United States of America (Geographic Keyword)
2,751-2,775 (3,819 Records)
The cultural landscapes of African-American communities in the nineteenth century were often anchored with a church, cemetery, and school. Sectarian and secular dynamics interacted in shaping the terrains of those social networks. This presentation explores such developments in the impacts of religious beliefs, practices, and congregations on the strategic locations and configurations of churches and cemeteries before and after the Civil War, with a focus on the Midwest region. For example, the...
Pump Up the Jambs: Expanding the Catalog of Known Colonial Era Decorative Delftware Fireplace Tiles from Archaeological Contexts in North Carolina and Beyond (2020)
This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In 1996, I presented a study on decorative delftware fireplace tiles recovered from three structures in eighteenth-century Brunswick Town. At that time, these were the only delftware tiles known or reported from archaeological contexts in North Carolina. Yet in the past 22 years, as a result of more recent excavations and ongoing re-analyses on a number of archaeological...
A Purposeful Unpatterning: A Spatial Approach to Maroon Settlement in Florida (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "African Diaspora in Florida" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. During the colonial era, Spanish Florida built a reputation as a refuge for self-liberated people escaping from slavery. However, following the Treaty of Paris, Florida’s governance was in turmoil and the Maroons’ freedom was under constant threat. Florida Maroons were constantly on the move. Consequently, a low density of materials, deficiency of...
"Pushing Against a Stone": Landscape, Generational Breadth, and Community-Oriented Archaeological Approaches in the Plantation Chesapeake (2016)
By the antebellum era enslaved communities across large tidewater Chesapeake plantations boasted deep temporal and broadly dispersed roots, enjoining residents across quarters through bonds of kinship and camaraderie that often transcended plantation boundaries. Broad cross-plantation neighborhoods encompassed mosaics of significant places suffused with notions of community and grounded in generational investments in labor and experience, places and ties that often retain value to present-day...
Pushing the Boundaries: Technology-Driven Exploration of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary (2018)
During the summer of 2017, archaeologists from Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary led a series of partnerships to test technologically based methodologies for exploring and rapidly assessing submerged cultural resources. First, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) mapped shallow water areas and image extant archaeological materials. Next, in a sequential series of field campaigns, researchers conducted a wide-area survey to located and document historic vessel remains. The first campaign utilized...
Pushing the Boundary: The Game of Cricket in a Colonial Context. (2016)
By the early nineteenth century the game of cricket had gone through a major transformation. In the eighteenth century it was it a game played mostly by the landed gentry with all of the associated drinking and gambling. By 1800 it had become a game played by common people and had come to represent a less decadent way of life as espoused by idea of Muscular Christianity. The British took both the game and this ideology with them throughout their colonies. This paper examines the physical and...
Putting the Public Back in Archaeology: Restoration of a Civil War Era Gun Emplacement on Battery B at Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site (2016)
Public archaeology has been a long-standing practice at Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site. Began by pioneering archaeologist Stanley South in the 1950s, his style of public archaeology involved having on-going excavations visible to the public and timely disseminated results through local newsletters. Yet in the half-century dearth of investigations since South departed the site, public archaeology was largely forgotten and all but disappeared. However, recent efforts to more...
A Puzzle from the Deep: The Mystery of the Empty 19th Century Shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico (2015)
An intriguing mystery has presented itself in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM): the discovery of several 19th century shipwrecks apparently bare of portable artifacts. Improved technology has, in the past decade, allowed for cheaper and safer production of oil in the deep waters of the GOM. Under the direction of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, companies are required to conduct high-resolution geophysical surveys of their leases in advance of bottom disturbance. This has resulted in the discovery...
The Puzzle Of Pickles Reef - Update (2016)
The Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society (MAHS) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of historic shipwrecks and other underwater cultural resources. Since 2010 MAHS has been assisting the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) with an assessment of cultural resources on Pickles Reef, a small coral reef located within the sanctuary just south of Molasses Reef. Our initial surveys suggested that the site was a barge that carried cement for Henry Flagler’s...
A pXRF Analysis on18th-Century Colonial Redware (2017)
This portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) research addresses questions concerning economic status and procurement strategies through the study of redware ceramics. The use of pXRF is a high-tech, newly emerging analytical technique for archaeologists that provides quantitative data concerning the chemical composition of ceramics. The ceramics were produced by local or regional manufacturers, and this research is a comparative compositional study with collections from several archaeological sites...
QR Codes and Social Media: Tools for Education at Historic Brunswick Town (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Technology and Public Outreach" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Technological advancments have been an aid to musuems, but not all facilities may be able to afford the newest gadets. Quick response (QR) codes offer a cost effective way for every museum to impliment new technology into their displays. Social media offers a quick and cheap means of both advertising a location and dispensing information to a large range...
QR Codes as Educational Tools at Historic Brunswick Town (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Digital Technologies and Public Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Public interpretation is an integral aspect of the archaeological process, and modern technology has made it easier than ever to communicate information with the general public. Technological advancements have been an aid to museums, but not all facilities may be able to afford the newest technological advancements. Quick response...
The Quandary Of Diaspora: Folk Culture And African And Scottish Interactions At The Kingsley Plantation (1814-1839), Fort George Island, Florida (2015)
Recognizing ethnic identities through materiality has long been a goal of American historical archaeology, in particular within the African Diaspora. The ability to identify and interpret archaeologically the material residues of these past social behaviors has most successfully relied upon exclusive contexts of interaction and access; African customs may be "recognized" in slave cabins, while European customs and beliefs may manifest materially within predominately or exclusively Euroamerican...
Quarantined in the Promised Land: Honoring the Living and the Dead at the Staten Island Marine Hospital (2018)
Historical Perspectives, Inc. completed a large, multi-year study of the Northern Cemetery of the Staten Island Quarantine Grounds. The archaeological team located and excavated a portion of the cemetery, which was utilized for the burial of patients from the Marine Hospital in the 1840s and 1850s. The individuals buried here were mostly immigrants who died in sight of the United States, which they hoped would provide them with a new life. The narrative of the patients at the Marine Hospital...
Queen Anne’s Revenge: A Very Lore-ful Site (2017)
Long before the discovery of Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard and his flagship loomed large in popular literature and art; large enough even to prompt production of two Hollywood movies about him. Twenty years of excavation and conservation have only increased the lure of these topics. Hundreds of contributions by scholars and more popular writers have enriched the literature with books, articles, and presentations. Artists and illustrators have found subjects in the man, the ship, and the...
Queer Animacies: Disorienting Materialities in Archaeology (2015)
This essay draws from contemporary strands of affect and materiality in queer theory to discuss a network of queer animacies in the historic record. Using examples of late 19th and early 20th century jook joints , I explore a range of affective material relationships that threaten heteronormative ideals. This attempts to move beyond privileging sexual acts and orientations as defining queerness, towards a queer historical framework attuned to the vast network of human and material...
Queer Frontier Identities: A Look at at the Laundresses' Quarters and Enlisted Married Men's Quarters of Fort Davis, Texas (2017)
This paper defines frontiers as queer locals that shape the relationships and practices of individuals within them. Frontiers are liminal spaces where normative ideals are actively challenged and thrown into flux by competing ways of knowing, both new and old. Inhabitants of these heterogeneous communities simultaneous assert, contest, and reassert their positionality and personhoods daily through a series of meetings between and within cultural groups. As a result a third space of fluidity...
Queering the Heteronormal: Memorial Practices in the Historic Cemeteries of Erie County, Pennsylvania (2017)
This project determined, using a Queer Theory approach, to what extent burial pattern, grave marker, and accompanying text and images reflected and reproduced presumed dominant heteronormative ideologies. Grave marker styles and text have highlighted the constant change in familial ideologies from the colonial period to the present. Burial and marker attributes from over 4,000 adults in cemeteries in Erie County, PA between 1880-2015 were recorded and examined. The results indicate that the...
Queering the Household Group: Challenging the Boundaries of an Archaeological Unit (2015)
The use of queer theory in archaeology aims to challenge static social structures. This paper focuses on how traditional assumptions of family and the household can be problematized through an investigation of non-household ‘households’ – such as saloons and other non-domestic residential spaces. In deconstructing the family, queer theory has elucidated the Western and modern biases that underlie the traditional definition of this social group. By challenging normative social constructions of...
Queering the Norm: Reinterpreting the Heterosexual Ideal (2015)
This paper aims to problematize the concept of heteronormativity through a queer perspective. Too often, heterosexuality is posited as a universal norm against which queer identities can be examined. Through a look at archaeological deposits associated with heterosexual relationships and practices - such as courtship, marriage, and prostitution- this discussion queers the 'normalness' of heterosexuality by showing that an ideal heterosexuality is rarely, if ever, truly performed. Using examples...
Queerness is for White People: The Effects of the Idea of African American Sexual Deviancy among 19th Century Buffalo Soldiers (2015)
This paper investigates male identified homosociality within black communities by tracing male relationships within 19th century gendered labor spaces. Using examples from Fort Davis, Texas, this study analyzes Buffalo Soldier troops stationed there from 1867-1891. A queer perspective allows this research to focus on the bonds and relationships amongst African American soldiers that do not subscribe to traditional heteronormative practice. Because so often these relationships are obscured within...
The Question of Anomalies in Slave Archaeology: Evidence from an Antebellum Industrial Site (2017)
This thesis asks how anomalies are to be approached within the larger paradigm of African-American archaeology through analysis of the Arcadia Mill Industrial Complex. The author compares historical and archaeological data from two possible slave components for functional similarities and differences. This is then considered alongside evidence from both plantation and non-traditional slave sites to determine what the most appropriate basis for material and theoretical comparison is. The author...
Questions Answered and the Way Forward: Results of the 2015 Clover Bottom Field Season and the New Questions Generated. (2016)
During June and July of 2015, a historical archaeological field school from Middle Tennessee State University’s Public History Program conducted a survey and assessment of Clover Bottom plantation (40DDV186) in Nashville, Tennessee. This excavation looked to bring forth new material evidence for the experiences of the property’s majority of enslaved and emancipated residents. This paper presents the results of topographic and shovel-test surveys and test excavations as they relate to ongoing...
Quite Voices and Silent Houses: Video ethnography on Inishark (2013)
Video interviews, oral histories and historical records provide an important means of reconstructing past island lifeways. In this presentation we illustrate how the Cultural Landscapes of the Irish Coast project employs video ethnography to document 1940-1960 island life. Over the summers of 2009-2012 we conducted multiple video interviews with five islanders while revisiting Inishark, conducting on-camera interviews in their homes that were abandoned 50 years ago, and having them discuss the...
Race and Alienation in Baltimore's Hampden (2016)
The recent uprising in West Baltimore took place less than two miles from the neighborhood of Hampden, but, with a few notable exceptions, it made little impact there. Writers and historians have long understood the Baltimore neighborhood of Hampden to be culturally, geographically, and racially isolated from the city in which it is embedded. Archaeological investigations performed there have helped to illustrate how class and power relationships changed over time, ultimately reinforcing that...