North America (Geographic Keyword)
3,551-3,575 (3,602 Records)
Prairie madness is a documented phenomenon wherein immigrants who settled the Great Plains experienced episodes of depression and violence. The cause is commonly attributed to the isolation between the households and settlements. However, historical accounts from the late 19th and early 20th century also specify the sound of the winds on the plain as a catalyst. A number of conditions such as acute hyperacusis can cause increased sensitivity to environmental sounds. These conditions can result...
Wind-Powered Sugar Mills as Constructions of Control in the Plantation Landscapes of Montserrat, West Indies (2017)
As James Delle recently argued, Caribbean plantation landscapes were built environments designed to mediate interactions between planters and enslaved labourers. In this paper, wind-powered sugar mills on the island of Montserrat are singled out as being prominent components of the plantation environment that were not only economically productive, but also served as markers of planter power and control. The mills’ distinctive shape and height renders them instantly identifiable, and their...
A Window to the Past: The Archaeological Significance of the Plank Log House to Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania (2015)
Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania is a town with a history as long as European settlement in the Middle Atlantic United States region. First a Swedish trading outpost, then owned by the Dutch, and finally incorporated into William Penn’s holdings, the Borough of Marcus Hook now refers to itself as the Cornerstone of Pennsylvania. During the 18th century, the town had a major market which was the last port of call on the trade route to Philadelphia. The Plank Log House on Market Street, was built in the...
Windshields and Warfighters: Sharing Lessons Learned from the Roads and Military Installations of Texas (2018)
In Texas, federal agencies encounter complex issues and procedural challenges related to protecting and maintaining the resources that reflect our state’s rich legacy. Cultural resources on military installations present a unique challenge to those responsible for their management. Likewise, federal highway funded projects require special consideration of historic properties during transportation project planning. Balancing regulatory compliance with agency objectives, either supporting the...
Wine, Brandy, and Botijas at the Periphery of the Afro-Atlantic World: Production and Ethnicity on the Jesuit Estates of the Southern Pacific Coast of Peru (2015)
The Haciendas of Nasca Archaeological Project, focusing on slavery on colonial Jesuit wine estates of the Peruvian south coast, was initiated to broaden our understandings of the African diaspora in Peru, which historically existed at the edge of the Afro-Atlantic World, and is presently at the periphery of historical and archaeological scholarship. This paper explores the production and use of botijas – so-called Iberian Olive Jars – in the making of wine and brandy at two Jesuit estates and...
Within These Walls and Beyond: How the NHPA Saved and Continues to Protect Dry Tortugas National Park (2016)
Dry Tortugas National Park lies approximately 70 miles to the west of Key West in the direct path of the Florida Straits, as the western most terminus of the Florida Keys. Having been desginated initially as a National Monument in 1935, it wasn't until the establishment of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 that it truly saw protection from treasure hunters in the pristine reefs, and in a ironic twist, also from the then director of the National Park Service. Shipwrecks and material...
"Without prominent event": the McDonald Site in the Hoosier National Forest (2016)
The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and Section 106 process were enacted to ensure that archaeological knowledge is preserved. One problem this creates is that sites with ambiguous associations to particular occupants or events are offered less protection because their significance is also deemed ambiguous. The McDonald Site (12 OR 509) in the Hoosier National Forest is an example of how an ineligible site can still contribute significant information to local and regional histories....
Without regard for persons: The archaeology of american capitalism (2013)
In The Archaoelogy of American Capitalism, I examine a diverse range of studies to make the case that the historical archaeology in the United States is well served by a direct analysis of capitalism as a principle context for production, consumption, and cultural experience in America. Whether looking at the fur trade, the Georgian order, the creation of modern cities and industries or the practices of history-making and archaeology itself, I show how the lust for profit and bourgeois...
Women and Children First: The Archaeology of Motherhood and Childhood on San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Cove (2015)
Popular images of the maritime industry in places like San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Cove often focus on men — whether working on docks or ships, or on land at iron works and carpenter’s shops. Less visible in the historical record of these spaces are the women and children also living, and often working, along the waterfront. Historical research on the neighborhood that bordered Yerba Buena Cove in the late-19th-century suggests that most residences were occupied by families, rather than by...
"Women Smoking Leather": Identifying Women and Their Ethnicity at Fort Selkirk. (2015)
Fort Selkirk served as a small subarctic fur trade post for the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in central Yukon from 1848-1852. The company’s priority was the trade of European goods in exchange for furs trapped and hunted by Northern Tutchone and other Indigenous groups in the region. A review of Fort Selkirk journal records indicates the fort employed and housed a pluralistic population which included British, Indigenous and Metis men who worked as clerks, labourers and meat hunters. Mostly...
Wood Work: Excavating the Wilderness Economy of New York’s Adirondack Mountains (2016)
At the end of the 19th century, New York's legislature responded to the clarion call of conservationists concerned for the state's diminishing timber resources and threatened watershed by creating the Adirondack Forest Preserve, which kept millions of acres of public land in northern New York "forever wild." At the same time, the Adirondack logging industry witnessed tremendous growth on account of expanded railroad networks and paper industry innovations that opened up new areas of private land...
Wooden Histories: Narratives of Rural Abandonment and Disappearing Landmarks (2018)
The post 1820 wooden barns of the American mid-west are both physical structures, made of large beams, pegs and stone foundations, and silent witnesses to the dynamic interface between local, national and global social and economic changes. Drawing upon research in rural Indiania, this presentation explores the interface of regional historical research, personal interviews, and visual recording, to explore the process and potential contributions of documentary filmmaking in narrating local...
Wooden History of "The Highwayman" - Wreckage and Discovery of the Lumber Schooner Oliver J. Olson (1900 -1911) (2016)
Careened to starboard prow remains were uncovered by the landslide of a dune during the hurricanes Mary and Norbert at Cabo Falso, Lower California in August of 2014. Main deposit encompasses floor timbers, ribs, beams, planking, iron fasteners, a capstan, a dead eye, a cleat, a hatchway and steam donkey pinions. Machinery inscriptions, wood taxonomy, architectonical characteristics, site location and documentary sources research, drove to identify the wreck as the four-masted schooner Oliver J...
Worker’s Housing and Class Struggle in the Northern Forest (2017)
Worker’s housing is the material embodiment of the contradictions and class struggle between capital and labor. These contradictions stem from capital’s goal of securing cheap and reliable labor while workers strive for higher wages and gaining a measure of control and autonomy over their own lives. Archaeologists tend to overly simplify these complex social relations by uncritically adopting common ideological descriptions such as paternalism or overusing dualisms like dominance and resistance....
Working in Small Areas: The Archaeology Of An Urban Backyard in St. Charles, Missouri (2018)
Working in small, urban backyards is challenging due to often numerous ground disturbing activities. Often lurking between these disturbances, archaeological deposits can offer interesting and surprising glimpses of past activity. One backyard along Main Street in St. Charles, Missouri offers just such a glimpse that includes family life and dumping activity interpreted through 20th-Century children's toys and an unusually dense concentration of 19h-Century ceramics,
Working Off the Farm: Extracurricular Labor Expenditures and Farm Households (2018)
Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries farmers in the town of Hector, Schuyler County, New York, sought out additional employment oppurtunies at an increased rate. These occupations included endeavors that ranged from shopkeepers and schoolteachers to stenographers and doctors. Furthermore, these additional strains on household labor impacted agricultural production across the town of Hector. This included differential product choices and land improvements. Historical and archaeological...
Working on the Edge, Dealing with the Core: Emic and Etic perspectives on Island Heritage (2016)
Heritage is a relative concept. Perceptions of the value and importance of heritage, both tangible and intangible, is fluid, changing and contextually dependent. Stakeholders have various views on definitions of the past, the cultural and historical relevance of people places and objects, and the extent to which this should be shared when creating multivocal histories. Research on Inishark and Inishbofin, Co. Galway, Ireland, two islands five miles into the Atlantic Ocean, explain the...
Working Side-By-Side at the Grassroots Level: the Role of the Non-Profit and Avocationalist (2016)
Often, archaeological endeavors are sparked by one lone man or woman in the community driven by an avocational interest in their cultural heritage. This paper discusses how fostering relationships between multiple non-profits (archaeological/historical societies) and encouraging avocational involvement can revitalize the discipline of archaeology on a local to national level. The collaboration of multiple non-profits in archaeological endeavors has become a common practice in recent years as...
Working Title: Saenger Pottery Works: Preliminary Report, Unlocking a Town’s History through Their Pottery (2017)
This investigation of historical ceramics is conducted on a collection that dates from 1886 to 1915. Saenger Pottery Works was in operation from c.a.1885 through c.a. 1915. The size, form, and function variability of the ceramics inform about production techniques used and what forms are preferred over others. The issues in provenience and provenance are discussed because the pottery, while attributable to the site, do not have records of surface collection. Background research is a joint effort...
Working To Stay Together In "Foresaken Out Of The Way Places": Examining Anishinaabe Logging Camps And Lumbering Communities As Sites Of Social Refuge In The Industrial Frontier Of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. (2018)
Recent historical analyses of American Indians and wage labor have sought to challenge the "traditional" versus "modernist" dichotomy that has long shaped narratives of Anishinaabe labor history in the Upper Great Lakes. This paper discusses how collaborative research, involving the archaeological investigation of logging camps and mill sites in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, has aided in challenging the assumptions underlying this narrative form. More specifically, this paper explores the...
Working Toward an Activist Landscape Archaeology (2013)
Landscape archaeologies in the United States and Europe encompass diverse goals, scales and scopes allowing many perspectives to emerge from the archaeological study of related sites. This paper explores ways in which US-based scholars could draw upon approaches and theories from across the Atlantic to move toward an activist landscape archaeology that engages descendant communities, the public, and land managers through a focus on how people have interacted with and within a broad regional...
The World in his Pocket: the diverse coins used in the California Gold Rush (2017)
During the California Gold Rush, hopeful Argonauts from all over the world descended on California, bringing whatever coinage they had with them. Merchants of the time were adept at accommodating the new arrivals. Whereas the silver reales of Spanish America had long been a mainstay of the economy on the East Coast of America, now many other forms of coinage made their appearance. Silver and gold were the accepted forms of currency because with the runaway inflation copper coins were of...
World War II Shipping in the Gulf of Mexico and the Impact of the German U-boat Threat: the Archaeological Evidence (2016)
An estimated 56 commercial vessels were sunk by German U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico during targeted campaigns conducted between 1941 and 1943. In the years since, an estimated 14 of these wrecks have been located and identified with a high degree of confidence. A number of these sites have undergone varying levels of archaeological analysis, although very few have been scientifically excavated, resulting in little related material culture. This paper will review the archaeological evidence...
Worthy of a Thousand Words?: A Comparison of Images of Slavery in the US and Great Britain (2013)
In a previous paper I posited that imagery could be used as a resource for the archaeological study of slavery in Great Britain, since the smaller population of African slaves made it difficult to separate evidence of slavery from servitude. This paper will test the theories developed in the previous paper by comparing images from Great Britain with analogous samples from the US. Using traditional historical archaeological methods to study the people and places from which the US images were...
The WPA Ceramics Laboratories of the Penn Museum: A Collaborative Legacy (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For decades, scientific approaches have acted as a cornerstone to the processes used by archaeologists to answer questions about past societies. However, just under a century ago, the integration of archaeological science into the wider discipline was undergoing its early steps. One formative series of research projects during this period included those...