North America - Northeast (Geographic Keyword)
101-125 (219 Records)
The lands around New York City’s rural reservoirs contain ruins of residences, schools, churches, farms, and other businesses, displaced by watershed creation that began in the mid-nineteenth century. But even the forests around them are artifacts of the abandonment. Here, the spaces in between buildings and trash piles are the places where the region’s economy flourished before the reservoir changed everything. Treating each ruin as an individual site would ignore the interconnectedness of...
Maritime Archaic Subsistence in Newfoundland, Canada: Insights from δ13C and δ15N of Bulk Bone Collagen and Amino Acids (2017)
Port au Choix-3 (4800-3600 B.P.) is a large Maritime Archaic mortuary site in northwestern Newfoundland. Since the 1940s, archaeological excavations have yielded thousands of artifacts and the skeletal remains of over 100 individuals. This site has been instrumental for defining the Maritime Archaic tradition, and for understanding human-environment interactions during the Archaic occupation of Newfoundland and Labrador. As such, it is currently the focus of a multi-isotope and ancient DNA...
The Mill Site at Ohomowauke: An Eighteenth-Century Euro-American Domestic and Industrial Occupation on the Periphery of the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation (2016)
The Ohomowauke site (72-137), located on the Mashantucket Pequot reservation in southeastern Connecticut, contains a mid eighteenth-century Euro-American sawmill and associated domestic structures that would have been situated on the historic border of the reservation. While little remains of the sawmill, the cultural material recovered within and around the domestic structures, including the house of the mill operator’s family, provide an opportunity to examine the lifeways of a working class...
Missing the Point: Identifying Perishable Projectiles in the Archaeological Record (2017)
For decades, archaeologists have used replicative studies to develop a better understanding of prehistoric technology. Many replicative studies have focused on the manufacture and use of stone projectiles, resulting in a detailed understanding of the design of hunting weapons in relation to various features of the environment and, in turn, elegant explanations for technological change over time. Yet if ethnographic accounts are any indication, lithic technology was only one (perhaps minor) part...
Modern Material Culture Studies in Modern and Past Populations (2015)
This project presents data from a month long archaeological survey of refuse conducted on a university campus in New York City and uses it in conjunction with conventional theoretical methods applied to the analysis of the material culture. The previous archaeological analyses of secondary aggregates or deposit sites in which localized, high concentrations of refuse are examined, provide hypotheses regarding human behavioral patterns (Johnson 1999) and serve as a comparative model from which to...
Moravian Travels through the "spirit’s nest": Archaeology of Colonialism at Madame Montour’s Otstonwakin (2017)
In 1741, Moravians, a sect of German pietists established a settlement in Pennsylvania which became the principal religious and administrative center for the Moravian Church in North America. Moravian missionaries soon traveled to nearby Native American communities including Otstonwakin, a 18th century multinational village along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. Madame Montour served as a frontier diplomat and go-between at Otstonwakin and hosted a succession of visitors into her home...
More than a Matter of Scale: Exploring Relationships Between Households and Communities (2015)
Increased use of remote sensing techniques in archaeology has afforded researchers unparalleled opportunities to examine the spatial dimensions of ancient settlements. At the same time, we have witnessed a dramatic increase in archaeological research directed toward the examination of households. Although both scales of inquiry are capable of producing meaningful archaeological insights, distinct theoretical perspectives have developed out of attempts to reconstruct past social relationships...
"the more usual Place of their Abode": Ethnogeography, Community Dynamics, and Household Economies on the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Reservation (2016)
Between December 1773 and June 1774, a new road was surveyed and laid out across the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Reservation. Two survey points along this route, mention an “Indian meeting house” and a “small Indian house.” The construction of this road and the architectural landmarks along it illustrate, in part, the considerable adjustments that Pequots were making in the aftermath of colonization and land dispossession. Public architecture such as the “meeting house,” was unknown at...
Multibeam Swath Bathymetry for Underwater Archaeological Investigations (2015)
Remote sensing technologies have long played an important role in underwater archaeological survey, and among the most recent (and increasingly used) additions to the toolkit is multibeam swath bathymetry, which operates by transmitting sound beams perpendicular to a research vessel's track and then processing the returned sonar data to produce a three-dimensional image of the sea floor. Multibeam survey can be particularly useful in water bodies where conditions are not conducive to other forms...
Needles and Bodies: A Microwear Analysis of Experimental Bone Tattooing Implements (2017)
Tattoos are embodied experiences, ideas, and meanings expressed by groups and individuals. Many Iroquoian populations of Northeastern North America from the Contact period were known for practicing body transformations of this sort. Moreover, the archaeological litterature abunds with cases of Iroquoian bone objects interpreted as tattooing objects. However, such functional interpretations are often proposed without any clear demonstration. In this paper, we present the results of an...
The Neolithic Transition in Northern Iroquoia (2015)
While details remain debated, the general outline of the emergence of semi-permanent sedentary domestic architecture in Northern Iroquoia is well understood. Communities comprised of bark longhouses came to be associated with subsistence maize horticulture over the course of the last millennium prior to European contact. Various factors triggered periodic community relocations throughout Northern Iroquoia, migratory events that were usually short-distance but occasionally involved long-distance...
A NEW APPROACH TO PRECONTACT ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH ON THE ANNAPOLIS RIVER SYSTEM, NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA (2017)
Boswell (BfDf-08) is the first archaeological site to be excavated along the Annapolis River, in north-central Nova Scotia. Previously, less than 50 sites had been recorded in the 2130 square kilometer watershed, and only a few of these were tested. Therefore, Boswell is the baseline for our understanding of precontact occupation for this entire drainage system. Thus far, the site has revealed a cultural sequence beginning with the Transitional Archaic (ca. 4100-2700 BP), followed by Middle and...
The New England-Maritimes: Environments and Human Lifeways from the Late Pleistocene into Early Holocene (2016)
The New England-Maritimes (NEM) region in northeastern North America is noted for clear environmental signals of the Younger Dryas climatic reversal (circa 12,900-11,600 Cal BP), followed by an abrupt transition to a warmer and more dry early Holocene climate. In this paper, we first review evidence for changes in paleoenvironments and animal populations that accompanied these climatic transitions in the NEM. We then examine archaeological evidence for early human occupations in the region,...
New England’s submerged pre-Contact history: identifying an intact Archaic site in Salem, Massachusetts (2015)
A portion of Salem Harbor in Massachusetts was investigated during a cultural resource management project in 2009/2010. The underwater reconnaissance included a remote sensing survey using a Klein 3.5 kHz sub-bottom profiler. An acoustic basement was recognized at approximately two meters below the sea bed, and was hypothesized to be an organic layer potentially representative of a buried land surface below marine sediment. Vibratory cores were used to ground truth the potential buried land...
"Nothing but Wood and Stones": A Long-View Perspective on Human-Stone Relations in the Native Northeast (2016)
In 1762 Ezra Stiles—ethnohistoric observer and future president of Yale University—puzzled over the significance of brush and stone heaps constructed by indigenous people of New England. He found the label “sacrifice rocks” unfit for such features because indigenous people never killed animals or offered lives of any kind there. I begin this paper by addressing some of the challenges involved in interpreting eighteenth- and nineteenth-century indigenous spirituality and religion. I contextualize...
Occupation Over Time at the Gault Site (2016)
It is my goal to use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications to map and analyze the distribution of material created by the use life of the Gault site, in order to better understand the ways in which the site was re-used. By attempting to understand the scatter of material culture as a site is continually utilized over a period of centuries, I hope to better understand the reasons that the site was being occupied, including what sorts of activities were taking place, and how previous...
"Of what use is a bear?": Examining Black bears (Ursus americanus) as a Capitalized Resource in Northeastern North America during the Woodland and Colonial Periods (A.D. 1300-1800) (2015)
One of the largest terrestrial mammals in Northeastern North America, black bears (Ursus americanus) were an important dietary component throughout the Woodland and Colonial Periods (A.D. 1300-1800). Previous research has demonstrated an increase in the frequency of black bear remains recovered from archaeological sites in New York State that have been dated to this five hundred year period. Primarily interpreted as a subsistence resource, the use of black bear secondary products has been...
On Manitou and Consanguineal Respect between Human and Animal Societies in Southern New England (2017)
By definition, hunter-gatherer societies rely upon few, if any, domesticated animals. Domestication is counter to many hunter-gatherer worldviews, where human and non-human animals are seen as sharing a literal biological connection. From here, in essence, domestication is akin to slavery. Examples from the ethnohistoric and archaeological records will be used to illustrate how local Native groups in southern New England treated wild and domestic animals and animal remains in culturally...
One Site, Multiple Pasts: Negotiating Identity and Archaeological Heritage along the US/Canadian Border (2015)
Fort Saint-Jean lies in the Richelieu River Valley approximately half-way between the modern American/Canadian border and the City of Montreal. The valley has been a space of contestation between French, British, Canadian and American ideas, identities, and empires. For over three hundred years this contestation has taken numerous forms, ranging from ethnic stereotyping, to open warfare. When I began directing the Laval University archaeological field program at Fort Saint-Jean, our research...
Out in the Field? Queer Archaeologists, Queer Archaeology, and CRM (2015)
A perennial critique of cultural resources management (CRM) has been its perceived overemphasis on field methods and its dissociation from advancements in archaeological theory, particularly the integration of gendered archaeologies and feminist perspectives. Over the past two decades CRM has made considerable gains toward inclusivity of theory - however, the climate for queer practitioners in CRM working as field technicians, managers, and principal investigators does not readily reflect these...
Paleoethnobotany in Undergraduate Research (2017)
I have spent the last year gaining laboratory experience in the Paleoethnobotany laboratory at Washington State University. My purpose in the lab was to aid two graduate students with their master’s thesis research. Thus far, I have learned the basics of paleoethnobotanical analysis through examining material from both the Old World (Thailand) and the New World (the Pacific Northwest). These basics include how to identify different types of seed and wood charcoal, how to properly organize and...
A Paleoindian Heavy Stone Analysis at Shawnee-Minisink (2015)
Cobbles, natural rock, and unflaked lithics are rarely subjects of study at Paleoindian sites. The lack of available literature on this topic may be due to an absence of these artifacts in Paleoindian levels, insufficient sample sizes, or an over emphasis on more aesthetic flaked stone. Within the Smithsonian’s Shawnee-Minisink collection, there are a number of stones from the Paleoindian level that appear to be manuports. Considering these stones are isolated, not found in cobble clusters, and...
The Paleoindian Period At Mashantucket (2016)
Multiple Paleoindian sites have been identified during the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center’s (MPMRC) long-term study of Paleoindian occupations around the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation. The recovery of multiple Paleoindian sites affords the opportunity to study Paleoindian lifeways around the Great Cedar Swamp at Mashantucket. This paper provides an overview of the Paleoindian research conducted by the MPMRC and attempts to reconstruct Paleoindian land use of the Mashantucket...
The Paleoindian Period at the Aldrich Island Site: A Multicomponent Paleoindian site in the Hudson River Valley (2016)
The Middle and Late Paleoindian Periods had formerly been close to absent from the literature of known Hudson Valley Paleoindian sites. This led some researchers to suggest that these cultures might have, to a larger degree, stayed away from this region as a whole. However, recent findings from the Aldrich Island Site demonstrate that the Hudson Valley of New York State was indeed inhabited and utilized by these cultures, and perhaps much more extensively than once previously thought. A wide...
Paleoindian uses of Maritime Environments in the Far Northeast (2016)
This paper explores the Paleoindian uses of the Champlain Sea (an inland arm of the Atlantic Ocean) over the course of the Paleoindian period. Environmental Changes that may have precipitated changes in subsistence and settlement patterns will also be discussed. Finally, scant but intriguing information from the Atlantic Continental shelf in the Far Northeastern region will be used as a proxy to explore and evaluate the settlement patterns demonstrated farther inland.