United States of America (Geographic Keyword)
1,151-1,175 (3,819 Records)
In 1987, The Mariners’ Museum (TMM) became the official repository for all objects recovered from the wreck of the USS Monitor. Starting in the 90’s, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began recovering large portions of the ironclad, which led to the retrieval of engineer John Ericsson’s 20-ton steam engine in 2001. Over the last decade, the conservation process has enabled experts to collaborate and provide insight into where and how the engine was fabricated, how it...
Engineering a waterfront: Bulkhead, cribbing, and grillage construction in Alexandria (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Rebuilding The Alexandria Waterfront: Urban Landscape Development and Modifications" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The alteration of the Alexandria waterfront from a wet, muddy river bank along the Potomac River to a productive port city was accomplished through various stages of infilling which ultimately led to bulkhead, cribbing, and grillage construction to create a more permanent artificial landscape in the...
English Building Entanglements between Medieval and Modern (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. A building’s materials extend beyond the stone, brick, timber, and metals that are visible in its fabric. During the medieval period in England, materials such as timber and stone were managed and accessed through engagement with feudal powers. A series of entanglements, between lords, peasants, and the Catholic...
An English Merchant in the Maryland Frontier: Making Sense of Addison’s Plantation (2020)
This is a poster submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Captain John Addison’s earthfast dwelling on the frontier of colonial Maryland has remained an enigma since it was discovered almost 35 years ago. Before Addison became a militia captain and moved to a plantation on the upper Potomac river, he had been a merchant in the provincial capital of St. Mary’s City. The mundane and worldly objects found in a cellar and around the dwelling show a...
Enigmatic Toyah: Archaeological and Historical Evidence of Ethnic Diversity on the Southern Plains, 1350-1600 CE (2018)
In 1528, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was shipwrecked of what is now Texas and recorded the very first European account of the diverse native peoples of the Southern Plains. I present the evidence from the concurrent archaeological phase, Toyah (1350-1600 CE), arguing that the archaeological record is not granular enough to identify ethnic designations such as Cabeza de Vaca witnessed. Rather, the archaeological record reflects likely social structures in which Cabeza de Vaca traveled—a fluid...
Enriching the Narrative: Slow Archaeology and the Interpretation of Life at Kingsley Plantation (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Plantation Archaeology as Slow Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Kingsley Plantation holds a pioneering place in African Diaspora archaeology as the site where plantation slavery was first intentionally examined. However, initial excavations in the 1960s and 1980s were limited in scope and resulted in few meaningful interpretations of plantation life. In 2006, a team from the University of...
The Enslaved Laborer Settlement at Trents Plantation, Barbados: 1640s-1834 (2016)
Trents Plantation, Barbados has provided a wealth of new information on early plantation life in Barbados. In 2013 I reported on the recovery of the early settlement at Trents Plantation and briefly mentioned the identification of an enslaved laborer settlement on the plantation. This paper focuses on findings related to the enslaved laborer community that was established on the property beginning in the late 1640s. The site was occupied trough the period of slavery and abandoned upon...
Enslavement at Liberty Hall: Archaeology, History, and Silence at an 18th-Century College Campus and Ante-Bellum Slave Plantation in Virginia (2016)
Liberty Hall Academy, the forerunner of Washington and Lee University, operated outside of Lexington, Virginia from 1782 until 1803. When fire consumed the institution’s academic building, the school relocated a half-mile closer to town. Following the move, Andrew Alexander and Samuel McDowell Reid, wealthy local residents and trustees of the school, operated their family farms at the site. Alexander owned between twelve and twenty-four slaves, and on the eve of the American Civil War, Reid...
Enslavement to Enlistment: the US Military in 19th Century African American Migration and Resettlement (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Bridging Connections and Communities: 19th-Century Black Settlement in North America" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. As has been recently pointed out, the role of the military in African diaspora studies has been little considered, especially as a vector of migration and resettlement. The site of Fort Snelling in Minnesota offers numerous examples of how such migration was facilitated in the 19th century,...
Enslavement, Maroonage, and Cultural Continuity Outside the Dockyard Walls: Middle Ground, Antigua (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Military Sites Archaeology in the Caribbean: Studies of Colonialism, Globalization, and Multicultural Communities" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. English Harbour, Antigua was home to a Georgian Naval Dockyard used to careen and repair Royal Navy vessels in the Caribbean between 1724 and 1899. The success of these operations relied on enslaved African artisans and labourers. Inside the Dockyard walls, these...
Entangled at the World's Edge: European Relations with the Aru Islands, Eastern Indonesia, during the Colonial Period (2015)
The Aru Islands of the Maluku region in eastern Indonesia have received little attention from historical archaeologists. However, Aruese people and products played a significant role in Maluku before and after European contact. Aruese trade in staples and luxuries often intersected with much larger, better-known trade networks. Each of these larger networks has left a mark on Aruese culture. In this paper, an archaeological survey and an examination of Aru’s post-contact history reveal important...
The Enterprising Career of Tom Savage in Los Angeles’ Red-Light District, 1870-1909 (2016)
In 1909, the "closure" of Los Angeles’s "tenderloin" represented the influence of progressive reform ending an era of the "tacit acceptance" of municipal red-light districts nationally. Existing scholarship has focused on progressive reformers who helped launch the new policy, but there has been scant examination of the male subculture that helped transform the business of prostitution even as the era of regulation came to a close. This paper examines Tom Savage, a saloon-owner, prize-fighter,...
Environment, Religion, and Social Change: the Doane Site Archaelogical Project, Cape Cod, MA (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper provides a preliminary report on the 2019 excavations at the Doane Site, Eastham, Massachusetts, on Lower Cape Cod. This project looks at a well-known religious community in a less-clearly-understood time: the century and a half during which the descendants of those called “the Pilgrims”...
Environmental Change and Capitalism: Profit and Exploitation of the Natural World in Colonial Context (2016)
The emergence of capitalism was a driving force in colonial Caribbean development. The institutionalization of slavery, which sustained the economy was but one manifestation of the phenomenon. Environmental exploitation and degradation was another. The Caribbean is a patchwork of non-native plants, damaged ecosystems, transplanted cultures, syncretic identities, and subaltern economic systems, all of which are a legacy of policies that co-evolved with the emergence of mature capitalism as an...
Environmental Factors Affecting Death Valley National Park’s Historical Archeological Sites. (2016)
Connecting specific site ecology, adaptation strategies, and location selection preferences for residential and mining resources at Death Valley National Park, the objectives of this study, are key tools that archeologists bring to the situation of climate change. We use an ecological niche modeling approach that identifies bias as well as preference for site selection. Specifically, the models output predict suitability and probability of where specific site types are situated across the...
Envisioning Logging Camps as Site of Social Antagonsim in Capitalism: An Anishinaabe Example from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Archaeology of Capitalism’s Cracks" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Slovenian Marxist philosopher, Slovoj Zizek has observed a curious paradox within western pop culture and society that “it’s much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism.” This paper presents an archaeological case study for imagining alternatives to living in...
Ephemeral Urban Structures and the Archaeology of Homelessness (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Urban Erasures and Contested Memorial Assemblages" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. As urbanism emerged in the United States so too did contemporary forms of homelessness. Urban homelessness, a phenomenon defined by transience and ephemerality, is omnipresent within the modern urban landscape. Homelessness is an issue few politicians dare to address and a "social problem" that no one seems to be able to clearly...
Equitable Water Access for Detroiters in the Early 20th Century (2020)
This is a poster submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The city of Detroit’s population quadrupled from 285,000 people in 1900 to nearly a million in 1920. This growth created enormous demands on the city’s infrastructure and its ability to provide residents with basic services. Access to clean water was vital to the health and quality of life of city residents. This research uses material culture, historic documents, and Geographic...
Erasing Lines of Class and Color in Storyville(s), New Orleans (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Urban Erasures and Contested Memorial Assemblages" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In 1941, the Housing Authority of New Orleans opened the Iberville Housing Project, one of a series of federally funded public housing developments built as components of a slum clearance effort happening all over the city. Iberville was unique among these developments, in that its footprint almost precisely coincided with the...
Erasing Religious Boundaries in a Frontier South Carolina Parish (2017)
Although founded as a religiously tolerant colony, early colonial South Carolina was deeply divided between Anglicans who fought to establish the Church of England and dissenters who opposed it. In 1706, the Church of England did become the official established religion of the colony, yet tensions continued. However, these religious differences were less important in the colony’s southern frontier parishes where white settlers had other concerns, namely from neighboring Native American...
Erosion and Sedimentation at a 19th-century Farmstead (2016)
The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center located in Edgewater, MD is a 2,650 acre campus consisting mostly of eroded farmland. This paper focuses on the complex erosional processes occurring at a historic farmstead located on campus, Sellman's Connection (18AN1431: 1729-1917) by looking at key excavation units along with soil borings that identify the source of eroded material and its final resting place.
Espionage And United Fruit: An Analysis of the SS San Pablo Using 3-D Modeling And Photogrametry (2017)
The refrigerated fruit cargo vessel, SS. San Pablo was torpedoed while docked at Puerto Limon, Costa Rica in 1942 by German U-boat 161. Prior to its sinking, the vessel allowed the United Fruit Company to maintain a near monopoly in the Caribbean and Latin American region. The vessel was later raised and sunk again in 1944 in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola, Fl. as part of a test project headed by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the United States Army Air Force (USAAF). The...
Essential Hardware: An Analysis of Vasa’s Rigging and Gun Tackle Blocks (2018)
Rigging blocks are essential to the operation of a large sailing vessel, yet little has been published on these vital pieces of hardware. Recent research and analysis of the rigging and gun tackle blocks found in association with the Swedish royal warship, Vasa, lost in Stockholm Harbor in 1628,has made possible a detailed study of this specialized equipment, its typology, nomenclature, historical development, physical mechanics, and its application aboard 17th century square-rigged ships....
Establishing Community: Post-Civil War Placemaking in Rural Tennessee (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Working on the 19th-Century" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In the 1860s, African Americans sought to create separate physical spaces and cultural institutions of their own, specifically churches, cemeteries, and schools. Tennessee State Historian Dr. Carroll Van West has hypothesized that the nexus of these institutions, as well as fraternal lodges and businesses, was the basis for early African American community...
Estate Bellevue: A Study of a Small-Scale Caribbean Cotton Plantation (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Enslavement" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper presents of findings from Estate Bellevue St. John, USVI, a small-scale cotton plantation. Cotton estates represent a distinct but understudied variant within the Caribbean plantation landscape. This study takes advantage of the well-preserved spatial layout at Estate Bellevue to explore details of life for both planter and the enslaved. This...