North America (Geographic Keyword)
401-425 (3,610 Records)
An agricultural reform movement took rise in the late antebellum period aimed at modernizing the southern plantation system. Productivity of once prosperous farmland in many southern communities was gradually failing due to soil degradation from intensive cash crop cultivation. Drawing on Enlightenment principles and scientific farming innovations such as crop rotation, fertilization, and soil chemistry, this modern agricultural discourse attempted to control and maximize the efficiency of the...
Between the Devil and the Deep Red Tape (2018)
Successful archaeological projects rely on good management from beginning to end. Difficult under the best circumstances, these difficulties are compounded when multiple agencies are involved. Yet, the investigation of the Beaufort Inlet Wreck (aka the Queen Anne’s Revenge) has thrived, overcoming the entrenched bureaucracies of State Government and the University system to form a viable partnership that has produced remarkable results
Between the Mythic and the Material: Texas Exceptionalism and Early Austin History (2017)
Popular histories portray the Republic of Texas capital city of Austin between 1839 and 1846 as a crude frontier town, characterized by Anglo-American heroism and material deprivation. By stressing these aspects of Republic-era life, such histories omit many facets of early Austin’s social history, including enslaved forced migration and individualism that diverge from this narrative. This research carefully examines extant objects, architecture, and primary source documents to suggest an...
"Beware of All Houses Not Recommended": Sensory Experience and Commercial Success of a Nineteenth-Century Boston Brothel (2015)
Places of organized prostitution in the nineteenth-century operated within a very particular sensory framework. In many ways male patrons were paying for ambiance and sensory experience as well as sex. Through analysis of the material remains of brothel sites, such as items related to dining, lighting, or even personal hygiene, archaeology can potentially recreate the experienced context of these spaces. Sites, such as the brothel at 27/29 Endicott Street in Boston’s North End, have the...
"A Bewildering Variety" : A Material Culture Approach to Pearlware Hollow Forms (2015)
DAACS facilitates ceramic analysis at the sherd level with highly developed, exacting protocols for cataloguing attributes such as stylistic elements. This paper seeks to increase the level of systematic rigor applied to the vessel form field. The authors argue that only through a material culture approach – one that employs multiple available lines of evidence including museum collections, archaeological data, and documentary sources – can vessel form data be made more reliable and replicable...
Beyond Battlefields: Incorporating Social Contexts into Military Sites (2017)
Although it has been more than a century since the US Civil War was fought, battles regarding interpretation and the public memory of the conflict continue to rage. Hundreds of sites along the eastern seaboard are consecrated to this period, with many preservationists and other historical organizations dedicated to sterile interpretations of these battlefields. These interpretations fail to capture social contexts of the site, as well as the development of the landscape since the Civil War. The...
Beyond Leaky Pipelines and Glass Ceilings: Equity Issues on the Academic Track (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. Achieving equity in academia is framed as a process of shattering glass ceilings, letting everyone climb as high as their abilities allow. The leaky pipeline metaphor relies on a future with enough diversity-in-waiting that some of it will flow to higher ranks. These metaphors...
Beyond Repatriation at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (2018)
Congress intended federal repatriation legislation to go beyond removing collections from museums. They hoped that it would lead to new relationships between Native Americans and museums that would recognize the interests of all parties. The Anthropology Department of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History has worked, through its Repatriation Office and other programs, to collaborate with tribes and Alaskan Natives on projects that go beyond repatriation to include initiatives with...
Beyond the Borders: Using 3D Public Archaeology to Democratize the Past at US National Parks (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Public Lands, Public Sites: Research, Engagement, and Collaboration" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. National Parks in the United States contain within their borders a natural and cultural heritage not only significant to all the nation’s inhabitants but also hold importance on a global scale. Although interaction with this heritage within a national park is intended to be direct and physical, this is not always...
Beyond the Holes of Archaeology: Paying Attention to Indigenous Academics, Artists, and Activists (2018)
Archaeology continues to need the infusion of indigenous perspectives, not only to take responsibility for the discipline’s past in colonial contexts, but also to advance its ability to understand human histories – especially indigenous ones – in respectful, innovative, and inclusive ways. This need is particularly strong for those archaeologists who study Native American cultural and community life just before, right into, and well after the onset of European colonialism and for those who are...
Beyond the Mansion: How the Archaeology Program at a Plantation Museum Changed so Many Lives (2018)
Between 1988 and 2009, the Hermitage Archaeology Program trained students of archaeology, anthropology, history, and education. Summer after summer, as the excavation units were laid, the wheelbarrows lined up, the shovels and trowels counted and distributed, we were always excited about what was to come. I learned about who I was as an archaeologist, as a scholar of slavery and the African Diaspora, and a Black Feminist Archaeologist. This short reflection paper is to share some thoughts and...
Beyond the Patriarchy: A Feminine Examination of Montpelier's Shifting Landscape (2016)
The physical landscape at James Madison's Montpelier underwent drastic changes between the mansion's original construction in 1764 and the end of Madison's life in 1836. These modifications paralleled Madison's rise in social status and increase of political power. This paper seeks to examine the ways in which a male's upward trajectory in the public sphere and subsequent changes to his home led to feminine renegotiations of place in a continually modified space. This paper utilizes...
Beyond the Points: Sociocultural Complexity Revealed by Non-Hunting Artifacts from Melting Ice Patches in the High Alpine, Greater Yellowstone Area, USA (2018)
The recovery of chipped stone projectile points, bows, dart and arrow foreshafts and shafts, and the remains of prey species—notably bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis)—in direct association with melting Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA) ice patches illustrates that hunting was a primary activity for Native Americans at these features. The recovery of other, non-hunting related, types of organic artifacts at ice patches suggests a broader utilization of the alpine environment. Although fewer in number,...
Beyond the Technical Report: Building public Outreach into Compliance-Driven Projects, A Case Study from Sandpoint Idaho (2016)
From 2005 to 2008 archaeologists conducted the largest excavation in the state of Idaho's history in the small north Idaho town of Sandpoint. The excavations were a prelude to the construction of a byway through the city's former historic core by Idaho's Department of Transportation. Despite not being able to conduct a public program during the excavations, project archaeologists were subequently able to create a number of outcomes derived directly from the excavations that were ultimately...
Beyond the Walls: An Examination of Michilimackinac's Extramural Settlement (2016)
Since 1959 the continuous archaeological investigations at Fort Michilimackinac have shaped our understanding of colonial life in the Great Lakes. The fort served as the center of a vast, multicultural trade network. While the Fort’s interior continues to be vigorously excavated, little attention has been given to the larger village that emerged outside the Fort’s walls in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Summer excavations from 1970-1973, conducted by Lyle Stone, attempted to explore...
Beyond the Waters’ Edge: Complexity and Conservation Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage by Public Agencies in North Carolina. (2015)
Since the 1980s, heritage conservation has expanded in scope and complexity beyond just concern with technical preservation of tangible remains to also preserve intangible aspects. More than one conservation strategy may be possible but could have very different consequences for use of remains in the present and future. In many countries, those responsible for deciding which strategy to take are managers employed in public agencies. Understanding the nature of the system in which management...
Big Data and Possibilities for New Urban Comparisons at and Around Cahokia Mounds, USA (2024)
This is an abstract from the "*SE Big Data and Bigger Questions: Papers in Honor of David G. Anderson" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Situated in present-day Collinsville, Illinois, Cahokia Mounds is considered globally as the premier example of precontact American Indian urbanism in North America. However, understandings of Cahokia’s early population density, spatial arrangement, and scale are primarily drawn from relatively small areas within...
The Big Data History of Archaeology: How Site Definitions and Linked Open Data Practices are Transforming our Understanding of the Historical Past (2016)
This paper examines big data patterns of historic archaeological site definitions and distributions across several temporal and behavioral vectors. The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) provides publicly free and open data interoperability and linkage features for archaeological information resources. In 2015, DINAA had integrated fifteen US state archaeological databases, containing information about 0.5 million archaeological resources, as a linked open data network of...
Big Data, Human Adaptation, and Historical Archaeology: Confronting Old Problems with New Solutions (2016)
How humans respond to climate change has been identified as one of archaeology's grand challenges. Traditionally, archaeologists correlate local or regional environmental reconstructions with human settlement to form post hoc inferences about adaptive and social responses to changes in climate and associated environmental resources. Regardless the logical strength of these explanations, rarely can they be generalized beyond the case study. To offer general statements about human adaptation to...
Bioarchaeological and Archival Investigations of the Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Cemetery Collection: A Progress Report (2013)
Continuing bioarchaeological and archival research on the Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Cemetery collection is presented. As reported elsewhere, the beginning stages of a multidisciplinary analysis of this late 19th and early 20th century institutional cemetery has led to the identification of a number of the 1,649 individuals excavated. Included in this discussion will be new case studies that continue to demonstrate not only the interpretive potential of an integrated archaeological,...
Bioarchaeological Evidence of the African Diaspora in Renaissance Romania (2016)
Little documentary or archaeological information currently exists regarding the presence of people of African descent in Eastern Europe during the historical period. Known to have arrived in Europe with the Romans, free and enslaved Africans were common members of European society by the advent of the Renaissance, especially in the Moorish territories and the Ottoman Empire. In 1952, archaeologists recovered a set of partial remains of 30-35-year-old man during excavations of an Orthodox...
Bioarchaeology and Genome Justice: What Are the Implications for Indigenous Peoples? (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Social Justice in Native North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines the theme of "discovery," used in relation to Indigenous lands and peoples to designate the respective claims of Indigenous peoples and the European peoples that colonized North America. In particular, I look at the domain of "bioarchaeology" and the construct of "genome justice" to explore how DNA science attempts...
Bioarchaeology of Burials Associated with the Elkins Site (7NC-G-174) (2016)
Bioarchaeological interpretations of five burials from a small family cemetery likely associated with one of the domestic structures at the Elkins Site integrate information from in situ data collection and standard laboratory assessment, as well as DNA and stable isotope analysis. Four of the burials (two adult males and two adult females) were tightly clustered and the fifth burial (a male infant) was spatially separated within the cemetery. Despite craniofacial morphology that could be...
The Bioarchaeology of the Columbian Harmony Cemetery Collection (51NE049), Washington, D.C. (2016)
The Bioarchaeology of the Columbian Harmony Cemetery Series (51NE049), Washington, D.C. Archaeological investigations on a portion of the Columbian Harmony Cemetery in Washington, D.C. resulted in the identification of 231 grave features, many of which had been disturbed by a cemetery relocation project that took place in 1960. Information obtained from skeletal and dental analyses have provided information on 19th and early 20th century patterns of burial, postmortem treatment (i.e., embalming...
Biographies of Things, People, and Space at Jesuit Missions: The St. Inigoes Manor Weaver’s House (2018)
A biographical framework for archaeological studies of Jesuit missions in the Americas guides enquiry toward histories of specific artifacts, especially religious objects that were implicated in efforts to gain converts, as well as mission space including manor houses and churches. Additionally, narrative accounts of Jesuit missions lend themselves to biographies, either for the lives of influential missionaries or the missions, that were disseminated through texts such as the Relations. This...