North America (Geographic Keyword)
2,976-3,000 (3,602 Records)
As part of its mission to advance the understanding, preservation, and protection of our nation’s battlefields, the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP) is investigating the use of military terrain analysis (KOCOA, MET-T, etc.) on naval or amphibious engagements in American waters. The variable landscapes associated with these battlefields necessitate further research. Maritime battlefields can yield important information on a comparatively understudied aspect...
Shore Whalers of the Outer Banks: A Material Culture Study (2015)
Since the Colonial period, inhabitants of the Outer Banks of North Carolina processed right whales to augment their existence until the turn of the 20th century. What began as drift-whale scavenging became organized hunts. Each spring, the locals kept lookouts from high dunes and launched boats from shore in pursuit of whales. The historical record indicates that they did so for over two centuries with moderate success. Locating archaeological signatures along this coast is problematic due...
A Shot in the Dark: Assessing the Navigational Capabilities of H.L. Hunley (2018)
Early submarines faced many logistical challenges, one of them being the ability to steer and navigate while submerged. The Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley was no exception to this problem. Hunley’s depth and direction while in operation were the responsibility of its captain, who sat in the forward most crew station and, according to the historical and archaeological record, determined the vessel’s course based on a compass and dead reckoning. Recent archaeological study has begun to...
Shouting to Wake the Dead: Is it Time for a Historic Graves Protection Act? (2018)
As many as 300,000 abandoned historic cemeteries exist in the United States today, yet as few as 0.4% of these are protected from disturbance by listing on the National Register of Historic Places. While NAGPRA also protects Native Burial sites on public land, and federal regulations such as ARPA shield some additional archaeological resources, the remainder of ancestral dead of all ethnicities are vulnerable to exhumation during construction. The archaeological excavation of such cemeteries may...
"Show Me the Maps!" An Application of Story Maps to Archaeological Interpretation (2017)
This paper discusses how ESRI Story Maps can aid in the interpretation of archaeological sites to both the public and professionals alike. Story Map technology offers us a way in which to share archaeological data and narratives to a global audience by incorporating text, high-resolution photographs, videos, and interactive maps into a user-friendly, web-based application. As a component of ArcGIS, Story Maps enable users to employ a vast amount of geospatial tools, conduct detailed analysis,...
Showing Your Work: The Role Of Public Archaeology In The Campaign To Save The ISM (2016)
The summer of 2015 could mark a monumental shift in archaeological and academic research in the state of Illinois. State budget cuts threaten to close the Illinois State Museum (ISM) by the end of the summer. Immediate consequences of this closure include the loss of hundreds of jobs and reduced curation of millions of artifacts. With this looming threat, supporters of the museum are campaigning to prevent its closing. This paper examines how the media campaign to save the ISM uses archaeology...
The Siege Of Petersburg: Reading Between The Lines (2018)
When the Confederate transportation center of Petersburg fell after a 9.5 month siege, the combatants faced each other across lines of major earthworks in a more than 35 mile long arc. The territory between these lines contains a fertile archeological record of U.S. attempts to advance and C.S.A. counter-moves and their skillful yet desperate efforts to defend vital supply lines to Richmond. We explore the physical record of the campaign from the interim lines to both armies’ picket lines and...
Signaling Theory, Network Creation, and Commodity Exchange in the Historic Caribbean (2016)
Signaling theory is becoming a common tool in the interpretation of slave-era households in the United States and Caribbean. As a heuristic tool, signaling theory’s effectiveness lies in its ability to provide insight into the differential consumption and disposal habits of past populations. This paper addresses not only consumer and disposal habits, but also commodity exchange and personal networks to place the material culture of enslaved and freed Africans from the Caribbean island of St....
The Significance of Hotel Ware Ceramics in the Twentieth Century (2015)
Hotel Ware is a highly durable, vitrified ceramic tableware introduced by American potters in the late nineteenth century. The ware became tremendously popular in the first half of the twentieth century, with production peaks in the late 1920s and again in the late 1940s. Hotel Ware was prized for its toughness and cost-effectiveness, and was the ware of choice in nearly every commercial and institutional setting of that period. Excavations at trash middens at the site of Riding Mountain Prison...
Significant Clay: Iconography and the Heroes Beneath Our Streets (2018)
First blood of the American Revolution was spilled in New York City, a place long known for its diversity and strong political opinions. Past, present, and future New Yorkers have advertised their allegiances in various forms from development and architecture to consumer choices. The advertisement of socio-political beliefs and national allegiance can be found in New York’s City Hall Park and South Street Seaport. Following the Revolution potters in both Britain and China quickly helped to...
Silk and Rifles: A Gender Analysis of Blockade Runner Cargos (2017)
This presentation examines the tension between nineteenth-century Southern gender expectations of upper-class femininity contrasted with the necessities of wartime. It will assess whether this tension is evident in the material record by analyzing the cargo of Confederate blockade runners entering the affluent ports of Wilmington and Charleston. By examining the cargo from blockade runners, as well as looking at historical records, this presentation will draw conclusions about what women wanted...
A Silk Purse from a Sow’s Ear: The History and Archeology of the Monumental Core in Washington, DC (2016)
The Monumental Core in the District of Columbia contains some of the nation’s most iconic landscapes, landmarks and memorials. The modern landscape bears little resemblance to the natural environment or the nineteenth-century city. For thousands of years, Native Americans camped along the bank of a tidal creek. After the City of Washington was established in 1790, the creek was transformed first into a canal, then a foul sewer that carried the city’s waste into the Potomac River. Areas of open...
The Simple Life: Archeological Investigations of a German Immigrant Family Compund in Austin, Texas. (2013)
This paper explores the Schneider family, German immigrants who, between 1854 and 1920, built a successful saloon, general store, and a small real-estate empire in the heart of Austin, Texas. Over a period of seventy years, they witnessed their neighborhood transition from quiet residential area, to bawdy Red Light District, and eventually become a warehouse district. In spite of the family’s growing land wealth, they lived a modest lifestyle; and they remained in their original home until the...
A Simple Model of Long-term Population Expansion and Recession (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Global Perspectives on Human Population Dynamics, Innovation, and Ecosystem Change" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last 12,000 years human populations have expanded and transformed critical earth systems. Yet, a key unresolved question in the environmental and social sciences remains: Why did human populations grow and, sometimes, decline in the first place? Our research builds on 20 years of intense...
Sims Site: Implications for a Paleoindian Occupation (1976)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Simulating Organic Projectile Point Damage on Bison Pelves (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A Bison latifrons pelvis was discovered eroding out of shoreline sediment at American Falls Reservoir in Idaho in 1953. The ischium section had a unique groove and hole with a depth of 35 mm and 10 mm in diameter. The pelvis was X-rayed in 1961 for indicators of the origin of the damage and this could not be ascertained. An experiment was developed to...
The Single-Use Vessel: Reuse And Recycling In The Construction Of The Cuban Chug (2017)
There is no singular theoretical model that explains the life cycle of the Cuban chug. Its creation as a single use vessel is singularly unique to boat construction. The vessel must be strong enough to withstand and ride the Florida Current, constructed of materials that are readily available to the average Cuban citizen, and be able to be transported and launched quickly to avoid detainment by Cuban authorities. Once a chug reaches the territorial waters of the United States its passengers will...
The Sinking of HMAS Sydney: Consequences and Memory (2017)
This paper will examine the sinking of HMAS Sydney in the Indian Ocean on 19 November 1941, by the German raider, SV Kormoran. All hands on the Sydney were lost, a total of 635 men, one-third of the nation’s Navy. The fate of the Sydney has always remained controversial, due to the lack of survivors. Despite numerous attempts, investigators consistently failed to trace the wreckage of either ship until 2008, when the crew of SV Geosounder located both vessels, thus closing one of the most tragic...
Sisneros and Cisneros: Place-Based Community Development Among Hispanic Homesteaders in Northeast New Mexico (2017)
In 2016 the Office of Contract Archeology surveyed 9,466 acres of private land in northeast New Mexico. The block survey included several entire homestead allotments belonging to Hispanic families between 1900 and 1940. Due to their location on private land, many of the sites are in relatively pristine condition. Analysis of the sites, architecture, and archival documents was a unique opportunity to understand how these dispersed Hispanic homesteaders relied on each other and organized into a...
Site Clustering Parallels Initial Domestication in Eastern North America (2018)
Dense human settlements often emerge following a shift to agricultural economies, yet researchers still debate the underlying cause of this pattern. One driver may be what is known in ecology as an Allee effect, a positive relationship between population density and per capita utility. Allee effects may emerge with economies of scale such as those created by some forms of intensified food acquisition and production. Thus, in an Allee-like setting, individuals belonging to larger groups enjoy the...
Site Formation Processes of the Wreck of the U. S. Steamer Convoy in Pensacola Bay, Florida (2013)
This paper examines the site formation processes of the U. S. steamer Convoy that sank in the Pensacola Pass in March 1866 after an overturned coal-oil lamp in the engine room caused a fire that consumed ship. Not only will the paper discuss the vessel’s Civil War history but also the deliberate and opportunistic salvage operations conducted during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The research compares a recent survey of the wreck site, constructed by archaeologists from the University of...
Site Monitoring at Fort Eustis, Virginia (2018)
Since 2010 the Fort Eustis Cultural Resources Management staff has been conducting a program of annual site monitoring visits in which each of the more than 200 known archaeological sites on Fort Eustis is visited at least once a year. The monitoring program has provided a baseline knowledge of site conditions and regular opportunities to observe any disturbance. This paper will discuss the benefits of site monitoring at Fort Eustis, including how improved knowledge of the landscape and...
Site Study and Reconstruction of the Pillar Dollar Wreck, Biscayne Bay, Florida (2015)
Long known to treasure hunters, the "Pillar Dollar" Wreck in Biscayne Bay, Florida, remains relatively unstudied. Ballast scatters and some wooden structures are visible on the sand, though what remains buried underneath is still a mystery. This project aims to uncover that mystery, and, if possible, reconstruct the vessel in an effort to gain more information regarding its origins and identity.
Sites of Difficult Memory: The Haciendas of Chimborazo, Ecuador (2015)
From the 17th century until the land reforms of the last fifty years, hacienda agriculture dominated the highland region surrounding Chimborazo, Ecuador. Many of the central building complexes of these operations now stand as ruins on the landscape. Through interviews, historical research, and site survey, I explore the role that these ruins play as silent witnesses to a difficult past for rural indigenous communities today.
Sixty Years of Archeology in Independence National Historical Park: Learning from the Past, Digging for the Future (2016)
Beginning in the early 1950’s archeologists began sifting the soil beneath Independence National Historical Park in an effort to help inform and guide the development of a new national park. Over the course of subsequent decades the formative work of Paul Schumacher, Barbara Liggett, and John Cotter, among others, shaped the park’s physical appearance, as well as the interpretive experience, for generations of visitors. In the process, these pioneers and their work played a key role in the birth...