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Frontier Access To East Tennessee: A Ceramic Analysis Of Ramsey House (40kn120), Bell Site (40kn202), And Exchange Place (40sl22), Abby Jane Naunheimer

Masters Theses

East Tennessee, falling within the Appalachian sub-culture, was romanticized by 19th-century writers as an unchanging, rural society. The stigma of a non-consumer, frontier culture persisted, questioning the ability of East Tennessee residents to access consumer goods during the frontier period. By using multiple lines of evidence, historical archaeology is well-positioned to study unknown settlers living within a misunderstood region.

Three frontier-era East Tennessee homesteads were chosen to conduct ceramic analyses as a beginning point of understanding consumer access. Ramsey House, Bell Site, and Exchange Place were each occupied beginning in the late 18th century and continued into the first quarter …