North America (Geographic Keyword)
176-200 (3,468 Records)
Camp Frazer was established by the Union Army in Cynthiana, Kentucky in September 1861. Built on the farm of Dr. Joel C. Frazer, this post typically garrisoned 900 soldiers. Archival research indicates that a brick structure on the Frazer farm was used by the army as a hospital before being burned by Confederate troops on July 17, 1862. Archaeological investigations located this structure along with numerous military items in situ within the destruction debris. This research sheds light on the...
Archaeological Investigations of the Treviño-Uribe Rancho (41ZP97), San Ygancio, Zapata County, Texas (2017)
Recent archaeological investigations of foundations and anomalies encountered during a previous ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey at the Treviño-Uribe Rancho (41ZP97) provided insight into the lives of ranchers on the Spanish Frontier in the borderlands region. In 1820, Jesús Treviño was granted the land as part of the Nuevo Santander Colony (c. 1748-1835). By 1830, Treviño constructed a one-room, fortified shelter as an outpost. Additions to this structure created a...
Archaeological National Historic Landmarks in the United States (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For over 60 years the United States National Historic Landmarks (NHL) program has designated 2,600 sites across the country for their national significance. But the number of archaeological NHLs is much fewer than historic NHLs. This paper is an overview of the current archaeological NHLs and the diversity of sites represented. I will provide some insight...
Archaeological Perspectives on American Cemeteries and Gravestones (2013)
This paper provides a brief overview of our forthcoming book on the archaeology of American cemeteries and gravestones. Over the last fifty years archaeologists have analyzed how cemeteries and gravestones reflect and embody changing ideas regarding commemoration and remembrance from the 17th to the 21st centuries. Cemeteries are important repositories of cultural information and gravestones are essentially documents in stone. Moreover the human remains buried in the cemeteries can provide...
Archaeological Perspectives on American White Supremacist Appropriations of Viking Heritage (2018)
This paper explores American conservatism using the lens of contemporary archaeology to rethink connections between the rise of the alt-right (white supremacy) and the appropriation and fabrication of Norse heritage in North America. Recently emphasized by white supremacist and Seattle murderer, Jeremy Christian’s use of the phrase "Hail Vinland," Viking imaginaries play an important role in certain white supremacist narratives. I approach these narratives as heterogeneous assemblages of people,...
Archaeological Perspectives on Atlantic World Historic Preservation (2015)
Cultural, social, economic and geographic issues facing historic preservation practitioners across theAtlantic World will be explored in this talk. Special emphasis will be placed on those working in the Caribbean, Central/South America, West Africa and Europe where boundaries are sometimes irrelevant and being on the periphery is significant. Local/indigenous experiences and observations regarding valuing the historic past will be critically addressed. Participants will also gain insights...
The Archaeological Potential Of The Rio Grande Valley Civil War Trail (2016)
In 2015 the "Rio Grande Valley Civil War Trail" (www.utpa.edu/civilwar-trail ) opened in South Texas. Spearheaded by the Community Historical Archaeology Project with Schools (CHAPS) Program of the University of Texas- Rio Grande Valley with federal, state and local partners it is the only trail in Texas dedicated to the era of the American Civil War. The trail connects Brownsville on the Gulf of Mexico with Laredo some 200 miles up the Rio Grande. It includes battlefields, forts, and historic...
Archaeological Practice, Material Objects, and Social Memory (2016)
This paper attempts to circumvent the dichotomy of remembering/forgetting and instead focuses on the process of slimming down or building up social memory. Such an emphasis attends to the question of not whether something is remembered or forgotten, but the push-and-pull of how it is remembered: the details, valences, politics, pulses, and potency. It also considers archaeology – in its practices and in its objects – firmly within that collective and often national process, not separate from it....
The Archaeological Signature of Stews: Experimental Chopping of Long Bones and Small Fragment Sizes (2013)
For decades, small bone fragments have been interpreted as the residues of stews. In international historical archaeology, stew interpretations have often been loaded with portrayals of groups who were enslaved, underclass, and others who had limited access to sufficient or preferable amounts of food. These groups have been depicted as having faced nutritional struggles where they resorted to extracting maximum nutrients from their resources. Others have been pictured making stews that can...
Archaeological Survey and Small-Scale Excavation in the Salado Draw Watershed, Lea County, New Mexico (redacted) (2023)
This report is a component of an undertaking entitled Salado Draw Archaeological Survey, Small-Scale Excavation, and Geomorphological Characterization, General Services Administration Contract No. GS- 10F-0396P. The work was commissioned by the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Manage- ment– (BLM–) Carlsbad Field Office (CFO) as part of research to be carried out under the Permian Basin Programmatic Agreement, Blanket Purchase Agreement No. 11, Contract No. L14PA00010. It...
Archaeological Survey of Tennessee's Rosenwald Schools (2018)
The Tennessee Division of Archaeology completed an archaeological site survey of Tennessee’s Rosenwald Schools in 2017. These schools for African-American students were built between 1912 and 1932 and partly funded by the Julius Rosenwald Fund. This program helped construct 354 schools, 9 teachers’ homes, and 10 industrial shops in Tennessee. Researchers were able to locate most of these sites, assess their archaeological integrity, and add them to the statewide archaeological database...
Archaeological Survey of Tennessee's Rosenwald Schools (2015)
In 1911 Booker T. Washington, President of the Tuskegee Institute, met with Julius Rosenwald, President of Sears, Roebuck, and Company, to discuss building schools for African-American children in the American South. From 1912 to 1932 the Rosenwald program helped fund more than 5,300 schools, shops, and teachers’ homes. The Tennessee Division of Archaeology is currently conducting a survey to locate and record the sites of Tennessee’s 354 schools, 10 shops, and 9 teachers’ homes. The project...
An Archaeological Synthesis of Wells in Delaware: Alternative Mitigation for the Polk Tenant Site (2016)
Versar gathered information on 58 previously excavated wells from across Delaware including size, shape, depth, the methods and materials of construction, location, and date among others. Comparison of data from the sample found patterns in well depth, location, and use of material through time. The results suggest future avenues of research to explore the ways in which well construction might relate to occupant ownership status as well as the temporal evolution of farmsteads. This synthesis...
Archaeologically Assembling The Full Picture of the Political-Economy of Late 18th Century Colonial Trade Relations on the Margins of Empire from the Bisc-2 Shipwreck Site. (2013)
This paper will provide provisional conclusions drawn from the analysis of all our data within a particular methodological framework while identifying critical gaps that remain. We will first discuss how the BISC-2 site may provide new insights into the political-economy of trade at the permeable boarder of British and Spanish spheres of competing influence; and into the relationship between imperial centers and their often non-compliant peripheries. Finally, BISC-2 suggests a rethinking of...
Archaeologies of Antislavery Resistance (2013)
Archaeologists have explored self-liberated Africans ("Maroons") in the Americas and proponents of collaborative resistance movements (for instance, the Underground Railroad or African-Native American alliances), especially material aspects of them that fall within the period 1600–1865. Despite this focus, researchers working in the Americas have much to gain from considering the global dimensions of antislavery resistance, a term that will be used to signify any form of defiance against...
Archaeologies of Disinvestment and Displacement: Documenting Detroit’s Foreclosure Crisis (2018)
The City of Detroit boasts "the largest and most transparent" demolition program in the US, having demolished approximately 12,000 structures in under 3 years. While the city is best known for its decaying industrial sites, the majority of Detroit’s vacant structures are residential: recently occupied homes, schools, churches, and businesses.This presentation focuses on the production and destruction of these more ordinary ‘ruins,’ examining the political and historical processes that create...
Archaeologies of Foodways through Butchery at Manzanar National Historic Site (2018)
In reaction to the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor by Imperial Japan, Americans of Japanese descent were forcibly relocated to internment camps. Internment camps created an environment where Americans constantly had to prove their loyalty to not only white Americans, but also to fellow Japanese Americans. This dynamic challenged Japanese Americans to choose a cultural affiliation, American or Japanese, which denied who they really were as Japanese Americans. Research into the food ways of interned...
Archaeologies of the After-lives of Slavery (Discussant Comments) (2017)
Discussion of the themes raised in the papers presented in this session.
Archaeologist-Collector Collaborations in the San Luis Valley: A Case Study (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research project explores the ways in which the professional world of archaeology clashes with collectors, and how understanding both domains is vital to furthering knowledge of the past. By combining methods of collaboration as well as ethnohistory and field methodologies, professionals and other stewards of the past can retro-actively document sites...
Archaeologists as Indian Advocates? Lessons from Skinner, the Little-Weasel, and Moorehead, the Indian Commissioner (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Sins of Our Ancestors (and of Ourselves): Confronting Archaeological Legacies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists who study the Native past have a responsibility to the Native present. But our academic training does little to prepare us for advocacy work. Personal interests, ethics, and the precariousness of employment often dictate what can be done. Doing nothing is easier and safer than speaking out, but...
Archaeology and Architecture: How to restore an 18th century manor house at Melwood Parke (2016)
Generally speaking standing structures are most typically the domain of Architects, Structural Engineers, or Architectural Historians. Recent efforts to stabilize the Melwood Parke, a ca. c.1715-1767 manor house located in Prince George’s County, Maryland, highlight the critical role of archaeology in understanding construction chronologies, as well as form and function of colonial American architecture. Topics to be addressed within this paper include: the role archeology can play in the...
Archaeology and Dissonant Memories of Japanese American Incarceration (2018)
Memories of the Japanese American Incarceration Camps during WWII vary widely across America. For some, memories of the incarceration are a focal point of their identity and a driver of political action. Others who underwent this imprisonment chose not to recall their experiences. The incarceration can haunt their descendants as an ever-present but silenced past. Broadly, the United States’ relationship to this past is fractured. Activists invoke the incarceration as an affront to American...
Archaeology And Gardens At A WWII Japanese American Incarceration Camp In Gila River, Arizona (2016)
Violence can be seen in the archaeological record in many different ways, from trauma in the osteological record to depictions in iconography. This paper will focus on reactions to violence. In World War II, all those of Japanese Ancestry living on the West Coast of the United States were forcibly incarcerated in prison camps. These people reacted to this violent act of imprisonment with many different strategies. Recent archaeological work has examined the material manifestations of these...
Archaeology and Informal Education Progams for Youth (2013)
Archaeology programs conducted daily by archaeologists make a difference in how citizens perceive their cultural heritage and science. Through educational programs and outreach, archaeologists are inspiring new generations to explore the many fields of archaeological study. Education programs, which introduce students to archaeology through an informal education model, tend to capture the attention and the interest of students. This approach rests upon the idea that when presented with...
Archaeology and Interpretation at The Hermitage (2018)
Archaeology has contributed to interpretation at The Hermitage in a variety of ways but two benefits particularly stand out: First, by increasing our knowledge about Andrew Jackson’s enslaved workers and their built environment, topics with very few written records. This has allowed us to interpret a large part of the historic site and more aspects of the plantation where previously, the Hermitage mansion dominated the interpretation program. Secondly, the archaeology program gave us the tools...