Archaeological Anthropology Commons^™

Landscapes Of Interaction: Understanding Social Landscapes Through Quantitative Models Of Artifact Distributions, James R. Allison

Faculty Publications

Exchange of material goods is one of the most basic forms of human interactions. By tracing the distribution of ceramics, stone tools, and other materials archaeologists are often able to make inferences about the nature of interactions, and about the economic and social relationships of the people involved. These artefact distributions are a fundamental feature of social landscapes, with the potential to reveal much about the structure of social life. But artefact distributions are often complex and difficult to describe, especially at large spatial scales, and they often require some form of abstraction to make them comprehensible. Archaeologists have therefore …

Dietary Patterns Of Paquimé: New Evidence From Dental Calculus And Microfossils, Daniel King, Michael T. Searcy, Kyle Waller

Faculty Publications

As part of a larger multinational project, we gathered and analyzed 112 samples of dental calculus (fossilized plaque) from human remains discovered at Paquimé and other sites in the Casas Grandes river valley to identify various microfossils still present in the silica matrix. Once identified, we used the prehistoric plant remains to reconstruct human/plant relationships present during the Viejo and Medio periods in and around Paquimé. Our data suggest that maize was used throughout both time periods, which supports current theories regarding Paquimean diet. Various types of grasses were also found, as were unspecified types of algae. Using our data, …

A Comparison Of Field Methods At Camp Lawton (9js1), William C. Brant

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Camp Lawton was a Confederate POW Camp located in Jenkins County, Georgia during the latter part of the Civil War. This research uses shovel testing, metal detection, magnetometry, soil phosphate analysis, and terrestrial LiDAR scanning to attempt to ascertain which method, or combination of methods, is more effective on mid-19^th century components in the Georgia Coastal Plain. Findings were inconclusive, but indicate that shovel testing and metal detection are the more effective methods. Data also suggest that areas of Confederate occupation at Camp Lawton probably covered a much larger area than previously anticipated.

The Early Pottery Of San Antonio, Department Of Chinandega, Nicaragua, Kelsey I. Willis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I analyzed the potsherds (n=732) recovered from the 2009 archaeological excavations at the site of San Antonio in Chinandega, Nicaragua. I classified the pottery in accordance with the Type: Variety-Mode system that is used almost exclusively in Mesoamerica and the Greater Nicoya Sub-Region. Identifications of known ceramic wares, groups, types, and varieties were made through comparisons with reference specimens from type collections housed at several institutions. New taxa were defined as needed in accordance with the established protocols of the Type: Variety system (e.g., Smith et al. 1960) and as subsequently amended (e.g., Rice 1976). In the thesis, I describe …

Excavations At Vista Del Valle, A Viejo Period Site Of The Casas Grandes Cultural Tradition In Chihuahua, Mexico, Michael T. Searcy, Todd Pitezel

Faculty Publications

In the summer of 2015 we conducted excavations at a site located along the Palanganas River, just south of the Casas Grandes River Valley in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico. This represents the first excavation of a Viejo Period site (A.D. 700–1200) in this vicinity since the 1960s. We discovered remnants of at least five structures, and fully excavated three. This paper reports our findings and compares them to previous work carried out in the region.

Common Ground: Uniting Archaeology And Secondary Social Studies Curricula, Jeremy Allen Haas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Archaeologists have been attempting to establish stronger connections with communities for several decades. Concepts such as stewardship can be presented to a larger audience, and archaeology can be a valuable tool for public education. Public schools across the nation are struggling to improve with limited resources. Archaeology can provide teachers with inexpensive resources that improve student learning while simultaneously helping teachers meet more rigorous standards. Using historical, archaeological, and cultural resources from the World War II Japanese American internment camp, Amache, I created a new supplementary curriculum that focused on the experience of Japanese and Japanese Americans during that era. …

Patterns In Faunal Remains At Fort St. Joseph, A French Fur Trade Post In The Western Great Lakes, Joseph Hearns

Masters Theses

Faunal studies have the potential to detect a variety of patterns in animal processing activities at an archaeological site. The spatial relationships of taphonomic mechanisms observed within the animal bone assemblage illuminate the use of space on a site as well as the patterns of waste discard. Patterns within the formation processes influencing the distribution of faunal remains serve as the basis for interpretation of animal processing behaviors. This study analyzes a sample of animal bones from Fort St. Joseph (20BE23), an eighteenth-century French fur trade post in the western Great Lakes region. This post was a hub of exchange …

Picrolite And The Cypriot Neolithic: An Experimental Study, Forrest Dayton Jarvi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Picrolite, a fibrous green stone originating in the Troodos mountains on the island of Cyprus, appears in the archaeological record almost from the very earliest sites on the island. Thus far, few publications have addressed the material from anything but a descriptive perspective. Research at the Aceramic Neolithic site of Kritou Marottou Ais Giorkis has uncovered a wide variety of picrolite artifacts since excavations began in 1997. Preliminary experimental studies have begun to explore the ease of both obtaining and manipulating the material using only local materials and unassisted manpower. This thesis presents a three-part investigation into the place of …

Late Quaternary Speleogenesis And Landscape Evolution In A Tropical Carbonate Island: Pango La Kuumbi (Kuumbi Cave), Zanzibar, Nikos Kourampas, Ceri Shipton, William Mills, Ruth Tibesasa, Henrietta Horton, Mark Horton, Mary Prendergast, Alison Crowther, Katerina Douka, Patrick Faulkner, Llorenç Picornell, Nicole Boivin

International Journal of Speleology

Kuumbi Cave is one of a group of caves that underlie a flight of marine terraces in Pleistocene limestone in eastern Zanzibar (Indian Ocean). Drawing on the findings of geoarchaeological field survey and archaeological excavation, we discuss the formation and evolution of Kuumbi Cave and its wider littoral landscape. In the later part of the Quaternary (last ca. 250,000 years?), speleogenesis and terrace formation were driven by the interplay between glacioeustatic sea level change and crustal uplift at rates of ca. 0.10-0.20 mm/yr. Two units of backreef/reef limestone were deposited during ‘optimal’ (highest) highstands, tentatively correlated with MIS 7 and …

An Architectural Analysis Of Caddo Structures At The Ferguson Site (3he63), Kelsey Ann Taormina

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since the earliest excavations in Arkansas and the Southeast, prehistoric architecture related to mound building societies has been of particular interest. The Caddo of the Trans-Mississippi South are a Mississippian period mound building culture that emerged as early as A.D. 1000 and persisted to and beyond European contact. Many Caddo structures are found under and on mounds. Some of these structures, identified as special-purpose or non-domestic in function, were burned and buried. Often structures were purposefully burned and buried forming a conical or platform mound. The Ferguson site (3HE63), located in the Little Missouri River basin of Southwest Arkansas, contains …

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.

Using Satellite Image Analysis For Locating Prehistoric Archaeological Sites In Alaska's Central Brooks Range, Robert Hickey, J. Keeney

Geography Faculty Scholarship

In this pilot study, we apply satellite image analysis to archaeological site prospection in Alaska's Brooks Range. Our goal was to test whether satellite remote sensing, which has been successful in locating large archaeological features associated with sedentary peoples, could be applied to arctic interior sites associated with mobile hunter–gatherers. In particular, we strove to develop a relatively straightforward and inexpensive model using existing data which could be used to help guide archaeology surveys. Using 1-m resolution IKONOS imagery of Lake Matcharak along the upper Noatak River, we produced a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and tasseled cap transformation of …

Ubiquitous And Unfamiliar: Earthenware Pottery Production Techniques And The Bradford Family Pottery Of Kingston, Ma, Martha L. Sulya

Graduate Masters Theses

Redware ceramic sherds are frequently found in New England historical archaeological sites; however, detailed data has not always been published regarding excavated New England earthenware pottery production sites. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to the small body of research on New England redware production through the study of the life and ceramic production techniques of the Bradford family pottery. Their workshop operated in Kingston, Massachusetts, from the 1780s to the 1870s, a time when stoneware production and industrial scale ceramics manufacturing took hold in America. Documentary study of the Bradford family and the ceramics industry shows that …

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 …

Aerial Thermography In Archaeological Prospection: Applications & Processing, Autumn Chrysantha Cool

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Aerial thermography is one of the least utilized archaeological prospection methods, yet it has great potential for detecting anthropogenic anomalies. Thermal infrared radiation is absorbed and reemitted at varying rates by all objects on and within the ground depending upon their density, composition, and moisture content. If an area containing archaeological features is recorded at the moment when their thermal signatures most strongly contrast with that of the surrounding matrix, they can be visually identified in thermal images.

Research conducted in the 1960s and 1970s established a few basic rules for conducting thermal survey, but the expense associated with the …

Chipped Stone Analysis Of The Yamashita Sites In Moapa Valley, Nevada: A Technological Organization Approach, Tatianna Menocal

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Archaeological research on the lowland branch of the Virgin Branch Puebloan (VBP) has been conducted steadily throughout the 20th century. Much of this research occurred in the early half of the century with initial research conducted by Mark R. Harrington and later archaeology designed as salvage work due to public works projects, including the construction of Hoover Dam and the development of Lake Mead (Ahlstrom and Roberts 2012). The initial archaeology in the area was focused on classifying and characterizing the Puebloan occupation in the region, as the discovery of habitation sites in the area represented the farthest western extension …

How Has The Domestication Of Dogs Impacted Native North American Culture And Way Of Life?, Mikaela E. Reisman

Senior Honors Projects

Dogs, as the only domestic mammal in North America, were a part of the life and culture of the people who migrated to the Americas from Eurasia. Originally domesticated from Eurasian wolves, the uses of dogs expanded once the Native American ancestors spread throughout the continents. I investigate the kinds of dogs Native Americans bred over thousands of years and how these dogs impacted native North American culture, through a review of recent genetic, biological, archaeological, oral historical, and historical evidence and research.

Evidence of Native American use of dogs ranges from hunting, to companionship, to using their fur for …

Watercraft, People, And Animals: Setting The Stage For The Neolithic Colonization Of The Mediterranean Islands Of Cyprus And Crete, Katelyn Dibenedetto

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

One of the most significant developments in human history was the “Neolithic Revolution,” which first began around 11,000 years ago in mainland Southwest Asia. It resulted in not only the economic reorientation from hunting and foraging to herding and farming based on domesticate resources, but also significant changes in human technology, demography, society, political organization, ideology and human relationships to the environment. In order to understand this momentous process, however, it is important to understand the events that set it in motion. This is particularly the case when dealing with oceanic Mediterranean islands, specifically Cyprus and Crete, where there is …