North America (Geographic Keyword)
426-450 (3,610 Records)
Mission archaeology benefits from a rich documentary archive produced by missionaries themselves, church and government officials, sponsors and charitable organizations, and—ideally—converts. Biography emerges as a potent method of organization and mode of analysis, allowing the archaeologist to name, follow, and order traces in the archives and the archaeological record. Thinking about archaeology as crafting a compelling biography of place allows for the articulation of intimacies and...
The Bird-Houston Site, 1775-1920: 145 Years of Rural Delaware (2016)
The Bird-Houston Site is a homestead that was occupied from around 1775 to 1920. During that long span the site was used in various ways by diverse occupants. Two houses stood there; the earlier log house was replaced by a frame house around 1825, and the two houses were far enough apart to keep their associated artifacts separate. The site’s occupants included unknown tenants, white property owners, and, after 1840, African American farm laborers and their families. Excavation of the site...
A Birds Eye View of War: The Role of Historic Maps and Aerial-Based Imagery in the Archaeological investigation of Unaccounted-For U.S. military Personnel. (2017)
As "snapshot" documents of the past, historical maps, aerial photographs, and satellite imagery are a valuable source for the archaeological investigation of major conflicts throughout the past eight decades. Although many of these documents were initially acquired and then maintained in secret in the context of major conflict or clandestine purposes, decades later they are proving to be of much benefit and unintended value for historical and archaeological research. This paper will present an...
The BISC 2 Cargo (Part I)--Contributions and Questions from Ceramics Analysis: Late 18th Century Sequencing and Colonial Trade patterns (2013)
The BISC-2 site uniquely contains thousands of fragments of late 18th century English ceramics dating from the period of transition from stone-glazed salt ware to cream ware, including hundreds of examples of both of these manufactured types that share decorative patterning. The fact that this assemblage (arguably one of the largest of late 18th century ceramics located to date in North America) was created through a wrecking event that occurred quite literally as a single instance in time...
The BISC 2 Cargo Part II--Prestige Cargo or Evidence of Colonial Dumping? An Exploration of What Key Items in BISC 2's Cargo of Ceramics May say About center/periphery trade relations in the Late North American British Empire (2013)
This paper will focus on what a set of very specific items documented in the BISC-2 cargo may indicate about relations between the Bristih imperial center and amongst various levels of its periphery--including Jamaica and North America--during the last third of the 18th century. We will focus in particular on: 1) a coloration pattern that is ubiquitous on the site that has been documented as having a limited production life and as destined for dumping in a colobial market considered less...
Black and White and Red All Over: The Goodrich Steamer Atlanta, 1891-1906 (2017)
Often overlooked in the story of the westward settlement of America, transportation of passengers and cargo through the Great Lakes and northern river systems accounted for a substantial volume of migrant travel. From the mid-1800s through the 1930s, passenger steamers on the Great Lakes were designed to combine luxury and speed. The Goodrich Transit Company, for example, was one of the longest operating (1856-1933) and most successful passenger steamship lines on the Great Lakes. Passage on the...
The Black and White of It: Rural Tenant and African American Enslaved and Free Worker Life at the Rumsey/Polk Tenant/Prehistoric site (2016)
Rich and provocative data on 1740s to 1850s tenant occupations were revealed by Phase II and III archaeological investigations at Locus 1 of the Rumsey/Polk Tenant/Prehistoric site. Documentary research, the recovery of 42,996 historic artifacts, and the discovery of 622 features, provided a rare glimpse into the lives of free and enslaved African American workers and white tenants living side-by-side in the racially charged atmosphere of 18th- and 19th-century Delaware. Artifacts like wolf...
Black Bodies and the Making of Race in Antebellum America (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Storeroom Taphonomies: Site Formation in the Archaeological Archive" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. University and museum collections containing human remains belonging to members of the African diaspora have recently come under scrutiny and for valid reasons. The curation of the bodies of Black individuals continues to inflict violence and reinforces the notion that Black people are objects, not humans. During the...
Black Female Slave in the Caribbean: An Archaeological Observation on Culture (2016)
The relationships between white men and black female slaves resulted in the formation of new ethnic identitites and social structures associated with their mixed-heritage or "mulatto" children. Sources like artwork and ethno-historical accounts of mulatto children in areas of the Caribbean and the role of African female slaves lend unique insights into social dynamics and cultural markers of modern populations. This paper examines the historical narratives and archaeological findings of black...
Black Toys, White Children: The Socialization of Children into Race and Racism, 1865-1940. (2016)
Race and racism are learned. While there has existed a myriad of social practices that have been used to socialize individuals into ideologies of race, this paper details the use of material culture directed at children, that is automata, costumes, games and toys. This paper focuses on material culture from the 1860s-1940s depicting Africans/African Americans. These objects produced, advertised and purchased by adults from children’s play served three purposes; 1) to cultivate ideologies of race...
Black Women and Post-Emancipation Diaspora: A Community of Army Laundresses at Fort Davis, Texas (2018)
This paper investigates the role black women at U.S. military forts took in post emancipation diasporic events and movement. Using materials related daily life at a late 19th century, multi-ethnoracial, Indian Wars military fort in Fort Davis, Texas, I show how army laundresses acted as cultural brokers, navigating often contentious social and physical landscapes. With their identity as citizens, women, care-takers, employees, and racialized individuals constantly in flux, these women balanced...
Blackbeard's Beads: An Analysis And Comparison of Glass Trade Beads From The Shipwreck 31CR314 (BUI0003) Queen Anne's Revenge Site Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina (2017)
In 1717, the French slaver La Concorde de Nantes was captured by pirates and renamed the Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR). It is believed that the pirates removed the enslaved Africans before taking the ship. However, some scholars believe the pirates sold the slaves in North Carolina. One marker of a ships involvement in the slave trade are beads. Physical examination of beads is used to determine the date and country of manufacture and used to correlate a ships involvement in the trade. Thus far,...
Blackbeard’s Beads: Insights into the Queen Anne Revenge’s Former Life as a Slaver through the Presence of Glass Trade Beads (2018)
Glass trade beads are one of the most notable artifacts of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Beads played an important role in African culture spiritually, metaphysically, and historically. Since its discovery in 1996, over 790 whole and fragmented glass beads have been recovered from the Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck. The beads recovered from the Queen Ann’s Revenge have been identified, classified, cataloged, and compared to other bead assemblages recovered from underwater and terrestrial...
Blacksmithing for Fun and Profit: Archaeological Investigations at 31NH755 (2017)
Archaeological investigations at an early 19th century historic site along the banks of the Lower Cape Fear River near Wilmington, North Carolina, uncovered evidence of a small blacksmith shop and adjacent domestic occupation. Archaeological features included the footprint of the burned blacksmith shop, approximately 15 by 15 feet in size, along with a dense scatter of charcoal, slag, and scrap iron. Adjacent to this building were structural posts and artifacts that appear to be related to a...
Blazing Trails and Chasing Scoundrels: Kathleen K. Gilmore’s contribution to Spanish Colonial Archaeology in Texas and the Relentless Pursuit of Presidio Captain Felipe Rabago y Teran. (2017)
No history of Spanish Colonial archaeology in Texas is complete without addressing the accomplishments of Dr. Kathleen K. Gilmore. When reviewing her nearly 50-year career as an archaeologist, one is hard-pressed to find a Texas mission, presidio, rancho, or settlement that Dr. Gilmore did not visit, research, excavate, or write about. Among her most important projects were the missions and presidio of San Xavier in present-day Milam County. While researching the site, Dr. Gilmore became...
Blood, Sweat and Queers: Roller Derby and Queer Heritage (2018)
Queer theory is a new and developing realm of heritage management; with the listing of historic places Stonewall National Monument and the Bayard Rustin Residence, queer heritage is attaining broader recognition. Investigations into the broader patterns of queer history will expose additional spaces and places with important associations to queer communities on multiple levels. Roller derby’s queer-normative environment has become a center of community-building in the last twenty years,...
Blood-Residue Analysis of Musket Balls from Sackets Harbor Battlefield of the War of 1812: Results and Implications (2016)
In the early morning of May 29, 1813, British and Canadian provincial troops launched an amphibious assault on the American shipbuilding facility and fortifications at Sackets Harbor on Lake Ontario in northern New York. An ABPP grant sponsored a wide-scale metal-detecting survey of the battelfield and detailed artifact analysis of the resulting assemblage. Besides shedding new light on the battle’s controversial narrative, the study also subjected musket balls to blood-residue analysis to...
Bloody Sharp Rocks: Optimization of aDNA Extraction from Experimental Lithic Artifacts (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Species detection using DNA recovered from lithic artifacts could indicate the manner in which tools were utilized and ultimately enhance our understanding of the mobility strategies and subsistence patterns employed by past peoples. Geneticists and archaeologists in the 1980s and 1990s managed to successfully extract DNA from lithics, using both modern...
Blue and White Chinese porcelain with datable 16th-century mounts (2015)
Besides learning from sherds that have been turned up by terrestrial and underwater archaologists, we can learn more about dating Chinese porcelain from pieces found with datable mounts in European collections. Five pieces of blue and white porcelain now in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York were originally in Burghley House, Stamford, Lincolnshire, where they may have come via trade with Turkey. They are significant because there were very few pieces of Chinese...
Blue Willow Vessels and Life’s Other Mysteries: Understanding high value ceramics and their role in identity formation within contexts of company town economic deprivation (2018)
Historical archaeologists have long recognized the connection between material culture and identity. Ceramics, in particular, have the opportunity to inform researchers about economic choices, consumer decisions, and societal trends. However, when looking at communities that experience social and economic deprivation, the presence of (oftentimes more expensive) decorated vessels can cause confusion. Excavations conducted in 2016 focusing on the poorest workers’ housing in a coal company town in...
Blurred Boundaries: Internal and Illicit Plantation Economies (2015)
Craft production, hired time, personal cotton plots, theft, and diverse trade networks created a patchwork of economic opportunities for several hundred slaves on Witherspoon Island, a 19th century cotton plantation in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. This paper explores the impact of household and community involvement in a myriad of economic practices that were at times sanctioned, expressly forbidden, or tacitly accepted by the plantation management. When the archaeological and...
Blurred Lines: Queering the divide between pre-historic and historic archaeology (2015)
The infamous divide between historic and pre-historic archaeology in the North American tradition often rests on the introduction of written texts or the arrival of Europeans to a region. With the division comes methodology that is considered acceptable by each group. Well-renowned archaeologists have discussed this divide in detail, yet we continue to maintain the boundaries due to lack of implementation of new theoretical/methodological paradigms. This paper discusses the queering of...
Blurring Disciplinary Boundaries: Historical Archaeological Investigations at St. Nicholas Abbey Sugar Plantation (2013)
Since 2007 faculty and students from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia have conducted archaeological investigations at St. Nicholas Abbey sugar plantation, one the most important heritage site in Barbados. The interdisciplinary research program developed for the site seeks to uncover evidence that will help in the restoration, preservation, and celebration of this important historic landmark. While deeds, maps, paintings, and other documentary sources offer insights into...
Boats and Captians of Cahuita: Recording Watercraft and Small Boats of Costa Rica (2016)
The boats of Cahuita, Costa Rica vary in design, size and decoration. This poster displays the design variation and depicts the East Carolina University summer field school methods used to record these small watercraft. The differences in design are catalogued through photography and also with recorded measurements. The information gathered should be sufficient to reconstruct the vessel at full scale. In some cases, the data was further utilized to create more practical three dimensional...
Boca, California- House On The Hill Project: Results of 2016 Field Survey (2018)
During 2016, fieldwork was carried out in the California Sierra Nevada Mountains at Boca, a late 19th century company town that provided lumber for the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Comstock mine. Boca was also one of the largest producers of naturally harvested ice, selling to individuals and companies, including the railroad. Use of iced railcars provided the means for the transcontinental railroad to successfully ship perishable goods long distances, giving later rise...