Anthropology Commons^™

Cultivation Through Excavation: Performing Community And Partnership In The Historic First Baptist Church Project, Eleanor S. Renshaw

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the relationships and partnerships developing around the First Baptist Church -- Nassau Street Archaeology Project in Colonial Williamsburg. Exploring the defining of "descendant community" and the contributions of tourists through the lens of Erving Goffman's stages and participant frameworks, this project looks at the past, present, and future of this project.

Asking For Forgiveness: Negotiating The Creation Of Memory Through Public Memorialization, Alyssa Castronuovo

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The practice of spatializing culture, or “examining space through theories of embodiment, discourse translocality, and effect,” localizes the global and separates hegemonic narratives of space from how it is actually utilized by the people who interact with it. Setha Low argues that this perspective is especially useful to the anthropologist committed to challenging the discipline’s historically eurocentric approach to studying culture. She writes that a spatial focus “[draws] on the strengths of studying people in situ, producing rich and nuanced sociospatial understandings.” This project began with an interest in theorists such as Edward Soja, Michel de Certeau, and Henri Lefebvre, …

Silver, Ships And Soil: Gift-Giving In Medieval Icelandic Sagas, Emma Eubank

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Through applying anthropological theory to gift exchange in medieval Icelandic sagas, we can uncover a wealth of information about the construction and reinforcement of gender, power, and value. This study incorporates Mauss, Sahlins, and Graeber alongside other theorists to analyze how the narrators of Egil's Saga, The Saga of Grettir the Strong, and Gisli Sursson's Saga perceived a past Iceland.

White Animals: Racializing Sheep And Beavers In The Argentinian Tierra Del Fuego, Mara Dicenta

Arts & Sciences Articles

In the summer of 1946, a landowning bourgeoisie organized the II Livestock Exhibition of Tierra del Fuego, and the Argentinian Navy filmed the introduction of twenty Canadian beavers in the region. Both events echoed power disputes between a military government seeking to nationalize lands and capitals and the European landowners whose privileges were threatened. The events show that landowners and state officers negotiated their interests by articulating Argentina’s white exceptionalism with animals and against racialized others. Interrogating the interspecies articulation of whiteness in Tierra del Fuego during the 1940s, I examine how sheep and beavers helped secure white privilege through …

Contentious Vulnerability: Infrastructure, Assemblages, And Environmental Justice Communities, Mads Emmett

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Charles City County, Virginia has been the target of several large developmental proposals in recent years. Two of these proposed projects, the C4GT and Chickahominy natural gas power stations, have faced opposition from residents of Charles City County and people across the state who are concerned about the environmental impacts and health risks associated with fossil fuel infrastructure. These proposed power plants are part of an extensive assemblage of infrastructure: an uneven built network of physical and affective relationships brought together through contingencies which involves human and non-human parts and facilitates the distribution of resources and people around the world …

Understanding Ideal Social Networking Strategies Based On Relational Mobility And Environmental Stability, Angela Vasishta

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The two studies within this paper look to determine the optimal social networking strategy across a combination of the social and ecological variables of Relational Mobility and Environmental Stability. Researchers Oishi and Kesebir (2012) hypothesize that societies characterized by low Relational Mobility and low Environmental Stability would choose to form narrow networks consisting of deep ties while societies characterized by high Relational Mobility and high Environmental Stability would choose to form broad networks consisting of weak ties. The Strength of Weak Ties Hypothesis argues that across all combinations of social and economic variables, social networks with broad, weak ties would …

Turbo Shell Scrapers From The Society Islands: An Ethnohistorical And Microfossil Analysis Approach, Carol Oordt

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Shell is an important raw material in the Society Islands, especially for the manufacture of tools. In Polynesian archaeology, shell scrappers are a commonly recognized tool and are most often associated with vegetable peeling or scraping; however, ethnohistoric sources have described a wider range of activities for which shell scrapers were used, including in cloth manufacturing and as knives. Archaeological excavations on the islands of Mo’orea and Ra‘iātea recovered several potential Turbo shell scrapers from two Pre-Contact domestic lagoon sites. This study investigates whether these shells were used as scrapers and, if so, for what types of activities and on …

Supplementary Material For Society Island Human-Centered Canoe-Web Database, Jennifer G. Kahn, Claudia Escue

Arts & Sciences Data

This document describes the structure of the Society Island Canoe-Webs Database. Data from 28 documents, including early European Explorer Accounts, Missionary Accounts, Ethnographic works, modern Botanical Surveys, and Archaeological and Museum Collection based studies, was mined in relation to pre-contact and contact era canoe manufacture and use in the Society Island archipelago of Eastern Polynesia (French Polynesia).

Archaeology Under The Blinding Light Of Race, Michael L. Blakey

Arts & Sciences Articles

Racism is defined as a modern system of inequity emergent in Atlantic slavery in which “Whiteness” is born and embedded. This essay describes its transformation. The operation of racist Whiteness in current archaeology and related anthropological practices is demonstrated in the denigration and exclusion of Black voices and the denial of racism and its diverse appropriations afforded the White authorial voice. The story of New York’s African Burial Ground offers a case in point.

Supplementary Material For A Functional Classification Of Hawaiian Curved-Edge Adzes And Gouges, Jennifer G. Kahn, Thomas S. Dye

Arts & Sciences Data

This document describes 24 Hawaiian adzes from the collection of B.P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. It supplements and partially reproduces an article by the authors entitled ”Functional classification of Hawaiian curved-edge adzes and gouges” that was published in the Journal of Pacific Archaeology.

The W&M Anglo-Saxon Club, Terry L. Meyers

Arts & Sciences Articles

"In my 2008 article “A First Look at the Worst,” I mentioned (p. 1158) the apparent existence at William and Mary of an Anglo-Saxon Club, a unit of a white supremacist organization, the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America. That outfit had been established in Richmond in 1922 with the aid of John Powell, at once a distinguished musician and a deep racist (he managed to include his racist views in his compositions). Among his accomplishments was help in drafting and passing Virginia’s notorious Racial Integrity Act of 1924; the Anglo-Saxon Clubs were accessories to that effort..."

Revised June 3, 2023

"It's Not Meant For Us": Exploring The Intersection Of Gentrification, Public Education, And Black Identity In Washington, D.C., Shea Winsett

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation discusses themes of racial identity, meaning of space, and class through an exploration of the intersection of gentrification and public education in Washington, D.C. Through analysis of middle-class responses to gentrification I argue, 1) that the public education system is a site of gentrification, as it has become a site of capitalistic development and Black displacement; 2) that the American concept of race, including race relations, is not an aberration of typical American society, but a defining cultural feature; and 3) the best way to understand race and class in America is to use theory constructed from the …

“It's Not About Us": The Erasure Of African American Heritage And The Rehistoricization Of The First Africans On Jamestown Island, Virginia, Lamarise C. Reid

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This thesis explores the complex relationship between making African Diaspora history and culture visible at Historic Jamestowne, a setting that has historically been seen as "white". The four hundredth anniversary of the forced arrival of Africans in Virginia has created a fraught space to examine African American collective memories of shared history, community and commemoration. This thesis operationalizes Page and Thomas's (1994) "white public space" which describes the utilization of "locations, sites, patterns, configurations or devices that routinely discursively, and sometimes coercively privilege Euro-Americans over nonwhites" (1994: 111). When this concept is applied to the construction of heritage and production …

"To Milk The Yankee Tourists": Mid-20th-Century Heritage Practice And The Social Construction Of Whiteness In The American South, Jessica Bittner

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This paper considers the appropriation of Indigenous heritage in northwest Georgia during the mid-20th century. Through this case study of the first state-funded historic preservation project in the state at Etowah Indian Mounds, I apply a recent theorizing on the nature of whiteness, settler colonialism, and the role of heritage in cementing racialized structures of colonial rule. I outline the long history of Indigenous dispossession and settler appropriation in the American South to show how the origins of Indigenous heritage tourism built on an established settler colonial apparatus that deployed race to service commercial and economic development schemes. in this …

African Lace-Bark In The Caribbean: The Construction Of Race, Class And Gender, Grey Gundaker

Arts & Sciences Articles

Excerpt from publication: "The lacy bark of the Lagetta lagetto tree is the centerpiece of historian Steeve O. Buckridge’s tribute to the perseverance, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship of Caribbean women.

The Gap On The Block: Aboriginality, Subjectivity, And Agency In Contemporary Urban Australia, Jennifer Michelle Ellis

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This thesis utilizes a theoretical and methodological approach that explores subjectivity as the relational, complex, fluid, multidimensional, recursive and intersectional modes in which social subjects are animated (Ortner 2005, 31). I discuss these different aspects of subjectivity construction through a contemporary example from urban Australia and by employing frameworks that underscore the agency of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (Aboriginal or Aboriginal Australians) in constructing and maintaining their own subjectivities through discourses that challenge settler colonialism. I work to intertwine related theoretical approaches such as practice theory as defined by Sherry Ortner, and Pierre Bourdieu's discussion of the distinction …

History Of Archaeological Research In The Yoruba-Edo Region Of Nigeria: New Directions For Urban Earthenworks, Olanrewaju Blessing Lasisi

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

In this thesis, I examine the history and trends in Nigerian archaeology, through to the development of methods and theories in the study of urban space. The nascent period of the discipline aligns with the early 19th-century colonial administration. During this period, the attention of archaeologists was on art objects. It was followed by indigenous-directed research that sees universities spring up. I discussed how this new formation sought to decolonize archaeology by pointing out that the early studies were colonial-derived, hence ignoring the accomplishments of independent African cultures. The indigenous archaeology new school served to rectify these inherent problems by …

Building The Brafferton: The Founding, Funding And Legacy Of America’S Indian School, Danielle Moretti-Langholtz, Buck Woodard

Arts & Sciences Books

Excerpt from the publication: "Cloaked in the academic regalia of the early history of the College of William & Mary, the story of the founding of Virginia’s Indian school is replete with ecclesiastical and political intrigue as well as financial opacity. Embedded within the seventeenth and eighteenth-century trans-Atlantic colonial encounter, the 1723 Brafferton Indian School building is an artifact with a pedigree worthy of heritage status. However, its origins remain murky; its history is buried in the faded and fragmentary ledger books, legislative acts and church correspondence of the era. One of three structures on William & Mary’s historic campus, …

Knowing The River, Working The Land, And Digging For Clay: Pamunkey Indian Subsistence Practices And The Market Economy 1800-1900, Ashley Spivey

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation explores the responses and engagement of the Pamunkey Indians with an expanding capitalist economy in nineteenth century Tidewater Virginia. Framed by theoretical discourses of political economy and landscape, I investigate the Pamunkey community’s Reservation subsistence economy, and the transitional effects the infiltration of industrial capitalism had on the economic life and experiences of Pamunkey people. Evidence uncovered from archaeological investigations on the Reservation, archival resources, and oral testimony from tribal members reveal how the Pamunkey community structured their engagement with the market. Pamunkey market engagement formed a mixed economy that followed an annual seasonal round grounded in the …

Entangled By Salt: Historical Archaeology Of Seafarers And Things In The Venezuelan Caribbean, 1624–1880, Konrad Andrzej Antczak

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This doctoral dissertation is aimed at determining changes in seafarer-thing relationships—which I define as entanglements—from 1624 to 1880 at two saltpans on two islands of the Venezuelan Caribbean. Three sites with four occupational phases will be discussed: one site with two occupational phases (Dutch, 1624–1638; Anglo-American, 1638–1781) on the island of La Tortuga, and two sites each comprising one occupational phase (multi-component, c. 1700–1800; Dutch Antillean/US American, 1810s–1880) on the island of Cayo Sal, in the Los Roques Archipelago. More specifically, this research seeks to determine how the development of European capitalism and consumerism impacted entanglements involving seafarers and things …

A Paradigm Shift Within University Museums, Emily Bagdasarian

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This thesis examines the role of university museums in the United States and their relationship to academic and local communities as well as their influence on a national and international level. The purpose of this study is to identify how changes in educational, social, and cultural issues have affected the role of university museums in the United States during their almost two hundred and fifty years of evolution. A second goal is to identify which audiences (academic or public) they chose to focus on. Taking a multifaceted approach, this thesis studies three museums from Ivy League institutions: The University of …

Beyond The Butcher's Block: The Animal Landscapes Of Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake And Lowcountry Plantations, Jenna Kay Carlson Dietmeier

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation argues that working oxen, horses, and mules contributed to the physical and social landscapes of eighteenth-century plantations in the Chesapeake and the Lowcountry. This research embraces an animal landscape approach, exploring how humans and animals were both active agents in shaping animal husbandry strategies, social interactions, and power negotiations on plantations. This exploration utilized archaeological and historical sources, predominately faunal assemblages from Oxon Hill Manor, Maryland, Mount Vernon, Virginia, Drayton Hall, South Carolina, and Stobo Plantation, South Carolina; articulated equine skeletons from Jamestown Island, Virginia, and Yorktown, Virginia; and probate inventories from plantations within the eighteenth-century Upper Chesapeake …

Making History Stick: Representations Of Naval Stores In North Carolina Museums, Catherine Widin Bailey

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This thesis explores the extent to which three North Carolina museums, the North Carolina Museum of History, the Cape Fear Museum, and the Maritime Museum at Southport, represent the state’s history of naval stores. Being a crucial part of North Carolina’s past that is frequently ignored in the formal education system, naval stores should be highlighted in museum exhibits about the state’s history and heritage. A critical analysis of these exhibits shows how these representations form a significant part of civic engagement and suggests improvements that would enhance the education of audiences about the importance of naval stores to the …

The Archaeology Of Enslavement In Plantation Jamaica: A Study Of Community Dynamics Among The Enslaved People Of Good Hope Estate, 1775-1838, Hayden Frith Bassett

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The “slave village” occupies an important place in New World plantation archaeology, though one in which the variation of experience and the internal social organization have yet to be thoroughly addressed. Through archaeological investigation, this dissertation explores the social dynamics and institutions created by enslaved people to negotiate their domestic circumstances. In many plantation settings, enslaved people lived in dedicated villages or the rear-yards of plantation houses. their domestic boundaries were prescribed, but the life they created within those boundaries was by and large a product of their own sense of sociability, domesticity, and ingenuity. The ways in which people …

The Materiality Of Authority: Ornamental Objects And Negotiations Of Sovereignty In The Algonquian Middle Atlantic (A.D. 900 - 1680), Christopher Judd Shephard

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation investigates the emergence, development, and transformation of centralized political authority within Algonquian societies of the Late Woodland and early Colonial period (A.D. 900 – 1680) southern Middle Atlantic. Sixteenth and 17th century European accounts describe coastal Algonquian-speaking societies of modern day Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina as organized into multi-community polities structured by hierarchical political authority, centralized decision-making and pervasive inequality. However, the hallmarks typically associated with chiefly political organization—monumental architecture, settlement hierarchies, and widespread differentiation in mortuary symbolism—are almost non-existent in the region’s archaeological record. Colonial chroniclers, however, were adamant that the objects most highly valued by …

Algonquian Taskscapes And Changing Landscapes: Archaeobotanical Findings From Tidewater Virginia, Jessica Marie Herlich

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The historical ecology of Tidewater Virginia from the Late Archaic to Early Colonial eras (ca. 1200 BC–AD 1600) indicates human-environmental dynamics that modified the landscape and simultaneously impacted the histories of Native groups in the region. I consider Algonquian Tidewater Virginia through the perspectives of historical ecology, taskscapes (a model of the landscape interweaving space, time, and human activities [Ingold 1993, 2000]), and gendered landscapes to explore the intersections of place, labor, and time. The Middle Woodland (ca. 500 BC-AD 800) is an important time period in my discussion. During this era, the region’s archaeology suggests shifts towards more sedentary …

A Confluence Of Cultures: Complicating The Interpretation Of 17th Century Plantation Archaeology Using Data From Rich Neck Plantation, Thomas John Cuthbertson

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Though there is no shortage of 17th century plantation sites in the Chesapeake archaeology enslaved African populations is incipient, but not yetflourishing. This may be a reflection of the result of those communities’ underrepresentation in the archaeological and documentary records from that time period. Detailed analysis of archaeological sites where Africans were present can reveal the material residues of their lives, even when this material culture is inundated by European materials. This thesis marshals archaeological, historiographic, and ethnohistorical data to use the excavations at the Rich Neck Plantation as a window into the diversity of the 17th century Atlantic world. …

The Teapots In The Tempest: Ceramics And Military Order At 18th Century Fort Stanwix, Elizabeth Scholz

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Historically, there has been significant interest in examining pre-contact and historic sites of conflict. Recent studies in historic conflict archaeology have contributed to scholars’ understanding of military sites, specific battles, and sites of sieges and encampments. Archaeological excavations at the 18th century Fort Stanwix in Rome, New York have uncovered a rich assemblage that has facilitated the reconstruction of the fort; however, it is a careful analyses of the artifacts recovered during this process that can help scholars explore life at the fort. Integrating archaeological, historical, and documentary evidence, this paper analyzes the spatial and typological distribution of ceramics at …

“Sugary Mixed-Plate”: Landscape Of Power And Separation On 20th-Century Hawaiian Sugar Plantations, Joshua Timsing Maka'ala Gastilo

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Archaeology in the Hawaiian Islands predominantly focuses on pre-contact and immediate post-contact contexts, while largely ignoring post-1870 phenomena. The scarcity of studies examining these settings points out the rich opportunities for investigating dynamics that influenced Hawaiian sugar plantation laborer perceptions of power, authority, and class relations on 20th century Hawaiian plantations. Part of the Hawaiian sugar planters’ strategy to dominate the political governance of Hawaiʻi and the social dynamics of the plantations was the establishment of racial hierarchies. Planters reinforced such hierarchies by promoting divisions and segregation and by establishing places of power in the form of managers’ and luna …

Slate Pencils?: Education Of Free And Enslaved African American Children At The Bray School, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1760-1774, Valerie Susan Scura Trovato

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

There is a dearth of literature on the archaeology of childhood. Historical archaeology, by its unique nature as a discipline, can use a combination of written documents, the archaeological record, and oral histories to interpret past lives. Historical documents and correspondence of the Associates of the Late Reverend Dr. Thomas Bray attest to the establishment of The Bray School, a school created for free and enslaved African American children in eighteenth-century Williamsburg, Virginia. Appointed schoolmistress Mrs. Ann Wager played a significant role in what the children were being taught. An abundance of slate pencil fragments found on the Bray School …