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Historical Skeletal Remains From Dundas County, Ontario: A Cautionary Tale Concerning Individual Identification, Lynda Wood, Janet Young

Northeast Historical Archaeology

A single burial dating to the historic period was unexpectedly discovered on a farm in rural Dundas County, Ontario. Based on a preliminary investigation, the remains were believed to be those of Margaret Ellen Bellway, an 8-year-old girl who lived on the property and who died in the year 1881. The objectives of this article are to demonstrate that establishing individual identification of historical remains is possible, to demonstrate the importance of exploring all relevant avenues of research prior to finalizing individual identification, and to demonstrate the means by which this is done. Skeletal analysis of the remains indicated a …

Worked Ballast Flint At Aptucxet, Barbara E. Luedtke

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The gunflint industry of western Europe represents an extraordinary revival of the art of flint-knapping, which had largely disappeared from the technological repertoire of the region after the Neolithic. During the classic period of flintlock weapons in the 19th and 19th centuries, gunflint production appears to have been performed primarily by specialists. Demand for gunflints began in the 17th century, however, especially in North America, and was sometimes met by the "do it yourself" efforts of non-specialists. An assemblage recently excavated in Bourne, Massachusetts provides an opportuntiy to study such efforts.

"In Delaware The Millennium Has Begun": 19th-Century Farmstead Archaeology And The Methodist Discipline, Michael D. Scholl

Northeast Historical Archaeology

By the beginning of the 19th century the Methodist movement had gained so many converts in the state of Delaware that Francis Asbury had likened it to the coming of the New Millenium. The growth of Methodism I the state was a powerful social force in rural 19th-century Delaware. Guidlines and behavioral rules were published annually in a series entitled the Discipline. The Methodist Discipline provides a contextual backdrop for understanding 19th-century farming families. This case study examines the Methodist farmer George W. Buchanan and his family who in the mid-part of the century established a farmstead in southern New …

Comments On: "I Know It's Only Rock 'N' Roll But They Like It!" By Stefan Bielinski, Carol Mcdavid

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The author comments on I Know It's Only Rock 'n' Roll But They Like It! Community History, Popular Music, and Public Audiences by Stefan Bielinski.

Is It Just Rock 'N' Roll? A Comment On Stefan Bielinski's Community History, Popular Music, And Public Audiences, James G. Gibb

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The author comments on I Know It's Only Rock 'n' Roll But They Like It! Community History, Popular Music, and Public Audiences by Stefan Bielinski.

I Know It's Only Rock 'N' Roll But They Like It! A Community History, Popular Music, And Public Audiences, Stefan Bielinski

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The author discusses community history, popular music, and public audiences using a multidisciplinary approach. These themes are discussed with an example from the Colonial Albany Social History Project.

Editor's Introduction, Mary C. Beaudry

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Editor's introduction to the volume.

Book Review: Hidden Lives: The Archaeology Of Slave Life At Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest, By Barbara J. Heath, Larry Mckee

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Book Review: Hidden Lives: The Archaeology of Slave Life at Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest, by Barbara J. Heath, 1999, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville. 81 pages, illus., $12.50 (paper).

Book Review: Race And Affluence: An Archaeology Of African America And Consumer Culture (Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology) By Paul R. Mullins, Maria Franklin

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Book Review: Race and Affluence: An Archaeology of African America and Consumer Culture (Contributions to Global historical Archaeology) by Paul R. Mullins, 1999, Kluwer/Plenum Academic Publishers, New York. 217 pages, $59.95 (cloth).

Book Review: Cultural Resource Laws And Practices: An Introductory Guide By Thomas F. King, James Symonds

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Book Review: Cultural Resource Laws and Practices: An Introductory Guide by Thomas F. King, 1998, Altamira Press, Walnut Creek, CA. 303 pages, 9 figures, $46.00 (cloth); $22.95 (paper).

Book Review: Historical Archaeologies Of Capitalism, Edited By Mark P. Leone And Parker B. Potter, Jr., Louann Wurst

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Book Review: Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism, edited by Mark P. Leone and Parker B. Potter, Jr., 1999, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 262 pages, illus., $85.00 (hardcover).

Book Review: An Archaeology Of Manners: The Polite World Of The Merchant Elite Of Colonial Massachusetts, By Lorinda B. R. Goodwin, Emerson W. Baker

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Book Review: An Archaeology of Manners: The Polite World of the Merchant Elite of Colonial Massachusetts, by Lorinda B. R. Goodwin, 1999, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 233 pages.

Interpreting Social Organization At Industrial Sites: An Example From The Ohio Trap Rock Mine, David B. Landon

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Historical archaeologists have frequently tried to interpret aspects of the social organization of production from artifacts at industrial sites. These studies have encompassed a variety of issues: the role of skilled immigrants, the effects of de-skilling work, and the ways workers resisted work discipline or used material culture to express their autonomy. Some recent studies protray the organization of production and the forces of industrialization as the overarching determinants of domestic assemblage pattering, while other studies emphasize factors such as household composition, household lifecycle, and the gender organization of labor. This paper reviews several studies of artifact assemblages from industrial …

Early Military Sites Archaeology In New York State: An Interview With Richard J. Koke, David R. Starbuck

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Military sites archaeology in New York State originated in the early 20th cnetury with the pioneering work of William Calver and Reginald Bolton, working through the auspices of The New York Historical Society. One of their youngest associates was Richard J. Koke who later assembled many of their articles into the seminal volume, History Written with Pick and Shovel. Koke was one of the best military sites archaeologists of his day and has a superb recollection of what it was like to conduct archaeology in the 1930s. This article presents some of Koke's memories, based on two interviews conducted with …

From The Warehouses To The Canal By Rail Ca. 1830: The Lachine Canal, Montreal, Quebec, Pauline Desjardins

Northeast Historical Archaeology

During archaeological monitoring of the lower entrance of the Lachine Canal by the Corporation of the Old Port of Montreal, archaeologists obtained data spanning approximately 170 years of development in the area. Indeed, the original canal, built between 1821-1825, has seen many transformations in its dimensions and in the spatial organization of the adjacent installations. This article focuses on a particular finding related to the first period of the history of the canal: the remains of privately owned short wooden track lines used for transporting goods from the warehouses along Common Street to the canal during the years 1825 to …

Contributions Of Women To The Acquisition, Maintenance, And Discard Of Portable Estates, Kathleen L. Wheeler

Northeast Historical Archaeology

As we heighten our focus on the constituents of households, archaeologists are increasingly aware of the role females have to play in compiling and transmitting their portable estates. Women bring in dowries from their natal home, and they participate in choosing and buying household items such as teawares, tablewares, furnishings, and carpets. In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, several features have been discovered with substantial household inventories left behind as de facto refuse when a female head of household departs from the site. This paper explores the gendered nature of acquistion and abandonment behaviors at 19th-century urban sites to better reconstruct socioeconomic …

Who's Been Drinking On The Railroad? Archaeological Excavations At The Central Railroad Of New Jersey's Lakehurst Shops, Richard Veit, Paul W. Schopp

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Archaeological excavations at the former shops of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, in Lakehurst (28-Oc-138), uncovered several large bottle caches within a 19th-century railroad maintenance facility. These caches, situated in clandestine locations within the plant, apparently reflect a considerable amount of on-the-job alcohol consumption by railroad workers. This surprising discovery and its implications for understanding turn-of-the-century workplace culture are explored.

Seventeenth-Century Portuguese Faianca And Its Presence In Colonial America, Charlotte Wilcoxen

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Nineteenth- and 20th-century writers deprecated Portugal's 17th-century ceramics, and some American archaeologists have not recognized the quantity or quality of the remains of these on east coast American colonial sites, or learned to identify the sherds. Civil War in England in the 1640s deprived that country's colonies of critical economic support during those years; the colonists were forced to build ships and engage in their own trade with European countries. Colony by colony, this is examined; Sphardic Jewish merchants from Portugal living here at times promoted the trade, as well as American factors living in Portugal or its islands. The …

Editor's Introduction, Mary C. Beaudry

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Introduction to the volume.

Book Review: Archaeology And Created Memory: Public History In A National Park By Paul A. Shackel, James C. Garman

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Book Review: Archaeology and Created Memory: Public History in a National Park by Paul A. Shackel, 2000, Kluwer/Plenum Academic Publishers, New York, 210 pages, $57.50 (hardcover).

Book Review: Dangerous Places: Health, Safety, And Archaeology Edited By David A. Poirier And Kenneth L. Feder, Kathleen L. Wheeler

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Book Review: Dangerous Places: Health, Safety, and Archaeology edited by David A. Poirier and Kenneth L. Feder, 2001, Bergin and Garvey, Westport, CT, 264 pages, 15 figures, 13 plates, $65.00 (hardback).

Book Review: The Archaeological Northeast By Mary Ann Levine, Kenneth A. Sassaman, And Michael S. Nassaney, Alan Leveillee

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Book review of The Archaeological Northeast by Mary Ann Levine, Kenneth A. Sassaman, and Michael S. Nassaney, 1999, Bergin & Garvey, Westport, CT, Foreword by Alice B. Kehoe, 336 pages, $75.00 (cloth), $29.95 (paper).

Book Review: Death By Theory: A Tale Of Mystery And Archaeological Theory By Adrian Praetzellis, Diana Dipaolo Loren

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Book Review: Death by Theory: A Tale of Mystery and Archaeological Theory by Adrian Praetzellis 2000, Altamira Press, California. 174 pages, $59.00 (cloth), $17.95 (paper).

Book Review: Imagining Consumers: Design And Innovation From Wedgewood To Corning By Regina Lee Blaszczyk, James A. Delle

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Book review of Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgewood to Corning by Regina Lee Blaszczyk 2000, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 368 pages, $39.95 (hardcover).

Review Essay: On The Care And Feeding Of Heritage Management Apprentices, Edward L. Bell

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Review of Federal Planning and Historic Places: The Section 106 Process by Thomas F. King, 2000; and Assessing Site Significance: A Guide for Archaeologists and Historians by Donald L. Hardesty and Barabara J. Little, 2001.

Learning Cast Up From The Mire: Archaeological Investigations Of Schoolhouses In The Northeastern United States, James G. Gibb, April M. Beisaw

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Common schools, often comprising a single room with one or two teachers, taught millions of children from the 1850s through the 1930s. They have provided source material for objective historical writings on education and inspired subjective literature on the school experiences of teachers and students. But as prominent as one-room schools have been in the North American experience, and in the perceptions of rural 19th- and early 20th-century life, these ubiquitous structures have not found a place in the archaeological literature. This paper examines the archaeological potential of schoolhouse sites for providing useful information not otherwise available to historians, poets, …

Waiting For The Second Coming: The Canterbury Shakers, An Archaeological Perspective On Blacksmithing And Pipe Smoking, David R. Starbuck

Northeast Historical Archaeology

While the Shakers are primarily known for their religious beliefs, their lives have also reflected a fascination with technological innovation and a desire for self-sufficiency in certain manufactures. Over the past six years, excavations have been conducted at the Shaker Village in Canterbury, New Hampshire, into the remains of two Shaker blacksmith shops, one of which was accompanied by a waster dump filled with redware tobacco pipes, indicating that this had been a site of pipe manufacture. This was the very first evidence that the Canterbury Shakers had engaged in pipemaking, probably prior to the Shaker prohibition upon tobacco in …

Towards An Archaeology Of The Hudson River Ice Harvesting Industry, Wendy Elizabeth Harris, Arnold Pickman

Northeast Historical Archaeology

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, natural ice cut from the Hudson River provided the New York City metropolitan area with much of its supply. This article briefly examines the history and technology of this industry, and its impact on local workers, commuities, and landscapes. The documentary history and visible remains of three ice house sites are analyzed, with ice house technology viewed as an integrated system of production and transportation. Results suggest that archaeological examination of such sites can be used to study variations in ice industry technology and reveal features not mentioned in the documentary record. …

History In The Making: A History Of The People Of The United States Of America To 1877, Catherine Locks, Sarah Mergel, Pamela Roseman, Tamara Spike, Marie Lasseter

History Open Textbooks

History in the Making: A History of the People of the United States of America to 1877 is a downloadable, free-to-use textbook licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

This textbook examines U.S. History from before European Contact through Reconstruction, while focusing on the people and their history.

Prior to its publication, History in the Making underwent a rigorous double blind peer review, a process that involved over thirty scholars who reviewed the materially carefully, objectively, and candidly in order to ensure not only its scholarly integrity but also its high standard of quality.

This book provides …

Ordinary And Poor People In 18th-Century Delaware, John Bedell, Gerald P. Scharfenberger

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The authors and their colleagues have recently carried out excavations at three 18th-century farm sites in central Delaware. The Augustine Creek South and Thomas Dawson Sites were both occupied by ordinary property owners in the 1730 to 1770 period. The Augustine Creek North Site was occupied from about 1750 to 1810 by unknown but probably poor tenants, possibly in two chronologically separate occupations. At all three sites, architectural remains and artifact deposits were found. Analysis of these sites has focused on the question of how fully ordinary and poor people participated in the social, economic, and intellectural changes of the …