North America (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only James A Moore.

Sexuality provides a powerful mechanism for patrolling the boundaries of socially constructed communities.   Imagined as a natural expression of basic human behavior, sexuality naturalizes social boundaries and marks them as immutable.  In the Nineteenth Century, the medical ills of the "overly-civilized" were identified as having a sexual basis.  Hysteria was given an etiology of too frequent sexual activity.  Education or business would interfere with the proper development of the uterus. For...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark U. Wilde-Ramsing. David J. Bernstein. Chris W. Freeman. Benjamin J. Sumners.

In 2006, the NC Department of Cultural Resources/Underwater Archaeology Branch and the US Army Corps of Engineers undertook an experimental project by placing a mound ofdredge spoil sediments on the updrift side of the Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck site. This experiment was designed to promote site preservation and decrease exposure of subaqueous cultural artifacts. A series of high-resolution multibeam sonar surveys were conducted to quantify and monitor the morphology of the sediment mound...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John M Hyche.

From 1850 to 1860, the Blue Ridge Mountains were home to roughly 1,900 Irish laborers as they worked on the construction of the Virginia Central Railroad. Upon its completion, the railroad  stretched from Norfolk, Virginia, to the Ohio River. Along the Blue Ridge Mountains, several cuts and tunnels were constructed by the Irish immigrants including the 4,263ft Blue Ridge Tunnel. In 2011, a local non-profit organization, focused on pinpointing the remains of Irish shantytown homes, contacted the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kate E. Korth. Krysta Ryzewski. Samantha Malette. Kaitlin Scharra. C. Lorin Brace VI. Mark Jazayeri.

Unearthing Detroit is a collections-based and community archaeology research project focused on the extensive salvage collections recovered from major downtown construction projects during the 1960s and 70s that are now housed in Wayne State University’s Grosscup Museum of Anthropology.  Inspired by the findings of recent collections-based research at Market Street Chinatown (San Jose) and CoVA’s Repositories Survey, Unearthing Detroit project members revisited the Renaissance Center collections...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn L Sikes.

Over the past two decades, publications in public history, museum studies, oral history, historic preservation, and historical archaeology have often followed similar trajectories in seeking to serve a diversity of stakeholders connected to historic sites and promoting discussion of poorly documented and marginalized communities. This paper traces these parallel theoretical concepts and ethical considerations and examines how public archaeologies of the recent past may benefit from closer...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Leigh Anne Ellison. Francis McManamon.

Archaeologists are busy all the time. Often stretching to meet a variety of professional obligations. CRM and government agency archaeologists are among the most stretched given the different directions that pull upon their professional lives. Scholarly pursuits; administrative, bureaucratic, regulatory, and public outreach responsibilities related to physical sites and collections, easily fill or over-fill their schedules. Now the care and curation of digital data adds to the piling up of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith M. Poole. Ywone Edwards-Ingram.

Archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg has always involved African Americans in different levels of its practice.  Members of this community have worked behind-the-scenes and in more public roles at the museum since its founding in the late 1920s. This presentation addresses the unique ways in which archaeologists have worked with African Americans, and how this interaction has allowed archaeologists to reach descendant communities.  Examples from past and ongoing activities are used to illustrate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Esther White. Anna Agbe-Davies.

Historical archaeological studies have always relied upon statistically valid datasets for quantitative analyses and often required that archaeologists wade through volumes of text for clues to a site’s historical context.  The digital age allows for the collection of these data in a variety of ways including gathering primary sources through crowd sourcing – multiple users, often from a diversity of sites or backgrounds, compiling data into a central repository.  This paper explores the utility...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aubrey Farrell.

This is an abstract from the "Past Human-Shark Interactions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of sharks in the archaeological record provides plentiful research opportunities within the lenses of social zooarchaeology and materials science. The convergence of these two themes when analyzing artifact shark teeth presents unique advantages and challenges to understanding how past people perceived sharks and made use of their physical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carolyn Kennedy.

Steamboat construction of the early nineteenth century remains largely forgotten and unstudied.  Historical records provide little detail to how construction techniques were evolving in this experimental phase of steam-powered vessels.  A survey of Lake Champlain’s Shelburne Shipyard revealed the remains of four nineteenth-century steamboats, three of which were built prior to 1840.  The four hulls were recorded for comparative study during a field school which took place in the month of June,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carolyn Kennedy.

A team of nautical archaeologists from Texas A&M University, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology and the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum returned to Shelburne Shipyard in June 2015 to continue examining Wreck 2, a steamboat wreck from the early 1800s.  Wreck 2 was surveyed during a preliminary investigation of four steamboat hulls in June 2014 and determined to be the oldest of the four.  The 2015 team recorded Wreck 2 using both traditional archaeological methods and photogrammetric...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Garrett Fesler. Paul Nasca.

Alexandria Archaeology recently completed excavation of a 12 ft. deep well feature located in the basement of a historic building in the Old Town section of Alexandria, Virginia.  The artifacts recovered from the well indicate that it was filled ca. 1820, when Thomas Shields operated the property as a tavern and bathhouse.  Shields most likely dug the well in order to draw water directly from the premises instead of hauling water from a public pump down the street.  Alas, the story does not have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Hacker.

In 1997 Site 8 was uncovered at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello through excavations conducted by the staff of the Monticello Department of Archaeology and students in the Monticello-University of Virginia Archaeological Field School. Six features identified as either storage pits or cellars provide evidence of four buildings that once stood to house enslaved field hands between c. 1770 and c. 1800. This occupation is contemporaneous with the period in which Thomas Jefferson shifted Monticello’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Fogle.

The late antebellum period witnessed the rise of an agricultural reform movement aimed at revitalizing the southern plantation system. Soil degradation from intensive cash crop cultivation contributed to the decreasing productivity of once prosperous farmland in many southern communities. Drawing on Enlightenment principles and scientific farming innovations such as crop rotation, fertilization, and soil chemistry, this progressive agricultural discourse attempted to maximize the efficiency of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Calvin Mires. Victor T Mastone. Laurel Seaborn. Jennifer E. Jones. Leland Crawford.

  In 2015, the first accredited maritime archaeological field school took place under a partnership between Salem State University, NPS, NAS, the PAST Foundation, SEAMAHP, and the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Resources. Examining a 19th-century schooner on the North Shore of Massachusetts, this field school launched two successive years of educational programs that spring boarded deeper research into historical, environmental, and methodological questions, for collaborating scholars. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kira E. Kaufmann.

Great Lakes barge and dredge vessels were the workhorses that launched the 20th century’s economy in the region. However, these ships were historically and archaeologically marginalized. They were not the vessels whose travels were recorded in historic newspapers, or whose architectural plans were archived. Very little information about 19th century barge and dredge ship construction had been recorded for Great Lakes vessels. Eleven shipwrecks, including barges, dredges, tugs, and a schooner...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher P. Morris. Jimmie Crider.

In a world after the wrath of Superstorm Sandy, recovery efforts lead to an accidental run-in with a mysterious historic shipwreck. Now with a powerful gang of state and federal agencies breathing down their necks, can a rag tag team of maritime archaeologists, conservators, surveyors,  and deep core drillers use 3D laser scanning, and computer modeling to make sense of this mess before the task order runs out ?!

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marijo Gauthier-Bérubé. Ricardo Borrero Londoño. Massimo Capulli. Maria Santos. Filipe Castro.

Managing multi-language research can be frustrating and limits can soon be reached when trying to figure out the right translation. Moreover, even within one language, many variations exist of the same terms in historical treatises and between various archaeologists. This maelstrom of definitions and terms burden our field to limit our discussion and understanding. By creating a glossary of seven languages with different researchers from around the world, we aim to create a tool for scholars, as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joyce H. Steinmetz.

This regional thesis documents that 1) commercial bottom fishing gear damages shipwrecks and 2) shipwrecks negatively affect commercial bottom fishing. From a 52-wreck sample, 69% of mid-Atlantic shipwrecks have 1 or more derelict trawl nets or scallop dredges on site. Deeper than 150 ft. (46 m), all metal wrecks have 1 to 5 scallop dredges, increasing at scallop rotational access areas. Sadly, wood wrecks do not survive towed dredge impacts. An enhanced shipwreck site formation process diagram...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua L. Marano.

The National Historic Landmarks Program is an initiative administered by the National Park Service to identify national significant historic places that possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States. While there are currently more than 2,500 historic properties throughout the country bearing this distinction, only a small percentage include maritime cultural heritage and only seven include shipwrecks. While many individual National...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tricia Dodds. Matthew S. Lawrence. Deborah Marx.

California’s Sonoma Coast is a rugged and beautiful seashore with a wealth of natural resources extending from kelp forests to redwood groves. Humans have interacted with this marine environment for thousands of years; it has shaped their lives and they have left their mark on the landscape. During the mid-19th and early 20th century, the Sonoma lumber trade greatly affected the coastal environment as it contributed to the economic development of the American West Coast. In 2016, California...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelley Scudder-Temple. Cynthia Wirth. Michael Pateman.

During the past several decades salvage operators, government sanctioned and non-sanctioned, have destroyed countless archaeological sites through the pillaging of shipwrecks in search of sunken treasure throughout The Bahamas. Recently the government of The Bahamas passed the Underwater Heritage Shipwreck Act which allows for a limited number of licensed excavations to be conducted by salvage companies under the supervision of appointed archaeologists and government officials. Has the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eden Andes.

This paper addresses ship’s equipment, fittings, and rigging found on the late 18th century Storm Wreck off the coast of St. Augustine, Florida. Components of standing and running rigging are discussed along with the ship’s bell, lead deck pump, bricks, fasteners, and ballast. Rigging components recovered include an intact deadeye with iron stropping, another deadeye strop, a possible chainplate, and a variety of iron hooks and hanks. The lead deck pump was found bent and hacked from its...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Fitzhugh.

In the early 1970s Clifford Evans created a "Paleoindian Program" at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Clovis was well-established in the literature, but its origins and antecedents were mysterious. Dennis Stanford had just received his PhD on Thule culture studies in Barrow, Alaska, but his real love was Paleoindians. After arriving at the SI he picked up the mantle of the Institution’s pioneering Paleoindian researcher, Frank Roberts, and instituted large-scale projects at...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Severts. Joel Bohy. William Rose. Charles Haecker. Douglas Scott.

This poster presents the results of a live fire experiment with Colonial and Revolutionary War firearms. It is a beginning of investigations of late pre-modern gun use. Firearms were a central feature of combat for the past 600 years and a significant vector of political, ecological, and cultural change. Experimental archaeology has emerged as a rigorous approach to the study of material reflections of human behavior. In the live fire experiment, we observed impacts of experimentally fired balls...