Anthropology Commons^™

Redan Battery And The Battle Of Queenston Heights, Suzanne Plousos

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The Battle of Queenston Heights bears great significance for Canadian War of 1812 enthusiasts. This victory cemented Niagara Loyalists’ sympathy for the British cause and inspired militia units to stand against the American invasion of Upper Canada. When Major General Isaac Brock fell leading a desperate charge to retake Redan Battery, he gave Canadians an exemplary hero. Even today, the monument honoring Brock towers over the landscape, denoting the significance of the Battle of Queenston Heights in forging a new sense of Canadian identity. Throughout this historic engagement, Redan Battery played a pivotal role in the action for both American …

Provincial Marine To Royal Navy: Archaeological Evidence Of The War Of 1812 At Kingston’S Naval Dockyard, Susan M. Bazely

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The naval dockyard at Kingston, established in the 1790s, was arguably the most important physical representation of the War of 1812 in Upper Canada. Its evolution of structures and facilities, the people who worked and lived in and around it, and the material remains they left behind are symbolic of the war effort within the community of Kingston. Prior to, during, and immediately after the war, the peninsula of Point Frederick, on which the dockyard was situated, became a thriving “village” populated by hundreds of people. Although historical research on the dockyard has been conducted throughout much of the 20th …

What We Have Learned: A Retrospective On Parks Canada War Of 1812 Military Sites Archaeology, Joseph H. Last

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Over the past five decades, Parks Canada archaeology has advanced the understanding of War of 1812 sites in Ontario. Delineation of the original 1796 traces at Fort George and Fort Malden provide enhanced appreciation of their transformation from defensible supply stations to works of greater strength. Investigations at Forts Mississauga, Henry, and Wellington illustrate how British Royal Engineers rethought defense, varying designs as the war progressed. Fort Wellington also demonstrates British engineers willingness to stray from Vauban-influenced systems by adopting the bastion-less trace in their later works. Excavations at Fort George illustrate American use of entrenchments as an expedient means …

Introduction: Crossing Borders During The War Of 1812, Susan E. Maguire

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Editor's introduction to the special issue on the War of 1812.

Scaling Up The Self, Scaling Down The World: Self-Objectification And The Politics Of Carbon Offsets And Personalised Genomics, Joshua Reno

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Two global initiatives, the Genographic Project and the Carbon Lottery, share an ambition to make abstract, global processes—human evolution and climate change—comprehensible and engaging to non-specialists. Despite their differences, they both do so by means of self-objectifications that scale up the selves of participants and scale down complex, spatio-temporal models of human-world relations. Based on the author’s auto-ethnographic experience as a participant in both initiatives, it is argued that carbon calculators and personalised genomics involves a pragmatics of scale that evaluates and compares users on the basis of their relative expression of, or deviation from, a standard. Furthermore, this is …

Wagons, Trains, Trucks, And Bottles: Transportation Networks And Commodity Access In Castroville, Texas, Kellam Throgmorton

Anthropology Student Scholarship

The premise of this paper is that changing modes of transportation significantly affected how residents of Castroville, Texas, acquired commodities, which in turn influenced how they expressed particular ethnic, regional, and class identities through consumption. Castroville residents lived (and continue to live) within a broader world system of commodity exchange. As we strive to understand how identities are reflected in and co-created through the objects we surround ourselves with, it is important to remember that economic relations that extend well beyond the local can structure a community’s access to commodities. Geographic space becomes a meaningful variable when we think about …

Using Structure From Motion Mapping To Record And Analyze Details Of The Colossal Hats (Pukao) Of Monumental Statues On Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Sean W. Hixon, Carl P. Lipo, Terry L. Hunt, Christopher Lee

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Structure from motion (SfM) mapping is a photogrammetric technique that offers a cost-effective means of creating three-dimensional (3-D) visual representations from overlapping digital photographs. The technique is now used more frequently to document the archaeological record. We demonstrate the utility of SfM by studying red scoria bodies known as pukao from Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile). We created 3-D images of 50 pukao that once adorned the massive statues (moai) of Rapa Nui and compare them to 13 additional pukao located in Puna Pau, the island’s red scoria pukao quarry. Through SfM, we demonstrate that the majority of these bodies …

Measuring Cultural Relatedness Using Multiple Seriation Ordering Algorithms, Mark E. Madsen, Carl P. Lipo

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Seriation is a long-standing archaeological method for relative dating that has proven effective in probing regional-scale patterns of inheritance, social networks , and cultural contact in their full spatiotemporal context. The orderings produced by seriation are produced by the continuity of class distributions and uni-modality of class frequencies, properties that are related to social learning and transmission models studied by evolutionary archaeologists. Linking seriation to social learning and transmission enables one to consider ordering principles beyond the classic unimodal curve. Unimodality is a highly visible property that can be used to probe and measure the relationships between assemblages, and it …

Book Review: Crimes Of Peace: Mediterranean Migrations At The World’S Deadliest Border. By Maurizio Albahari. Philadelphia, Pa: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. 272 Pages. $65.00., Sabina Perrino

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Waste And Waste Management, Joshua Reno

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Discard studies have demonstrated that waste is more than just a symptom of an all-too-human demand for meaning or a merely technical problem for sanitary engineers and public health officials. The afterlife of waste materials and processes of waste management reveal the centrality of transient and discarded things for questions of materiality and ontology and marginal and polluting labor and environmental justice movements, as well as for critiques of the exploitation and deferred promises of modernity and imperial formations. There is yet more waste will tell us, especially as more studies continue to document the many ways that our wastes …

Book Review: Archaeology Of The War Of 1812, Ed. By Michael T. Lucas And Julie M. Schablitsky, Joseph H. Last

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Archaeology of the War of 1812, ed. By Michael T. Lucas and Julie M. Schablitsky, 2014, Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA, 337 pp., 15 chapters with bibliographies, 52 figures, 10 tables, index, $79.00 (cloth).

Book Review: Historical Archaeology Of The Delaware Valley, 1600–1850, Ed. By Richard F. Veit And David Orr, Lu Ann De Cunzo

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Historical Archaeology of the Delaware Valley, 1600–1850, ed. By Richard F. Veit and David Orr, 2014, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, $54.95 (cloth).

Book Review: The Archaeology Of American Cemeteries And Gravemarkers, By Sherene Baugher And Richard F. Veit, Timothy B. Riordan

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The Archaeology of American Cemeteries and Gravemarkers, by Sherene Baugher and Richard F. Veit, 2014, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 254 pages, 40 black-and-white figures, references, $69.95 (cloth).

Gunflints And Musket Balls: Implications For The Occupational History Of The Eaton Site And The Niagara Frontier, Michael Roets, William Engelbrecht, John D. Holland

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The multicomponent Eaton site in West Seneca, New York, was the focus of a long-term archaeological project. While the major emphasis was the excavation of a mid-16th-century Iroquoian village, all artifacts are being analyzed. These include 12 gunflints and 8 musket balls deposited at some point after the abandonment of the Iroquoian village. This article describes these objects, their distribution and dating, and the implications of these artifacts for the history of the site and the region.

Continuity Of Lithic Practice From The Eighteenth To The Nineteenth Centuries At The Nipmuc Homestead Of Sarah Boston, Grafton, Massachusetts, Joseph M. Bagley, Stephen Mrozowski, Heather Law Pezzarossi, John Steinberg

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Stone tools have been found at all Nipmuc-related house sites in central Massachusetts dating from the 17th through 20th centuries. This article explores in detail the lithic assemblage recovered from the kitchen midden of the late 18th and early 19th century Sarah Burnee/Sarah Boston farmstead in Grafton, Massachusetts. Quartz and quartzite lithics were found in similar concentrations as historic ceramics within the midden suggesting that these tools were in active use within the household. Ground-stone tools of ancient origin indicate curation and reuse of older materials, and knapped glass and re-worked gunflints suggest knowledge of flintknapping. This article argues that …

Dating Methods And Techniques At The John Hallowes Site (44wm6): A Seventeenth-Century Example, Lauren K. Mcmillan, D. Brad Hatch, Barbara J. Heath

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The John Hallowes site (44WM6) in Westmoreland County, Virginia, was excavated between July 1968 and August 1969. No report of the excavations was completed at that time, although an article summarizing the findings was published in Historical Archaeology in 1971, dating the site’s occupation to the period from the 1680s to 1716. From 2010 to 2012, a systematic reanalysis of the site, features, history, and artifacts was conducted by archaeologists at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Benefiting from nearly 40 years of advances in Chesapeake archaeology, the reanalysis has challenged accepted dates for the site’s occupation, which is now placed …

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.

Tools For Transparency And Replicability Of Simulation In Archaeology, Mark E. Madsen, Carl P. Lipo

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Session: Open methods in archaeology: how to encourage reproducible research as the default practice

Awards For Excellence In Service

Northeast Historical Archaeology

2003, 2007, 2008, and 2011 award recipients for the Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology's Award for Excellence in Service.

Arqueología Crítica Y Praxis [Critical Archaeology And Praxis], Randall H. Mcguire

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

La Arqueología se ha utilizado tradicionalmente para apoyar al poder en las arenas de lucha por la economía, las ideologías, las identidades y la política. La arqueología puede ser una forma de praxis para ayudar a crear un mundo más humano, una vez que los arqueólogos se convierten en más que “simples oradores”. La gran mayoría de los arqueólogos practica su arte para obtener el conocimiento del mundo. Varios arqueólogos han tratado de criticar al mundo y el lugar de la arqueología en el mismo. Muy pocos han entrado completamente en la dialéctica de la praxis y han construido una …

The Breakup Project: Using Evolutionary Theory To Predict And Interpret Responses To Romantic Relationship Dissolution, Craig E. Morris

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The formation and maintenance of romantic pair bonds is a well-represented topic in human evolutionary sciences. This extensive body of work, drawn mostly from the field of evolutionary psychology, has proposed mechanisms for attracting a mate (e.g., resource display, physical cues), attaining a mate (e.g., intrasexual competition), and keeping a mate (e.g., competitor derogation, emotional manipulation). However, this evolutionary model of human pair bonding has not fully addressed relationship termination. If we accept that we have an evolved suite of behaviors that encourage and facilitate pair bonding, then we must also look to breakups and ask whether evolution has played …

Ceramics Of Aztec North And The Terrace Community, Aztec Ruins National Monument, Michelle I. Turner

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

This study reports on a ceramic analysis of nearly 1500 surface-collected potsherds from five unexcavated sites on the river terrace at Aztec Ruins National Monument, including the Aztec North great house. I conducted a detailed attribute analysis and mean ceramic dating.

The mean ceramic date for Aztec North is AD 1104±39, while other terrace sites have later mean dates. Based on these dates, it appears that Aztec North was constructed before or contemporaneously with Aztec West, and it might have been the first structure in the Terrace Community. These data support the theory that, even at this earliest moment, Aztec …

Book Review Of 'Evolutionary And Interpretive Archaeologies' Edited By Ethan E. Cochrane And Andrew Gardner, Liane Gabora, Carl P. Lipo

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Evolutionary and Interpretive Archaeologies, edited by Ethan E. Cochrane and
Andrew Gardner, grew out of a seminar at the Institute for Archaeology at
University College London in 2007. It consists of 15 chapters by archaeologists
who self-identify themselves as practitioners who emphasize the benefits of
evolutionary or interpretive approaches to the study of the archaeological
record. While the authors' theoretical views are dichotomous, the editors' aim
for the book as a whole is not to expound on the differences between these two
kinds of archaeology but to bring forward a richer understanding of the
discipline and to highlight areas of …

Continuity And The Open Whole: A Comparison Of Recent (Peircian) Ethnographies, Joshua Reno

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

A comparison of Eduardo Kohn's "How forests think: Toward an anthropology beyond the human" and David Pedersen's "American value: Migrants, money, and meaning in El Salvador and the United States" which explores their relationship to the continuist ontology of the philosopher Charles S. Peirce and its implications for contemporary anthropology.