North America (Geographic Keyword)
2,526-2,550 (3,602 Records)
The construction of the first Transcontinental Railroad in the world, from Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento, California, was one fraught with difficulties, involving tens of thousands of workers. When it was completed in May 1869, the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) portion of the line, between Ogden, Utah and Sacramento, California, retained many ethnic Chinese workers for operations and maintenance work. Housing for workers during construction was not consistent, however after construction the...
Post-Emancipation African American Life in the Upper South and South Louisiana: insights from a comparison of material culture from the Hermitage, Tennessee, and Alma and Riverlake Plantations, Louisiana (2018)
The DAACS (Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery) database also includes data relevant to post-Emancipation, including Jim Crow era life of African Americans. DAACS facilitates comparative research, expanding the scale of archaeological inquiry. Through the use of DAACS, post-Emancipation assemblages from the Hermitage site in Tennessee were compared with those from Alma and Riverlake sugar plantation sites in southern Louisiana. Evidence of shared economic strategies related to...
Post-Industrial Placemaking: The Keweenaw Time Traveler and Community-Engaged Historical GIS (2018)
Placemaking in post-industrial communities often becomes contested due to issues of conflicting memory, lack of economic resources, collective mistrust, and the problems of environmental degradation. A historical spatial data infrastructure known as the Keweenaw Time Traveler offers an interactive public-participatory platform to promote the health, both cultural and economic, of Michigan’s remote post-industrial mining region. This online GIS-based historical atlas breaks down traditional...
The Postcolonial Imperative (2018)
Formal dissolution of European empires following WW II, as they transformed into transnational financial powers, allowed subaltern standpoints and "traditional knowledge" (TEK) to be voiced. American archaeology shifted into CRM becoming the dominant field, reflecting in part the rise of tourism as a principal global industry, with local histories a selling tool. Then NAGPRA put American archaeology into a postcolonial position. While much of NAGPRA negotiations still falls into colonialist...
Postindustrial Archaeology in the Workshop of the World: Philadelphia Industrial Sites, 1990-Present (2018)
Nearly all industrial archaeology is postindustrial. Physical and spatial organization of industry has historically changed rapidly enough that we seldom find industrial sites and structures in use by the same firms, for the same purposes, or even in the same industries, for more than a century. Once known as the "Workshop of the World," Philadelphia maintained a varied industrial base after the Civil War. Physical decay, deferred maintenance, and the pressures of development all take their...
Postindustrial Places and "Big Data": Exploiting the Potential of Historical Spatial Data Infrastructures for Archaeology (2018)
This paper discusses the ways in which emerging "Big Data" approaches to historical research, in the form of GIS-based Historical Spatial Data Infrastructures (HSDIs), represent a powerful way urban and industrial archaeologists may better exploit historical source material. GIS-based research remains an underutilized asset within historical archaeology and its subfields. Drawing examples from HSDIs covering two postindustrial places (the city of London, Ontario and the Keweenaw Peninsula, in...
Poteaux-en-Terre, Faience, Ash Pits and Native American Ceramics: An Update on MoDOT’s Archaeology Under the Bridge (2018)
The continuing archaeological investigations by the Missouri Department of Transportation on the Poplar Street Bridge Project in downtown St. Louis, has increased our knowledge of early St Louis’ French inhabitants, the interactions between the French and the local Native Americans, and improved archaeological methods in urban environments. Excavations in 2016 and 2017 on the Berger Site (23SL2402) have encountered a large French colonial period poteaux-en-terre vertical log structure with a...
Potential for Homesteading at the Orchard Combat Training Center (2018)
By: Juli McCoy Although there has been a great deal of study done concerning homesteading activity in the Western United States little has focused on areas where homesteading was unsuccessful. The lack of successful homesteads left an area of land open for use by the military or for other applications. This study focuses on the assemblage of selected archaeological sites located on the Idaho National Guard Orchard Combat Training Center (OCTC), just south of Boise, Idaho, to determine the...
The Potential for the Archeology of the Civilian Conservation Corps in National Parks (2015)
During the 1930’s, the Civilian Conservation Corps played a critical role in the development of infrastructure in the National Park Service. Companies of men built visitor centers, park housing, roads, bridges, and trails. These various projects laid the foundation for park accessibility as well as greatly improving the visitor experience. While undertaking these projects, the men lived in established base camps as well as project specific smaller camps. Although the camps were torn down at the...
The Potential for Using Long Bone Measurements to Determine Breed of Gallus gallus domesticus and its Implications for the Archaeological Record (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Poultry remains are often found in archaeological excavations and while the species can usually be identified, there has been little research on breed identification or purpose (egg production vs. meat production). This research aims to determine if differences exist between the long bone measurements of modern chicken breeds which can be useful for the...
Potomac Portage: Great Falls National Park and the Potomac Divide (2016)
Dr. Stephen Potter has a long-standing interest in Great Falls Park, a unit of the George Washington Memorial Parkway (GWMP), in Virginia. The park is located in the Potomac Gorge, a rocky area where rapids divide the upper and lower Potomac River valley. Breathtaking in its beauty, Great Falls was also an important feature of the Native American and Colonial era landscapes. The falls were able to be crossed, but not without difficulty and danger. Native American petroglyphs are concentrated in...
Pots and Creole Politics: Preliminary Analysis of an Urban, Late-Nineteenth Century Kiln Site in New Orleans (2018)
In winter of 2008-09, scheduled demolition of Lafitte Housing Project in New Orleans prompted Section 106 Archaeological Data Recovery, conducted by Earth Search, Inc. During excavations, the presence of of kiln furniture, hand-manipulated clay, and fragments of irregular vessels at City Square 281 (16OR308) suggested that it was a late-nineteenth century kiln site. Research confirms that Lucien Gex, son of a French-born artist, advertised crockery there at 273 Carondelet Walk in 1891; in 1885...
Potter Politicians (2018)
The early years of the 19th century were a time of change and innovation for United States potters. Some tried to continue their earlier methods of making and selling pottery, with varying degrees of success, while others expanded their workshops into factories or developed new ways of forming and decorating pots. In New York City, some members of the Crolius and Remmey potting families went into politics while they continued to manufacture salt glazed stoneware vessels. Clarkson Crolius became...
The potters of Charlestown (Boston), MA, their wares, and their archaeological contributions (2016)
A systematic re-processing of the ceramic assemblages recovered from the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston during the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (Big Dig) is revealing new insights and research avenues into this prominent 18th-century earthenware production center. This paper will review the history of the dozens of potters participating in Charlestown’s potting industry in the 17th and 18th centuries and provide a preliminary typology and dating guide to Charlestown wares and decorations. ...
Pottery and Identity: Elites in Puerto Rico (2013)
Late nineteenth century Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony whose economy depended on export crops like sugar and coffee. The elite were often Spaniards and ties to Spain were close because this helped the elite to maintain their control over the labor force. They imitated Spanish elite cultural behavior such as the promotion of thermal baths for improving health. This paper explores the social and economic context for an elite domestic assemblage from a large landowner household that established...
Pottery and Potters in Quebec City in the 17th Century: An Archaeometric Study of Local Ceramic Production (2016)
In Quebec City, the local earthenware ceramic industry began around 1636 with the production of both bricks and pottery. While post excavation visual examination and comparison with established earthenware typologies often suggest European productions, we propose a microscopic examination using archaeometric analyses in order to identify the presence of local wares. A collection of 52 earthenware sherds from four sites in the region was selected for analysis. Tomodensitometry (CT-scanning) and...
Poule Au Pot: Animal Remains from French Colonial Sites in the Old Village of St. Louis (2018)
Since 2013, Missouri Department of Transportation archaeologists have investigated grounds under and around the highway ramps leading to the Poplar Street Bridge in downtown St. Louis, an area that was part of the original village of St. Louis that was platted in 1764. Excavations have revealed the remains of several eighteenth-century poteaux-en-terre structures, cellars, and pit features that were associated with six French colonial properties. Zooarchaeological analyses of these parcels...
Power and Practice, Trauma and Resilience: Exploring the Experiences of Canadian Archaeologists (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Presidential Session: What Is at Stake? The Impacts of Inequity and Harassment on the Practice of Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How do different archaeological practitioners experience and navigate the power inequities built into our disciplinary institutions? Our 2019 online survey of Canadian archaeologists gathered information from over 550 students and practitioners. It explored experiences of sexual...
Power and the Production of an American Landscape (2017)
Race, class, and gender have intersected throughout our nation's history. These systems of power shape the strategies and tactics available to people positioned differentially throughout society. This paper will use evidence from archaeological and landscape analyses in order to identify the ways in which these systems of power influenced the 19th century practices that produced the 20th century landscape of Orange County, Virginia.
The Power of Performance: Activism, Public Archaeology, and Heritage Landscapes at the Portland Wharf (2016)
The development of an activist archaeology has led to an examination of how archaeologists can collaborate with and benefit communities. The notion that the products of archaeological research are relatively weak tools for achieving activist goals has led some archaeologists to emphasize the performance of archaeology as a more effective way to engage communities. In this paper I will examine the performance of archaeology as a way to create heritage landscapes and achieve activist goals. I will...
The Power of Public Archeology and Prehistoric Technology (2016)
Public archeology and prehistoric technology demonstrations are powerful. These tools serve to connect visitors to archeological sites and artifacts and create the next generation of stewards. In this presentation, I’ll explore how these methods have been used to create meaningful connections between visitors and cultural parks.
Practicing Community Archaeology in Shaker Heights, OH (2018)
For three summers, the Shaker Historical Society has been sponsoring a community-based archaeology experience primarily geared for elementary and middle-school aged children. Excavations at two local historical sites have helped to teach these students about their local history, and the importance of archaeology and preservation in their own communities. In this paper we highlight the work we have done, and the outcomes for our students and the larger preservation work it generated in the...
Pragmatism, Archaeology, and the Race Woman (2018)
At the Phyllis Wheatley Home for Girls in Chicago, and at Pauli Murray’s childhood home, in Durham, NC, black women were in motion, actively reshaping their social worlds. Pragmatism, a philosophy of actions, effects, and consequences is a useful framework for 1) drawing out their theoretical contributions to 20th century social thought and civic activism; 2) understanding their actions via the archaeological record; and 3) thinking through what archaeologies of their lives might mean for us...
Prayer for Relief: Archeological Excavations within a Portion of the Columbian Harmony Cemetery (Site 51NE049), Washington, D.C. (2016)
The Columbian Harmony Cemetery was established in the mid-19th century to serve the District’s African American community and continued in use until 1960 when approximately 37,000 burials were exhumed and remains were re-interred in the National Harmony Memorial Park in Landover, Maryland. However, the burial removal process at Columbian Harmony Cemetery was not complete; not all burials were exhumed and re-interred. Headstones and other cemetery monuments, entire coffins, coffin fragments and...
Pre- and Post-Katrina Excavations of Charity Hospital Cemeteries: A Window into the Structural Violence of Mid-19th to Early 20th Century New Orleans (2018)
Charity Hospital, established in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1736, was one of the longest running public hospitals in the United States, finally closing its doors in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina. During the period from 1847 through 1929, two cemetery sites—one located on Canal Street and one on Canal Boulevard—were used for the interment of many indigents treated at the hospital. Excavations of these sites, most of which occurred after Hurricane Katrina and some directly as a result of the...