North America (Geographic Keyword)
651-675 (3,602 Records)
When analyzing archaeological sites with almost continual episodes of occupation, it is often difficult to discern distinct temporal periods; given this challenge archaeologists have long relied on a variety of methodological techniques to help narrow down dates of occupation. In 2012, Jon Marcoux published a new correspondence analysis study using over 35,000 glass trade beads in Native American mortuary contexts dated c.1607-1783 with the results indicating four discrete clusters of time. This...
Coal Camps in the Rock Springs Uplift, Wyoming: Effective Partnering between Archaeologists, State Agencies and Consulting Engineers (2018)
Wyoming's Abandoned Mine Land Division (AML) has been funding cultural resource investigations at late nineteenth and early twentieth century coal fields in the Rock Springs Uplift since the early 1980s and that work continues up to the present. A program that began primarily as the closure of dangerous mine openings gradually evolved to address mine subsidence and underground mine fires. Today, mining-related community impacts and stream erosion problems have become priority issues. These...
Coal Heritage Archaeology Project 2015 – Preliminary Results & Student Experiences (2016)
The Coal Heritage Archaeology Project’s inaugural excavations were carried out as part of a summer archaeological field school at West Virginia State University. Working in collaboration with Indiana University and the Rahall Transportation Institute, excavations focused on the residential houses at the former coal company town of Tams, WV and sought to better understand issues of material consumption, labor, and class. This poster presents the results of these initial excavations and explores...
Coal-fired Power: Household goods, Hegemony, and Social Justice at Appalachian Company Coal Mining Towns (2017)
Hegemonic power structures in Appalachia solidified during industrialization and shape the region’s representation and economic strategies today. Appalachia is a land of backward hillbillies in the public consciousness, alternately uplifted and oppressed by extractive industries. Popular perceptions privilege the coal industry’s ‘power over’ Appalachian people without confronting the dynamic interplay of many power structures. Household goods from two Kentucky company coal towns illuminate the...
A cod-awful smell: Novel evidence for fisheries management and land use at 17-18th century Ferryland and its social, economic, and sensorial implications (2015)
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Pool Plantation at Ferryland, Newfoundland was a major commercial fishing port and regional seat of power. Turbulence during the Anglo-French wars (1689-1713) resulted in the destruction of the settlement. Though the site is rich in archaeology, little evidence exists to explore how these events changed the community’s physical, economic, and social infrastructure. This poster describes an approach to identifying patterns in past land-use by...
Coffin Hardware from the Scott Cemetery: a comparison with the Freedman's Cemetery (2017)
Excavations at Scott Cemetery in Dallas led to the rediscovery of three adult and three sub-adult burials. While the preservation of coffin wood was poor, intact coffin hardware was recovered. Artifacts include coffin and casket handles, various nails and thumb screws, and glass viewing windows. Historic records of Scott Cemetery provide a unique opportunity for coffin hardware analysis. With burials ranging from the late 19th century through the 1930s, knowing the interment dates of...
Cogs and Cane: The Evolution of Technology at a 19th Century Louisiana Sugar Mill (2015)
The mechanical din of the Industrial Revolution is not typically associated with 19th century Southern US plantation life. However, the advances in science and technology resulting from the Industrial Revolution enabled the Louisiana sugar industry to flourish in spite of climatic restrictions. Chatsworth Plantation (16EBR192) operated in East Baton Rouge Parish from the late 1830’s until the bankrupt plantation was sold at a Sheriff’s auction in 1928. The Chatsworth Plantation sugar mill was...
A Coin In The Mast Step (2017)
Placement of coins in the mast steps of ships has continued from the Roman 2nd century BC through the medieval, renaissance, and historic periods into the present day. The tradition is still entrenched in modern shipbuilding and even current Navy ships have a coin placed under the mast or tallest structure on the ship. The practice of putting a coin in the mast step has had continuity in western shipbuilding for over 2,000 years, although it is possible the cultural reasons for the practice...
Coinage at French & Indian War Sites in Northern New York State (2017)
Archaeology conducted by SUNY Adirondack and Plymouth State University at British military sites located along the Hudson River and in Lake George, New York, has recovered much colonial coinage that will be summarized here. Twenty-five years of excavations at British military encampments dating to the French & Indian War in northern New York State has revealed that mid-18th-century commerce was conducted with a combination of British and Spanish currency--a mixture of low-denomination English...
Coins In The Fountain: Finding Meaning in Everyday Votive Offerings (2017)
There is a very long history of people throwing valuable objects into bodies of water or fountains, and the practice has long been widespread. Today children ask for, and are often given, small-denomination coins to "make a wish" by tossing them into a fountain or pool. What are the origins and history of this behavior, and what beliefs and social motivations lie behind it, from ancient times to today? The social and physical formation processes that affect these "votive offerings" will be...
The Coins of Deadwood, S. Dakota (2017)
Coins can be very helpful in interpreting the physical remains found at historic-period sites. Their connections with economics, politics, cultural practices, and recreational activities can clarify obscure points that never made it into the historical record. Deadwood, South Dakota only dates back 142 years, but it is packed with history, and the people of Deadwood have become leaders in using their history to support their town. The coins from the old Deadwood Chinatown tell some particularly...
The Coins of Fort Atkinson: a study in numismatic archaeology. (2017)
Unlike much of the rest of the world, numismatics as practiced in America has little recognized scholastic standing. The lack of perceived value for numismatics is readily apparent in the archeology of the Great Plains, where the indigenous economy was not based on bullion value, where coin hoards like those found on the eastern seaboard are basically non-existent and numismatic objects are considered to ‘historic’ and thus intrusive to the prehistory of the region. In such a setting, numismatic...
The Coins of Kam Wah Chung, John Day, Oregon: Persistence of Chinese Culture Reflected Through Non-Monetary Uses of Chinese coins. (2017)
Kam Wah Chung was a frontier Chinese medical clinic, general store, community center and residence of two Chinese immigrants, Ing "Doc" Hay and Lung On, located in the frontier eastern Oregon town of John Day, Oregon. "Doc" Hay practiced traditional herbal medicine and Long On was proprietor of their general store. Left untouched for decades, Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site is a remarkable time capsule capturing the life and times of the late 19th and early 20th century Chinese community....
Collaborating with Carpenters: Historic House Care and Archaeology at Strawbery Banke Museum (2017)
Strawbery Banke Museum is an outdoor history museum in Portsmouth, NH with over 40 historic houses. The majority of these buildings sit on their original foundations, enabling archaeological research into the daily lives of the historic neighborhood’s residents. Recently, the primary motivation for museum excavations has been in preparation for construction work planned by the museum’s Heritage House Program. This presentation will describe how the archaeology department works in...
Collaborating with Descendant Communities to Explore the Biological Heritage of Enslaved People at James Madison’s Montpelier through Ancient DNA Analysis (2018)
Over the past 30 years, historical archaeologists have studied the sites and material remains of enslaved people from across the American South. Recently, archaeologists have actively worked with descendants in this research, including excavation and archaeological interpretation. However, little has been done to build the connection between biological and historical heritages of enslaved people and their descendants. In this study, we utilized ancient DNA methodology to contextualize the...
Collaborative and Equitable Training in Archaeology (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Future of Education and Training in Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There has existed a lack of communication and collaboration between CRM and academic archaeology in the United States since cultural resource management moved out of university systems and into the private sector. This lack of collaboration proves problematic when future CRM and industry archaeologists are trained by academics through...
Collaborative Approaches to Ancestral Remains Protection, Recovery, and Repatriation in Oregon (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The sale, trade, and otherwise mistreatment of human remains is an issue impacting a diverse institutions and entities, from sovereign Tribal nations, to universities, to law enforcement. This unethical and illegal behavior can be...
Collaborative Archaeology As Punk Archaeology? Considerations From The Maya Region (2015)
The punk ethos is alive and well in collaborative archaeology, even if it is rarely acknowledged. Like punk, collaborative archaeology is committed to social change, minimally by giving voice to and enabling the participation of previously marginalized people in archaeological investigations. The types of on-the-ground operations involved with collaborative projects take more time and resources, and can be slower to produce the types of insights common in more traditional approaches to...
Collaborative Archaeology at the Gage and Cheney Houses (2013)
Studies of reformers and the sites associated with them provide an opportunity to examine how people in the past sought to better their world and in turn, powerfully connect to contemporary efforts to reform society. In this paper, I detail the collaborative archaeological projects undertaken at two sites associated with female reformers – Matilda Joslyn Gage and May Cheney – noting the ways in which non-hierarchical, feminist-inspired research practices were employed in attempts to connect...
Collaborative Archaeology in the Classroom (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Collaborative archaeology is part of a movement that draws on the skills, knowledge, and requests of all stakeholders. Archaeologists are finally recognizing that this represents responsible practice, with benefits for all, and more and more are allocating time, money, and resources toward collaborative projects. Yet, the importance of...
Collaborative Indigenous Archaeology at Mohegan (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster showcases collaborative archaeological approaches to research and teaching on the Mohegan Reservation in southeastern Connecticut. It describes the Mohegan Archaeology Project, a long-running collaboration that records and studies the textures of 18th and 19th century reservation life. The project has two main forms, an archaeological field...
Collagen and Apatite Stable Isotope Values from Bison Bone at the Hell Gap Site (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This work adds collagen δ15N and δ13C to the apatite δ13C and δ18O values previously presented by the author, as well as C:N ratios demonstrating the viability of many samples from Hell Gap. Bison bone can be found throughout Paleoindian deposits at the site, providing a possible proxy for regional climate change. Carbon ratios for collagen samples (n=23)...
Collections Care and Preventive Conservation in the Archaeological Repository (2018)
The scale and diversity of objects held in archaeological repositories is enormous. Collectively, the actions taken to prevent or delay deterioration of these objects and their associated documents and sample collections are referred to as collections care. Preventive conservation identifies the short and long term priorities for collections care. This paper will explore current trends and topics in archaeological collections care including: object stabilization through storage packaging;...
Collections Care as Care Work: Examining the Gendered Nature of Museum Work in Archaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Ideas, Ethical Ideals, and Museum Practice in North American Archaeological Collections" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite women receiving the majority of archaeology PhD degrees for decades, issues with gender representation continue within the discipline, such as the well documented underrepresentation of women in prestigious academic positions. It follows that the majority of archaeological museum collections...
Collections Crisis in the Nation’s Capital: Problems and Solutions for the Washington, D.C. Historic Preservation Office (2016)
Successful collections management encompasses proper housing, monitoring, and curation to ensure long-term preservation and accessibility. However, successful collections management also involves identifying and addressing issues(s) that threaten collections. The Washington, D.C. Historic Preservation Office (DCHPO) is in the midst of addressing a collections crisis. The DCHPO consults on both District and Federal compliance projects, and without a curation facility, its collections are...