North America (Geographic Keyword)
801-825 (3,602 Records)
The faunal assemblages excavated from New York City’s Five Points neighborhood provided an opportunity to examine the foodways of the city’s 19th century working class. One distinct Orange Street deposit was associated with a brothel which operated in the early 1840s and seemed to reflect the contradictory nature of this occupation. While some food choices reflected the working class nature of the neighborhood, other finer foods, were selected for fancy feasts, to entertain guests or for...
Contributing Historical Archaeology to Global Efforts to Address Climate Change (2016)
In the most recent Summary for Policy Makers from the IPCC Working Group II (Adaptation), this statement, "Throughout history, people and societies have adjusted to and coped with climate, climate variability, and extremes, with varying degrees of success," is written without attribution. Though this statement is a consensus view, the absence of a footnote disconnects it from analyses of the human past and the models of adaptation developed in the IPCC reports. This is a big gap. The most...
Contributions of Osteological Evidence to Repatriation Assessments (2018)
Since the inception of the Repatriation Office at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in 1991, the documentation of Native American skeletal remains has been accomplished by the Repatriation Osteology Lab. The need for a computerized data entry system was recognized as a critical component to the success of this process along with a structured database for data access and management. The resulting software interface and SQL relational database, called Osteoware, is available to...
The Convergence of Metal Projectile Points: Assessing the Relative Influence of Function in Nonhomologous Technological Traditions (2023)
This is an abstract from the "From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal: Metal Tool Production and Use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recently, more attention has been focused on the assessment of convergence versus divergence of technology in the archaeological record. This ties into long-standing debates concerning our ability to recognize if similar traditions resulted from diffusion or migration, as well as...
Converging Concepts of Landscape: Space and Place in 19th-century Northwest Lower Michigan (2018)
The same landscape in the same moment can be experienced differently by people as they project culture and history onto the landscape. Using two juxtaposed perspectives of landscape in the same geographic location and time, this research compares and contrasts Cartographers and Native Americans in Northwest Lower Michigan following intensification of mapping after 1837. Using historic documents, vivifacts (living artifacts), and maps, this analysis presents the conflicting landscape concepts of...
Convicts, Cargo, and Calamity: The Wreck of the Enchantress (2016)
From 2010-2015, the University of Rhode Island and St. Mary’s College of California conducted an underwater archaeology field school in the waters of Bermuda on a site called the "Iron Plate Wreck." Aptly named for a large block of sheet iron located at the stern, the wreck’s identity remained a mystery for over 50 years. In 2013, however, historical research provided clues to the identity of the wreck, revealing it is the Enchantress, an early 19th century British merchant vessel with a unique...
Cooking across the Continent: Overview of Pleistocene Archaeobotanical Remains and Exploration of Biases Affecting Botanical Visibility (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Hearths, Earth Ovens, and the Carbohydrate Revolution: Indigenous Subsistence Strategies and Cooking during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Understanding how Indigenous communities used plants during the Pleistocene is fundamental to addressing questions about long-term ecological relationships, dietary practices, and adaptive strategies. Pleistocene plant...
Cooking up Authenticity in an Afro-Brazilian pot: Nationalism, Racism, Tourism, and Consumption of low-fired earthenware ceramics in Pernambuco, Brazil. (2018)
Black beans, smoked sausage, salted beef, the less desirable pig parts, garlic, and onion. These are the basic ingredients of the Brazilian national dish, feijoada. But there is another ingredient, one frequently overlooked, but essential element of the authenticity in the minds of Brazilians. The ceramic pot, holding the magic of the meal’s miscegenation: African, European and Amerindian ingredients blended together in a seemingly innocuous object. Unlike other places in the African Diaspora,...
"Coon, possum, rabbit, squirrel en aw dat": A zooarchaeological investigation of foodways at Witherspoon Plantation, South Carolina (2015)
This paper examines the results of zooarchaeological analysis completed on faunal remains from Witherspoon Island, a 19th century cotton plantation in South Carolina. This research contributes to a larger ongoing historical archaeological project exploring the lives of enslaved African-Americans and their descendants on the remote absentee plantation. To examine shifting food practices at the site, we present the results of the analysis of faunal remains recovered from two house and adjacent...
Coopers, Peddlers, and Bricklayers: Stories of a Working-Class Property through Public Archaeology in Washington, DC (2018)
An archaeological investigation of a lot where a former frame shotgun house once stood offers a unique look at 19th century working-class immigrant households. A German immigrant carpenter built the house before 1853 and it was successively occupied by a peddler, cooper, and bricklayer; little is known about their lives. Prior to redevelopment, the DC HPO Archaeology Program conducted a systematic archaeological survey from August 2016 to May 2017, the "Shotgun House Public Archaeology Project"....
Cope Hook and a Slate Pencil: Understanding Skidaway Island’s Benedictine Monks and Freedmen School Students (2018)
Skidaway Island’s Benedictine monastery and Freedmen school provides us with a unique opportunity to examine one angle of African-American life post-Reconstruction. Located southeast of Savannah, Georgia, this mission was part of the larger Benedictine presence, whose members initially started Freedmen schools at the Bishop’s request. Though this site was only briefly occupied (1878- ca. 1890s), we are gaining insight into the lives of the European-born Benedictine monks, African-American...
Copper Trade Network from Canada to South America (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pre-contact copper manufacture and trade in the Americas is poorly understood. To remedy this, over the last decade I have compiled a master database of over 85,000 pre-contact copper artifacts recovered from across the Americas, with source materials from museums, online, and private collections. I present an overview of the pre-contact copper industry in...
Copper-Clad Ghost: The "Monterrey A Shipwreck" (2015)
Archaeological assessment and limited test excavation of the Monterrey A shipwreck provides an initial characterization of an early 19th century armed vessel whose remains are comprised of articulated two-dimensional features as well as a substantial portion of seemingly well-preserved three dimensional hull remains of the copper-sheathed hull. The form and lines of the hull are present, and with the various features, suggest that this armed vessel of approximately 200 tons was a two-masted...
Copper-The Overlooked Artifact Of The Borderlands Of New Spain (2018)
From the littoral of Florida to coastal California vessels made of copper have been regularly found on archaeological sites associated with the borderlands of New Spain. While described in in the associated archaeological literature they, unlike the ubiquitous copper artifacts associated with sites in New France, have not received systematic analysis. This presentation, based on nearly two decades of archaeological and documentary research, brings the folk taxonomy found in documents into...
Corduroy Roads as a Feature of the American Landscape: Historical Reports from the Trenches (2015)
Corduroy roads are an infrequently considered element of the American frontier landscape. A recent discovery of an 18th-century corduroy road along New York's border with Ontario suggests that corduroy roads have a great deal of research potential not only in archaeology, but also in ecology and the study of past landscapes. This paper examines the historical record of corduroy roads in newspapers and popular accounts. While corduroy roads are rarely well documented archaeologically, the...
Cores and Peripheries: Betty’s Hope, A Synergy of Approaches to the Archaeology of a Caribbean Sugar Plantation (2015)
The Betty’s Hope Field Project has been ongoing for the last eight years, and comprises two components: ongoing research and the summer field school. AS a 300-year-old sugar plantation on Antigua, Betty’s Hope offers a myriad of opportunities to explore plantation life and Caribbean archaeology. Within the theme of this year’s SHA conference on boundaries and peripheries, the paper will address some of the exciting new developments and directions our research is taking us, and how it relates...
Corkonians And Fardowners: Irish Activity And Identity In The Rural American South, 1850-1860 (2018)
During the 1850s, the Blue Ridge Mountain Railroad Company recruited 2,000 Irish immigrants to work an area 20 miles west of Charlottesville, Virginia, carving out tunnels and cuts for an emerging rail line. The grueling and dangerous work transformed the physical landscape and turned a transient immigrant population into a vibrant semi-settled community. This paper explores the identities of the two groups of Irish laborers involved with the construction of the Blue Ridge Railroad Tunnel, the...
Coronado and Spanish Colonial and American Indian Trade at Pecos National Historical Park, New Mexico: Archaeological Evidence (2013)
Spain's first contact with Pecos Pueblo occurred in 1541 when Francisco Coronado besiege the site. Formal trade began about 1590 and continued until the Pueblo was abandoned in the 1830s. Spain's entrada in northern New Mexico superceded a vibrant trade with the Plains Apached and Comanche that had been on-going for over 150 years prior to contact. A intense metal detecting sampling suvery of selected areas of Pecos National Historical Park resulted in the finding of over 1350 metal targets....
Correcting History: 18th Century Elliot Plantation, African -Built Landscapes, Volunteers and Partners in the National Park Service (2016)
The National Park Service plays a vital role in educating the public about stewardship and preservation of archeological resources, and vice versa. In 2008, a group of volunteers engaged the NPS to re-evaluate an historic site located in Canaveral National Seashore and Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Working with volunteers, we determined that the site is actually Elliot Plantation—a previously undocumented, but the largest and southernmost 18th century British Period sugar plantation...
Corrosion and Microbiological Evaluation of a Recovered Experimental Platform from the site of DKM U166 (2015)
In 2003, an experimental corrosion platform was placed at the bow of the German submarine, U-166. This platform incorporated fifteen coupons including high carbon, low carbon steel, aluminum, and copper along with oak and mahogany wood coupons. This platform was recovered in 2014 and evaluated for microbiologically influenced corrosion. During the eleven years of deep ocean placement, the oak coupons degraded in four to six years while the mahogany disappeared after ten years. Biomass was...
Corrosion Monitoring and Preservation in Situ of Large Iron Artifacts at the Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck site (2016)
At North Carolina state archaeological site 31CR314 (Queen Anne’s Revenge), the overall conservation management strategy is full excavation and recovery of all artifacts. Preservation and protection of artifacts in situ is, however, needed as long as they remain on site. Research on in situ monitoring and preservation of large iron artifacts (cannon and anchors) began in 2008. With funding provided by a Mini North Carolina Sea Grant further data was collected in 2012-2013 for eight cannon and...
Cosmopolitanism In South Carolina: Examining John Drayton’s Country Estate (2018)
New research at Drayton Hall is shifting decades-old interpretation of how the house and land were used by John Drayton in the mid- to late- 18th century. The previous narrative was of an agricultural lifestyle on a southern plantation, but the material culture and historical evidence indicates that Drayton Hall was built and used as an English country estate to display wealth and position to those visiting the property. This paper analyzes the artifacts recovered from the South Flanker well to...
Cottage Clusters and Community Engagement: Collaborative Investigations of Multiscalar Social Relations in 19th Century Clachans, Co. Mayo, Ireland (2016)
Human experiences are inscribed in the landscape. Indeed, the built environment has been so strongly modified by human agency that the resulting landscape is a synthesis of natural and cultural elements. Cottage clusters, known as clachans, were critical components of the landscape in the west of Ireland prior to the Great Famine. Yet this site type has been almost completely ignored in historical, archaeological, and architectural studies of the region. As a Fulbright US Scholar, I am engaged...
Cottages for the Proletariat: Life and Labor on Blue Row in the Graniteville Textile Mill Village, 1845-1870 (2013)
In 1845 industrialist William Gregg incorporated the Graniteville Manufacturing Company. Located in Edgefield District’s Horse Creek Valley, Gregg’s model community centered on a textile mill built of local blue granite. The mill grounds contained extensive lawn gardens, trimmed gravel sidewalks, and spouting water fountains. The community included two churches, academy, hotel, stores, boarding-houses, and cottages. All buildings were constructed from local pine in the Gothic Revival style....
Cotton to the Doorstep: Gardening and Food Storage in the Early 20th-Century Southeast (2016)
Early 20th-century southeastern farmers with the means to do so diversified and adopted the materials and methods of farm modernization. Poorer families grew cash crops almost exclusively, detrimental to their garden spaces and their wellbeing. Archaeologists have measured modernization, in part, through the presence of glass storageware. However, the act of storing gardened and gathered foods did not necessarily require modern materials or methods. Materials changed through time, but in many...