North America (Geographic Keyword)
3,001-3,025 (3,610 Records)
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...
Sixty Years of Encampment Archaeology at Valley Forge (2015)
From Lexington and Concord to Yorktown, fighting for the newfound independence of the American colonies occupied soldiers for only a fraction of the eight years spent engaged in conflict. The archaeology of the American Revolution goes well beyond the battlefield locations that dot the American landscape. With soldiers spending up to six months of the year in encampments, places like Valley Forge offer researchers the opportunity to understand the time spent outside the fighting season. This...
Skeletal Remains Suggesting or Attributed To Early Man in North America (1907)
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.
Skeletal Remains Suggesting or Attributed To Early Man in North America (1907)
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.
Skeletons in the Closet: Ethical, Moral, Pedagogical, and Intellectual Issues in Managing Unprovenanced Osteological Legacy Collections (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Legacy collections of human remains at teaching institutions present a unique set of ethical issues. They frequently are the result of decades of unknown sourcing. Even when purchased from medical supply companies, ethical standards over time shift, raising new issues. Hidden away, many institutions know that they hold these collections, yet they may not...
Slave Foodways at James Madison’s Montpelier A.D. 1810- 1830 (2015)
Based primarily on similarities in occupation, the enslaved population at Montpelier formed distinct enclaves within the plantation, both spatially and within the hierarchy of the operation of the plantation. While food rations at Montpelier were nominally the same for each of these groups, position within the plantation hierarchy created differing opportunity to supplement those rations through access to both the Madison’s themselves and to the means to acquire wild game. Zooarchaeological...
Slave Quarters, Stand, or Trash Dump? Determining Site Function at the Food Plot Site. (2013)
The Food Plot Site is located on the Tombigbee National Forest in Mississippi. It was discovered in a 2006 survey. Initially, only whiteware and amethyst glass were found at the site and it was determined to be ineligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The site was revisited in 2008, shortly after it had been plowed. During this visit hundreds of early English ceramics were discovered. In fact, these were some of the earliest ceramics ever found on the Tombigbee...
Slave Ships and Mutiny, The Cahuita National Park Shipwreck Survey in Costa Rica (2013)
Tourism brochures advertise two shipwrecks in the Cahuita National Park in Costa Rica. The sites are restricted to snorkeling only and the use of SCUBA equipment is not permitted. Local guides, whose families have specialized in free diving for generations, are employed to offer snorkeling tours and are required to be used in the confines of the park. Little is currently known about the identity of these shipwrecks. Historical and archaeological investigations suggest several possible candidates...
Slave Ships: Identifying Them in the Archaeological Record and Understanding Their Unique Characteristics (2015)
This paper briefly examines the structure and construction of the slave ships in the United States and England and looks at how slave ships are different in structure and function from other merchant vessels. By examining them as special purpose ships, trends in structure and construction become apparent and prove to be unique to slave ships. The material culture found in the archaeological record that could identify a ship as having participated in the slave trade will also be examined. The...
The Slave Trade in the Gulf of Mexico: The Potential for Furthering Research through the Archaeology of Shipwrecked Slave Ships (2016)
For more than 300 years, the slave trade transported human cargo to slave markets along the American Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and throughout the Caribbean. In 1808, Congress banned the slave trade throughout the U.S., although smuggling, especially in the Gulf of Mexico, continued for another half-century. While thousands of slave ship voyages have been documented, only a few slave ships have ever been investigated archaeologically worldwide. In the Gulf of Mexico, an untold number of vessels...
Slave village organization in the French West Indies. (2013)
Over the last ten years, archaeological investigations of plantation slave villages in the French West Indies have begun to reveal insights into plantation village organization and structure. Prior to this work, what little was known about French West Indian slave villages was derived either from standing remains on plantation sites, or more frequently, from a small range of historical documents including images and accounts. These sources were far from representative. Archaeological work by...
The Slave Wrecks Project in National Park Units of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands (2016)
Since 2010 the National Park Service (NPS) has worked with the Smithsonian Institution and George Washington University to foster greater understanding of how the African slave trade shaped global history. This endeavor—the Slave Wrecks Project (SWP)—represents a long-term, multi-national effort to locate, document, protect, and analyze maritime sites pertaining to the slave trade, following the entire process including capture, transportation, sale, enslavement, resistance, and freedom. The...
The Slave Wrecks Project: An Agenda, An Approach for the Maritime Archaeology of the Slave Trade (2016)
This presentation draws upon our research worldwide—and the Sao Jose investigation in particular--to discuss the Slave Wrecks Project’s emerging signature approach to the maritime archaeology of the slave trade. Slaver shipwrecks serve as points of entrée for broader multi-disciplinary, multi-country, collaborative investigations of African-sourced slave trades and enslavement experiences – aiming to incorporate archaeological, archival, and ethno-historical investigation of related...
Slavery and Freedom on the Periphery: Faunal Analysis of Four Ante- and Post-bellum Maryland Sites (2015)
Vertebrate faunal remains recovered from four Maryland cultural resource management projects provide a unique opportunity to explore the dietary patterns of formerly enslaved and free African Americans in the late-18th to early-20th centuries. Maryland straddled the border between a slave based, plantation economy and a free labor economy, allowing its African American communities more opportunities to gain their freedom and earn a living. Faunal assemblages were analyzed and compared to assess...
Slavery and memory in France’s former colony: designing the commemoration of memory at the Loyola cemetery while respecting sensibilities of history (2013)
Our paper reflects on the development of a commemoration concept which takes into account the sensibilities of descendants from the slave trade period in French Guiana. Memory of the trade period is a sensitive issue among most Caribbean Islands; our 16-year experience of research at one site presents various questions with which we are confronted in order for the local population to appropriate the spirit of place. Under Jesuit rule the Loyola Plantation comprised an area making slightly over...
Slavery and Resistance in Maryland: Findings From the L'Hermitage Slave Village Excavations (2016)
From 2010 to 2012, National Park Service archeologists, students, and volunteers conducted archeological investigations of the L’Hermitage plantation at Monocacy National Battlefield. The plantation was established in 1794 by the Vincendieres, French Catholic planters who came to Maryland to escape the Saint-Domingue slave revolution. They brought 12 enslaved laborers with them. By 1800 they owned 90 enslaved people. Traditional field methods, historical research, and genealogical studies were...
Slavery to Freedom on the Web: A Community Engagement Experiment for Online Exhibits (2013)
Historic St. Mary's City is a living history and archaeology park dedicated primarily to the recreation and preservation of the 17th century landscape of Maryland's first capital city. However, the landscape has undergone significant change since the city's abandonment in 1700, including a significant period as a slave and tenant plantation. Because this period of the past no longer exists on the landscape, HSMC has pursued funding to build an online digital exhibit to tell the story of the...
Slavery, Race, and the Making of a University in the Capital of the Confederacy (2016)
In 1994, comingled human remains were accidentally discovered during construction at the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) campus of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). The association of these remains with MCV should not have been unexpected. Found in an abandoned well and dating to the first half of the 19th century, these human remains from people of African descent bear grim witness to the desecration of interred individuals in a bid to advance medical knowledge—knowledge that largely...
Slaves as Individuals: Variability in Status and Identity Among the Field Slave Houses at Colonels Island Plantation, Georgia (2018)
Most archaeological studies of slave communities analyze structural remains and household debris to interpret lifeways of the enslaved occupants as a group, and perhaps how this group may have changed over time or how it differed from the lives of the overseer, the planter, or slaves in other communities. The assumption has been that most slaves within a community exhibit similar status and acquisition of goods. Our excavations of five dwellings within a nineteenth century field slave settlement...