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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Urbanization On The Landscape Of The Old City: An Archaeological Investigation Of Site 40kn223 In Knoxville, Tennessee, Garrett B. Wamack Aug 2023

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 …


“Provisioned, Produced, Procured,” And Purchased?: A Macrobotanical Study Of Enslaved Individuals’ Economic Engagement In The Shenandoah Valley, Linda A. Seminario Aug 2023

“Provisioned, Produced, Procured,” And Purchased?: A Macrobotanical Study Of Enslaved Individuals’ Economic Engagement In The Shenandoah Valley, Linda A. Seminario

Graduate Masters Theses

This research investigates enslaved peoples’ economic engagement in the Shenandoah Valley during the first half of the 19th century. In 2017, archaeologists excavated two features at the Belle Grove enslaved quarters in Middletown, Virginia— a root cellar and subfloor pit that were filled in when a log cabin burned down. The preservation of the macrobotanicals has allowed for an in-depth analysis of the plants with which enslaved individuals engaged and the relationship between plant acquisition and enslaved people’s regional formal economic involvement at a 19th-century plantation in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. These data sets have also allowed for an …


Spirits And Spirituality: Temperance And Racial Uplift In Nineteenth-Century Nantucket, Ma, John T. Crawmer May 2023

Spirits And Spirituality: Temperance And Racial Uplift In Nineteenth-Century Nantucket, Ma, John T. Crawmer

Graduate Masters Theses

Studies of alcohol consumption have shown alcohol’s role in defining social boundaries based on class and ethnicity, but few have interrogated alcohol in the context of race. During the early-19th century, free black communities were encouraged to refrain from alcohol as part of a larger project of racial uplift. Black societies and churches perceived intemperance as not only immoral but a threat to community survival. Excavations of the Nantucket African Meeting House noted a considerable lack of alcohol bottles, but it was unclear whether temperance was equally observed at the neighboring Boston-Higginbotham House. This research uses a minimum number of …


Ancient Migrations In West Mexico: Mtdna Analyses, Patricio Gutiérrez Ruano Jan 2023

Ancient Migrations In West Mexico: Mtdna Analyses, Patricio Gutiérrez Ruano

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Despite the mounting evidence that suggests The Aztatlán tradition in West Mexico was a major cosmopolitan region during the Postclassic period (AD 900-1521) with connections to the rest of what is now Mexico, archaeologists have characterized items in West Mexico as culturally distinct from the rest of Mesoamerica. Recently, endogenous, and exogenous material culture has been interpreted as movement and exchange of goods and ideas between subregions and surrounding areas, all of which mention physical contact and trade were involved between Aztatlán and elsewhere. This has included interacting with areas as far as the U.S. Southwest, as well as in …


By Her Hands: An Analysis Of The Hidden Labor Of Black Women At The Hugh Craft House Site In Holly Springs, Mykayla Williamson May 2022

By Her Hands: An Analysis Of The Hidden Labor Of Black Women At The Hugh Craft House Site In Holly Springs, Mykayla Williamson

Honors Theses

This project unearths the hidden labor of Black women by analyzing architectural remains, artifacts, and primary and secondary documentary evidence surrounding the urban antebellum Hugh Craft House site in Holly Springs, Mississippi. This project considers the gap in theorizing the hidden labor of Black women in the seldom-researched setting of urban slavery. It also draws on household and Black feminist archaeology theories to uncover the hidden labor in the domestic spheres that the enslaved women were actively shaping. Research methods included watching clips of Behind the Big House tour interpretations; taking a Craft House tour in Holly Springs; looking at …


Creating Community: Examining Black Identity And Space In New Guinea, Nantucket, Jared Muehlbauer Dec 2021

Creating Community: Examining Black Identity And Space In New Guinea, Nantucket, Jared Muehlbauer

Graduate Masters Theses

In the late 18th century, the abolition of slavery through manumission initiated a period of enormous change in the lives of people of African descent living on Nantucket, MA. Newly free, people of color living on the island immediately began to establish families and purchase property. At the end of the 1700s, they founded the community of New Guinea, located on the southwestern edge of the town of Nantucket. Though enslavement had been abolished and the whaling industry brought economic opportunity to Nantucket, the people of New Guinea continued to experience evolving forms of racial inequality, discrimination, and violence. To …


The Chinese In California: Archaeology And Railroads At The Turn Of The Century, Evelyn Hildebrand Dec 2020

The Chinese In California: Archaeology And Railroads At The Turn Of The Century, Evelyn Hildebrand

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Research on Chinese sites in California have focused on ethnicity, ethnic relations, and the material expression of ethnicity all of which are key issues in overseas Chinese archaeology. Chinatown sites produced data that helped define Chinese culture and experience in historical California. One railroad construction work camp site identified in 2016 located in the Cajon Pass in the late 1800’s offers the potential for insight into the lives of the workers. Chinese occupation in San Bernardino is not well understood, and the site may offer information on the culture, traditions, and integrations of the workers. Thousands of Chinese men left …


Decisions Set In Stone: Spatial Analyses Of Ozark Rock Art Sites, Elements, And Motifs With Gis, Jordan Lee Schaefer May 2018

Decisions Set In Stone: Spatial Analyses Of Ozark Rock Art Sites, Elements, And Motifs With Gis, Jordan Lee Schaefer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to spatially analyze rock art distributions in the Salem Plateau section of the Arkansas Ozarks. Statistical tests, such as chi-square and t-testing, are applied to provide an objective view of rock art patterning in relation to the overall landscape. The data collected from these methods allow one to discern the locational preferences for rock art, which potentially reveal cultural details about the people involved with its creation. Multiple analytical perspectives are applied throughout, initially focusing on comparisons with expected values and random points. Later statistical tests use bluff shelter distributions as reference data …


Native Interactions And Economic Exchange: A Re-Evaluation Of Plymouth Colony Collections, Kellie J. Bowers Jun 2015

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 …


Revisiting The Nelson Site: Recent Archeological Investigations And Material Analysis, Jason Reichel Jan 2015

Revisiting The Nelson Site: Recent Archeological Investigations And Material Analysis, Jason Reichel

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The Nelson Site (21BE24) is situated on a low terrace along the southern boundary of the Blue Earth River, approximately 2 miles west of the city of Mankato, Minnesota (Appendix A, Figures 1 and 2). Initial survey of the site in 1973 identified the site as a single component Terminal Woodland habitation site associated with cultural entities centered in the Mississippi River Valley of Iowa and Wisconsin. However, subsequent analysis and additional archaeological investigations conducted in 2011 and 2013 identified additional components of the site and recognized variations in decorative elements from pottery recovered from previous surveys, which differed from …


Battle Mound: Exploring Space, Place, And History Of A Red River Caddo Community In Southwest Arkansas, Duncan Mckinnon May 2013

Battle Mound: Exploring Space, Place, And History Of A Red River Caddo Community In Southwest Arkansas, Duncan Mckinnon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research is a synthesis of archaeogeophysical and archaeohistorical data collected from the Battle Mound site (3LA1). Using these data, this research seeks to understand how the site is organized in terms of architectural variability and how differential use areas, such as domestic or community space, can be compared to ethnographic and archaeological data concerning Caddo community structure and landscape use. The research is formulated around three research questions related to spatial organization and settlement patterning, intrasite behavioral practices, and Caddo culture history. Results show that an examination at multiple scales of resolution can inform about the spatial organization and …


Through The Eyes Of A Child: The Archaeology Of Wwii Japanese American Internment At Amache, April Kamp-Whittaker Jun 2010

Through The Eyes Of A Child: The Archaeology Of Wwii Japanese American Internment At Amache, April Kamp-Whittaker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Children’s lives in the World War II Japanese American Internment Camp, Amache are investigated using a combination of archaeology, oral history, and archival research. As part of internees’ efforts to create a more hospitable environment both children and adults extensively modified the physical landscape. The importance of landscape and place in Japanese culture and for the internee community is examined using the development of gardens around the elementary school as a case study. Internees also developed a rich social landscape that allowed for the socialization of children within Amache. The socialization of children at Amache was being influenced by the …