate Masters Theses

Discerning and explaining social and economic differences is a fundamental task of archaeology, but a fine-tuned measure of household wealth is often obfuscated by the inability to account for time or demographics in the archaeological record. This project tests the ways that Iceland, settled by Norse populations between A.D. 870 and 930, provides a temporally-sensitive mode of measuring household income through average rates of deposition of architectural material and fuel refuse while also providing a context for studying the emergence of inequality in a previously uninhabited landscape. In 2014, a deep-coring survey of 11 occupational sites was conducted in the …

Ubiquitous And Unfamiliar: Earthenware Pottery Production Techniques And The Bradford Family Pottery Of Kingston, Ma, Martha L. Sulya

Graduate Masters Theses

Redware ceramic sherds are frequently found in New England historical archaeological sites; however, detailed data has not always been published regarding excavated New England earthenware pottery production sites. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to the small body of research on New England redware production through the study of the life and ceramic production techniques of the Bradford family pottery. Their workshop operated in Kingston, Massachusetts, from the 1780s to the 1870s, a time when stoneware production and industrial scale ceramics manufacturing took hold in America. Documentary study of the Bradford family and the ceramics industry shows that …

Origins Of An Unmarked Georgia Cemetery Using Ancient Dna Analysis, Andrew T. Ozga, Raúl Y. Tito, Brian M. Kemp, Hugh Matternes, Alexandra Obregon-Tito, Leslie Neal, Cecil M. Lewis, Jr.

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

Determining the origins of those buried within undocumented cemeteries is of incredible importance to historical archaeologists and in many cases, the nearby communities. In the case of Avondale Burial Place, a cemetery in Bibb County, Georgia, in use from 1820 to 1950, all written documentation of those interred within it has been lost. Osteological and archaeological evidence alone could not describe, with confidence, the ancestral origins of the 101 individuals buried there. In the present study, we utilize ancient DNA extraction methods to investigate the origins of Avondale Burial Place through the use of well-preserved skeletal fragments from 20 individuals …

Study Of Prestige And Resource Control Using Fish Remains From Cathlapotle, A Plankhouse Village On The Lower Columbia River, J. Shoshana Rosenberg

Dissertations and Theses

Social inequality is a trademark of Northwest Coast native societies, and the relationship between social prestige and resource control, particularly resource ownership, is an important research issue on the Northwest Coast. Faunal remains are one potential but as yet underutilized path for examining this relationship. My thesis work takes on this approach through the analysis of fish remains from the Cathlapotle archaeological site (45CL1). Cathlapotle is a large Chinookan village site located on the Lower Columbia River that was extensively excavated in the 1990s. Previous work has established prestige distinctions between houses and house compartments, making it possible to examine …

Pressing: Where The Objective Meets The Subjective, Mariana Parisca

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

Through this essay I describe the theoretical and anthropological ideas that led to the creation of the Cushing Series. An interest in the obsession with photography in popular culture leads to an understanding of the permeation of structured reasoning beyond scientific research and into everyday life. Taking evidence from photography, and philosophy of science I establish the limitations of structured reasoning, both as a way of perceiving the world and as an understanding of identity, and define surface and frame as its physical representation. Using Sartre’s existential theory and phenomenological anthropology I then describe the infinite subjective existence of …

A Walk Through Time At The Boats Archaeological Site In Dighton, Massachusetts, Grace Bello

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Traditional Cultural Properties And Casita Rincón Criollo, Virginia Denise Siegel

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

According to the 1990 bulletin issued by the National Park Service, traditional cultural properties (TCPs) derive their significance from cultural practices or beliefs of living communities. This thesis centers on a case study of the nomination of Casita Rincón Criollo to the National Register of Historic Places as a TCP. The nomination is a collaborative project of Place Matters in New York City and Western Kentucky University, initiated by the American Folklore Society Working Group in Folklore and Historic Preservation Policy. Casita Rincón Criollo has several issues that make nomination to the National Register tricky. Casitas are small “houses,” typically …

Islands Of Change Vs. Islands Of Disaster: Managing Pigs And Birds In The Anthropocene Of The North Atlantic, Seth Brewington, Megan Hicks, Ágústa Edwald, Árni Einarsson, Kesara Anamthawat-Jónsson, Gordon Cook, Philippa Ascough, Kerry L. Sayle, Símun V. Arge, Mike Church, Julie Bond, Steve Dockrill, Adolf Friðriksson, George Hambrecht, Arni Daniel Juliusson, Vidar Hreinsson, Steven Hartman, Konrad Smiarowski, Ramona Harrison, Thomas Mcgovern

Publications and Research

The offshore islands of the North Atlantic were among some of the last settled places on earth, with humans reaching the Faroes and Iceland in the late Iron Age and Viking period. While older accounts emphasizing deforestation and soil erosion have presented this story of island colonization as yet another social–ecological disaster, recent archaeological and paleoenvironmental research combined with environmental history, environmental humanities, and bioscience is providing a more complex understanding of long-term human ecodynamics in these northern islands. An ongoing interdisciplinary investigation of the management of domestic pigs and wild bird populations in Faroes and Iceland is presented as …

Landscape Visibility And Prehistoric Artifact Distribution At Pea Ridge National Military Park, Jake Lee Mitchael

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pea Ridge National Military Park, in the north east corner of Benton County, Arkansas, is the 4,300 acre site of a crucial Civil War Battle. Human occupation of the Ozark Highland landscape, however, extends far into pre-history. A 2005 report to the National Park Service details the findings of a four year cultural resource survey of the park. The sampling strategy employed in the research design (random sample site selection and 2.5% park coverage) provides an excellent dataset to assess prehistoric land use. This dataset is not dependent on artificially defined sites, representing singular activity in a limited geographical space. …

Aerial Thermography In Archaeological Prospection: Applications & Processing, Autumn Chrysantha Cool

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Aerial thermography is one of the least utilized archaeological prospection methods, yet it has great potential for detecting anthropogenic anomalies. Thermal infrared radiation is absorbed and reemitted at varying rates by all objects on and within the ground depending upon their density, composition, and moisture content. If an area containing archaeological features is recorded at the moment when their thermal signatures most strongly contrast with that of the surrounding matrix, they can be visually identified in thermal images.

Research conducted in the 1960s and 1970s established a few basic rules for conducting thermal survey, but the expense associated with the …

Toolstone Use In Ozark Prehistory: Assessing Adaptations To A Lithic Dichotomy In The Boston Mountains And Springfield Plateau, Luke Allen Morris

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Toolstone use in the Ozark Mountains is a reactionary process reliant on how the landscape provides or constrains chipped stone for prehistoric populations. These technological adaptations are recognized at sites throughout the area, but no regional assessment of lithic assemblages provides answers as to why certain stones are used at a particular location. This thesis employs a five step mass analysis of lithic assemblages, and GIS visualizations to observe how the organization of stone technologies vary based on location within contrasting geologic contexts. The chert-bearing Springfield Plateau, and the Boston Mountains with siltstone, are two neighboring dichotomous landscapes that illustrate …

The Ballistics Of Archaic North American Atlatls And Darts, Devin Brent Pettigrew

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Preserved atlatls and darts, commonly of small size, have been found across North America from the Early to Late Archaic. Close replications of these systems were employed in a naturalistic experiment on a fresh hog carcass. The use of high-speed cameras, a radar gun, and a video analysis program to measure dart velocity and view impacts in slow motion allowed a detailed analysis of the results. The experiment captured several details about atlatl and dart ballistics, including killing potential, the effects of point beveling on dart flight and impact, traceable impact damage on bones and stone points, and the effectiveness …

Interpretation At The Controller's Edge: The Role Of Graphical User Interfaces In Virtual Archaeology, Tyler Duane Johnson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The important role of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) as a medium of interaction with technology is well established in the world of media design, but has not received significant attention in the field of virtual archaeology. GUIs provide interactive capabilities and contextual information for 3D content such as structure-from-motion (SFM) models, and can represent the difference between "raw data" and thoughtful, skilled scholarly publications. This project explores the implications of a GUI created with the game engine Unity 3D (Unity) for a series of SFM models recorded at a structure known as the Area B House at the ancient central …

Kentucky Mineral Spring Resorts : An Archaeological Reconnaissance Of Medical Trends And Land Use., Sara Marian Deurell

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

This project is an archaeological reconnaissance survey of 12 historic mineral spring resorts of Kentucky. The objective of this research is to assess the archaeological potential of these sites, and to provide an archaeological perspective on 19th and early 20th century Kentucky health care in relation to the use of opiates, as well as the evolution of land use in relation to preservation of features and artifacts associated with the resort hotel era. Compared to the number of sites in the state (71), very little archaeological investigation of mineral spring resorts has been conducted. The importance of these sites to …

Chipped Stone Analysis Of The Yamashita Sites In Moapa Valley, Nevada: A Technological Organization Approach, Tatianna Menocal

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Archaeological research on the lowland branch of the Virgin Branch Puebloan (VBP) has been conducted steadily throughout the 20th century. Much of this research occurred in the early half of the century with initial research conducted by Mark R. Harrington and later archaeology designed as salvage work due to public works projects, including the construction of Hoover Dam and the development of Lake Mead (Ahlstrom and Roberts 2012). The initial archaeology in the area was focused on classifying and characterizing the Puebloan occupation in the region, as the discovery of habitation sites in the area represented the farthest western extension …

How Has The Domestication Of Dogs Impacted Native North American Culture And Way Of Life?, Mikaela E. Reisman

Senior Honors Projects

Dogs, as the only domestic mammal in North America, were a part of the life and culture of the people who migrated to the Americas from Eurasia. Originally domesticated from Eurasian wolves, the uses of dogs expanded once the Native American ancestors spread throughout the continents. I investigate the kinds of dogs Native Americans bred over thousands of years and how these dogs impacted native North American culture, through a review of recent genetic, biological, archaeological, oral historical, and historical evidence and research.

Evidence of Native American use of dogs ranges from hunting, to companionship, to using their fur for …

Reassessing The Use Of Kelly’S Mobility Index In Examining Late Archaic Assemblage Variability In Southern Idaho, Shawn Elizabeth Roberts

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

During the past two decades North American archaeologists have attempted to document levels of prehistoric aboriginal mobility. Robert Kelly has developed a fourteen variable index for assessing mobility based upon the technological organization of chipped stone assemblages. Each variable has a binary outcome of high or low residential mobility reflecting Lewis Binford’s expedient versus curated technologies. Kelly’s index has been used to individually evaluate levels mobility of a number of Late Holocene age sites in southwestern Idaho. This thesis reanalyzes seven previously assessed sites as well as sixteen additional Late Holocene/Archaic open site assemblages along the Snake River in southern …

Differential Development Of Sickle Polish Due To Moisture Content Of Herbaceous Plant Material, Justin Jared Dubois

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This experiment uses four experimental sickles containing flint and novaculite blades to harvest wet, growing grass and mature, dry rye in an effort to determine the differences in the development of sickle polish and other use wear traces caused by moisture content and other plant characteristics. During harvesting, samples of harvested material averaging about two handfuls were collected. These samples were massed, dried, and massed again to determine moisture content of the plants. The sickles were each used for approximately 13 hours. Each blade was then cast using high resolution dental epoxy for microscopic inspection. An edge survey was conducted …

Bodies In Motion: A Bioarchaeological Analysis Of Migration And Identity In Bronze Age Cyprus, Anna Jean Osterholtz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The analysis of human remains from the Bronze Age on Cyprus offers insights into underlying issues of social change and identity formation. Data collected from human remains from six sites throughout the southern half of Cyprus dating to the PreBA through the ProBA (2400--1100 BC) provide insight into social cohesion and group identity during this time of constant social change. Human remains were used to provide demographic data (such as number of individuals interred together, age at death and sex), health profiles (such as incidence of childhood stress, pathologies, and trauma), and robusiticty. Specifically, these data were gathered to provide …