North America (Geographic Keyword)
451-475 (3,468 Records)
Fort St. Pierre (1719-1729), in present-day Mississippi, was a short-lived fort on the periphery of colonial Louisiane. In December of 1729 its physical boundaries, the dry moat and palisade, were breached and burned as the fort and its soldiers were attacked by Yazoo and Koroa warriors. Using statistical and documentary evidence, along with newly analyzed information from the 1977 excavations, this presentation will discuss first the slow-decline and then immediate demise of the fort. It will...
Breaking News: Mended Ceramics in Historical Context (2016)
Coupled with inventories, receipts, account books, trade cards, and newspaper advertisements, archaeology broadens the interpretation and understanding of an object’s value and worth in the period in which it was made and used. Evidence of mended ceramics in the archaeological collections at Colonial Williamsburg and in other collections provides a means to assist in the identification, dating, and contextual understanding of repairs made to ceramic objects of a variety of materials. Questions...
Bricks as Ballast: An Archaeological Analysis of a Shipwreck in Cahuita National Park, Costa Rica (2016)
Ships wrecked in Caribbean waters seldom preserve their structural integrity. Often only ferrous artifacts and ballast remain as the cultural indicators. The ballast of a wreck, if carefully documented, may have significant interpretive value to the site. An East Carolina University team investigated a wreck site in Costa Rica consisting of yellow brick stacked in a concentrated, organized pile. This paper examines the function of brick as both ballast and cargo in the historical record of the...
Bricks On Black Water: A Comparative Landscape Analysis of an 1830s Brickyard (2018)
As a result of the development of a large U.S. military complex in the newly obtained territory of Florida, Pensacola experienced a historic Brick Boom in the 1830s. The opportunity to profit from brick manufacturing prompted many individuals to establish brickyards along the region's many waterways. The Scott Site is one such site, where excavations have been ongoing since 2008 via a joint-education program between Florida Public Archaeology Network and Milton High School. The resulting...
Bricks on Black Water: Excavations and Public Education at an 1830s Gulf Coast Brickyard (2017)
In the mid-1820s the newly acquired American port town of Pensacola began to develop a huge military complex. Resulting from the demand for brick needed in the construction of a number of third-system masonry coastal forts and a Naval Yard, Pensacola developed a substantial brick industry almost overnight. Today, little remains of the many brickyards that supplied millions of bricks for forts located from New Orleans to the Dry Tortugas off the coast of Key West, Florida. Over the last several...
Bridging the Boundary Between Archeological Site Protection and Natural Resources Invasive Species Management in the National Park Service: A Case Study of Robinia pseudoacacia Management at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (2015)
Archeologists have identified many historic archeological sites by the presence of cultural vegetation. When Euro-Americans claimed homesteads, they often planted exotic vegetation species on their properties, either for beautification of their land or for utilitarian purposes. In the National Park Service (NPS), natural resource programs now consider many of these non-native species to be invasive and have instituted management plans to stop the uncontrolled spread of these plants. The fact...
Bridging the Gap Between CRM and Academia: A Potential Model (2018)
In general, State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPO) designed guidelines and timelines for compliance projects that mitigate cultural resources potentially impacted by proposed development. These purposes are fundamentally different from those of academic work and field schools, which focus on theory based interpretation and field techniques. Yet academic field schools are designed to prepare students for a professional life beyond their undergraduate career and for most that means working in...
A Brief History of Battle and Preservation of the Mill Springs Battlefield (2018)
The Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky, was fought on January 19, 1862. Gen. Felix Zollicoffer’s Confederate army arrived in Mill Springs on the south bank of the Cumberland in November 1861, an action that would hasten the advent of the battle. Some 5,000 Confederate soldiers crossed the river and established a fortified encampment at Beech Grove, where they built winter quarters—log huts—behind a line of fortifications. The encampment left a remarkable archaeological footprint. Since 1992, the...
Bring Back The Ghosts: Hauntings, Authenticity, and Ruins (2016)
In the 1930s a swath of Williamsburg, VA became Colonial Williamsburg. The newly minted Colonial Williamsburg Foundation funded a major reconstruction effort to turn the dejected neighborhood into the picture of colonial architecture and colonial revival esthetic. Since that time visitors have noticed that colonial era ghosts have reemerged in the houses and meeting places they were once known to frequent. Parapsychologists have argued that archaeological investigation has stirred ghosts from...
Bring History Alive: Creating a Replica Worthington Steam Pump from USS Monitor (2016)
USS Monitor conservation staff are often asked, "What was the goal for recovering artifacts from the ironclad’s wreck site?" The answer is to use the artifacts as mediums to tell the stories of the ship and crew. Two Worthington steam pumps recovered in 2001 are good examples of this concept. Both pumps are complex machines which led to extensive research to understand how they operated and physically changed during burial to be able to safely conserve them. As the conservation of the pumps...
Bringing It All Back Home: The Archaeology of Diasporic Homelands (2015)
In the context of modern history, diaspora is traditionally defined as a reluctant scattering of a large number of people to two or more international locations. Most studies in the social sciences and humanities have concentrated efforts towards understanding how new experiences and contacts have shaped diasporic groups once away from their homelands. In essence, most studies are structured by the culture continuity/cultural change dynamic in new places of settlement. The established focus of...
Bringing the Neighborhood Back to Life: Working-Class Consumption and Immigrant Identity in 19th-Century Roxbury, Massachusetts (2015)
Working with the past always presents a bevy of challenges for researchers, and when material collections fall into disuse, it can be especially difficult to appreciate their intrinsic value. Incorporating new technological methods (GIS) and primary document research allows archaeologists to synthesize original excavation and background information in innovative ways. The Southwest Corridor Project (Roxbury, Boston, MA), excavated in the 1970s, is a perfect collection for these purposes. ...
Bringing Water to the Desert: the Civilian Conservation Corps at Petrified Forest National Park (2018)
Over the last four years Petrified Forest National Park has begun to replace the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) installed waterline which carries drinking water to the original headquarters complex at Rainbow Forest. At the completion of the project in 1940 the Rainbow Forest Waterline represented the longest CCC hand-dug waterline in a National Park. Survey and recording, currently in progress, along the complete 26 mile corridor has documented a detailed archaeological record of the lives...
British Capital, Mercury Miners, and Transfer Print Ceramics in 19th Century Peru (2018)
During the late 18th century, Spanish colonies in South America increasingly liberalized their trade policies, leading to an increased access to British goods such as transfer print ceramics. In Peru, the importation of transfer print ceramics grew rapidly after independence in 1824, along with the entry of British capital into the mining sector of the Peruvian economy. This paper examines the role of transfer print ceramics at Santa Barbara, an indigenous mercury mining community located...
British Ceramics at the Empire’s Edge: Economy and Identity Among Subaltern Groups in Late 19th-Century British Honduras (2017)
Following the outbreak of the Caste War in the Yucatán (1847-1901), a group of approximately 1,000 Maya migrated into northwestern British Honduras (Belize) and settled 20 small villages. Far from the principal population centers of the Yucatán, the Petén, and Belize City, the only other inhabitants in this region were logging gangs predominantly composed of descendants of African slaves who seasonally inhabited the mahogany camps of the Belize Estate and Produce Company’s (BEC) vast land...
British Ceramics, Indigenous Miners, and the Commercialization of Daily Practice in Late Colonial Huancavelica (2017)
Throughout the 18th century, indigenous Andean miners at the Huancavelica mercury mine increasingly entered into wage labor agreements with Spanish mine owners in order to avoid the harsher conditions of the mita labor draft. This shift from forced to free labor increased the circulation of specie within the mining community, and as a result, the miners began increasingly participating in local, regional, and global markets. Drawing upon recent excavations at the indigenous mining settlement of...
British Colonial Bateaux in North America (2015)
Bateaux were a key utility craft in military operations in the colonies of North America. Their size, durability, and ease of construction made them ideal for moving troops and supplies over the lakes and rivers of New England and New France. The purpose of this presentation is to provide a construction analysis of the remains of some British colonial bateaux recovered from Lake George and place them in their historical context. The craft were built from a very simple design, and were hastily...
British Colonial Trade Goods in the Nevada Frontier (2013)
In the mid 19th century, Virginia City, Nevada attracted people from all over world by producing a steady stream of silver and gold that lined pockets and coffers around the world. During the summer of 2010, excavations were performed along South Howard Street, Virginia City by the University of Nevada, Reno in an effort to uncover evidence of community identity. Many artifacts were recovered, including a container seal bearing a George Whybrow Company logo, along with the name of its export...
Brunswick's Bakers: The Archaeological Investigation of a Dwelling and Bake Oven at Lot 35 in Brunswick Town State Historic Site (2018)
During the summer of 2016, students led by Dr. Charles Ewen excavated the proposed Edward Moseley Ruin (now the bake oven at Lot 35) at Brunswick Town State Historic Site. Instead of finding the house and associated buildings of Lot 34, the students uncovered the remains of structure N5 on Lot 35 along with an associated ballast oven. Later analysis of the historical record determined that the property was owned by Christopher and Elizabeth Cains until 1775 and then sold to Prudence McIlhenny....
Buffalo Soldiers, Married Soldiers, and Laundresses at Fort Davis, Texas: A Nineteenth-Century Glass Analysis of Medicinal, Health and Hygiene Vessels (2017)
This paper investigates the general health practices of lower ranking military communities at Fort Davis, Texas, a nineteenth-century U.S. Army instillation. Focusing on an assemblage of glass medicinal vessels collected from sites occupied by enlisted black troops, married soldiers’ families, and army laundresses, this study considers health management practices within the changing notions of health and disease in the context of nineteenth-century medical movements, including temperance,...
Buffers, Bridges, and Bastards: French Missourian’s Approaches to living in an Occupied Territory (2018)
After France lost its North American territories in 1763, many Francophone citizens living west of the Mississippi River found themselves suddenly living in Spanish owned lands. They also found themselves staring into the face of an encroaching and overreaching Anglo population to the east. This paper explores a few ways Francophones in Missouri adjusted to the changing political and territorial situation within the region in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Starting with the presence of...
Building a College in Colonial America: evidence from Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA. (2018)
Recent excavations in the Harvard Yard have expanded our understanding of investment and institutionalization of education in the 17th century. Archaeology of Harvard's first building demonstrates the richness of material culture used at the dining table and the investment made to construct a significant structure on the landscape. We provide a preliminary analysis of artifact density and distribution of dining and architectural objects of the most recent excavation season, laying the groundwork...
Building a Long-Term Underwater Economy Advancing Technology, Ecology, and Cultural Resources (BLUE TEC) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Liquid Landscapes: Recent Developments in Submerged Landscape Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Offshore wind is increasingly vital as the United States intensifies efforts to reduce its carbon footprint and improve energy security through renewable energy. Currently, the time and cost of planning, permitting, and building offshore energy projects are daunting, and mitigation for these projects is in its...
Building a New Ontology for Historical Archaeology Using the Digital Index of North American Archaeology (2016)
Unlike prehistoric archaeology, there is no general unified system by which historical archaeological sites are classified. This problem, which is in part due to recognized biases in the recording of historic archaeological sites, has resulted in numerous incompatible systems by which various states classify historic sites. This study demonstrates a first step toward providing historical archaeologists with the means of creating a more cohesive ontology for historic site reporting. The advent of...
Building an Anarchist Historical Archaeological Theory (2017)
The goal of this paper is the articulation of an anarchist historical archaeological theory. The emergence of anarchism as a political philosophy in the late-17th/early-18th centuries suggests that historical archaeologists are well-positioned to articulate the intersections between anarchy and archaeology. This paper provides a brief overview of the central tenets of anarchist theory, and particularly its robust criticism of hierarchy. Anarchists continue to explore issues related to horizontal...