United States of America (Geographic Keyword)
3,751-3,775 (3,817 Records)
La Balise was a French outpost in the Southeast Pass of the Mississippi River -- one of the most geologically dynamic landscapes on earth. The fort was built in 1723 to defend the waterway from encroaching armies and to justify relocating Louisiana’s capital from Biloxi to New Orleans. La Balise’s geographical position led it to become the colony’s port of call, and its frontier environment fostered a profusion of cultural and technological adaptations. However, the same environmental conditions...
The Wide and Wonderful World of Digital Archaeology in Cultural Resource Management (2016)
Archaeologists in Cultural Resource Management (CRM) adopt digital tools to improve both the efficiency and quality of our work. While archaeologists have often adopted new tools, technology like digital tablets, user-friendly databases, 3D scanning/modeling/visualization tools, and accessible media like blogs and podcasts provide new opportunities to greatly expand the extent and speed of data collection, as well as the ways archaeologists may disseminate both data and research results. For...
Wild animal use and landscape interpretations at Pimeria Alta Spanish colonial sites (2016)
European livestock accompanied the foundation of Spanish missions and presidios in the arid Pimeria Alta, altering the local landscape and native society. Livestock connected desert farmers to distant colonial markets and providing a new source of protein and grease, but also required new economic, social, and spatial arrangements, potentially affecting the availability of wild animals in native communities near Spanish colonial sites . This paper surveys wild animal presence and diversity at...
William Berkley, Civil War Sutler: Archaeological Investigations (2016)
Sutler stores were a common component of large Civil War era camps. At Camp Nelson, a large Union Civil War Depot in Jessamine County, Kentucky, several stores are listed in official records. The store run by William Berkley has been the site of archaeological investigation for the last few years. New work at the site has greatly expanded our understanding of the breadth of goods sold, including the international original of many goods. These excavations have also enhanced our...
Williamsburg's Raleigh Tavern Revisited (2017)
The Raleigh Tavern stands out as both a pioneering excavation in the history of historical archaeology, and as one of Colonial Williamsburg’s earliest reconstruction projects. First excavated in 1928, the foundations recorded at the site formed the basis of a tavern reconstruction that when completed in 1932, marked the official opening of Colonial Williamsburg to the public. In summer 2016, Colonial Williamsburg’s archaeologists revisited the iconic tavern site with the hopes of reexamining...
The Wind Cries Mary: The Effects of Soundscape on the Prairie Madness Phenomenon (2018)
Prairie madness is a documented phenomenon wherein immigrants who settled the Great Plains experienced episodes of depression and violence. The cause is commonly attributed to the isolation between the households and settlements. However, historical accounts from the late 19th and early 20th century also specify the sound of the winds on the plain as a catalyst. A number of conditions such as acute hyperacusis can cause increased sensitivity to environmental sounds. These conditions can result...
Wind-Powered Sugar Mills as Constructions of Control in the Plantation Landscapes of Montserrat, West Indies (2017)
As James Delle recently argued, Caribbean plantation landscapes were built environments designed to mediate interactions between planters and enslaved labourers. In this paper, wind-powered sugar mills on the island of Montserrat are singled out as being prominent components of the plantation environment that were not only economically productive, but also served as markers of planter power and control. The mills’ distinctive shape and height renders them instantly identifiable, and their...
A Window to the Past: The Archaeological Significance of the Plank Log House to Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania (2015)
Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania is a town with a history as long as European settlement in the Middle Atlantic United States region. First a Swedish trading outpost, then owned by the Dutch, and finally incorporated into William Penn’s holdings, the Borough of Marcus Hook now refers to itself as the Cornerstone of Pennsylvania. During the 18th century, the town had a major market which was the last port of call on the trade route to Philadelphia. The Plank Log House on Market Street, was built in the...
Windshields and Warfighters: Sharing Lessons Learned from the Roads and Military Installations of Texas (2018)
In Texas, federal agencies encounter complex issues and procedural challenges related to protecting and maintaining the resources that reflect our state’s rich legacy. Cultural resources on military installations present a unique challenge to those responsible for their management. Likewise, federal highway funded projects require special consideration of historic properties during transportation project planning. Balancing regulatory compliance with agency objectives, either supporting the...
Wine, Brandy, and Botijas at the Periphery of the Afro-Atlantic World: Production and Ethnicity on the Jesuit Estates of the Southern Pacific Coast of Peru (2015)
The Haciendas of Nasca Archaeological Project, focusing on slavery on colonial Jesuit wine estates of the Peruvian south coast, was initiated to broaden our understandings of the African diaspora in Peru, which historically existed at the edge of the Afro-Atlantic World, and is presently at the periphery of historical and archaeological scholarship. This paper explores the production and use of botijas – so-called Iberian Olive Jars – in the making of wine and brandy at two Jesuit estates and...
"With Great Care": High End Porcelain on Black Beacon Hill (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Meanwhile, In the NPS Lab: Discoveries from the Collections" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. During excavations of the African Meeting House on the north slope of Boston’s famed Beacon Hill, archaeologists collected an intact, gilt decorated porcelain plate from the site’s surface. This plate, with an obscure Latin phrase and boars head emblem, seemed out of place. The maker’s mark on its base puts it...
Within These Walls and Beyond: How the NHPA Saved and Continues to Protect Dry Tortugas National Park (2016)
Dry Tortugas National Park lies approximately 70 miles to the west of Key West in the direct path of the Florida Straits, as the western most terminus of the Florida Keys. Having been desginated initially as a National Monument in 1935, it wasn't until the establishment of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 that it truly saw protection from treasure hunters in the pristine reefs, and in a ironic twist, also from the then director of the National Park Service. Shipwrecks and material...
"Without prominent event": the McDonald Site in the Hoosier National Forest (2016)
The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and Section 106 process were enacted to ensure that archaeological knowledge is preserved. One problem this creates is that sites with ambiguous associations to particular occupants or events are offered less protection because their significance is also deemed ambiguous. The McDonald Site (12 OR 509) in the Hoosier National Forest is an example of how an ineligible site can still contribute significant information to local and regional histories....
Without regard for persons: The archaeology of american capitalism (2013)
In The Archaoelogy of American Capitalism, I examine a diverse range of studies to make the case that the historical archaeology in the United States is well served by a direct analysis of capitalism as a principle context for production, consumption, and cultural experience in America. Whether looking at the fur trade, the Georgian order, the creation of modern cities and industries or the practices of history-making and archaeology itself, I show how the lust for profit and bourgeois...
Women and Children First: The Archaeology of Motherhood and Childhood on San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Cove (2015)
Popular images of the maritime industry in places like San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Cove often focus on men — whether working on docks or ships, or on land at iron works and carpenter’s shops. Less visible in the historical record of these spaces are the women and children also living, and often working, along the waterfront. Historical research on the neighborhood that bordered Yerba Buena Cove in the late-19th-century suggests that most residences were occupied by families, rather than by...
Women in 16thCentury San Juan, Puerto Rico: Material Culture and Gender Role Contradictions (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Considering Frontiers Beyond the Romantic: Spaces of Encroachment, Innovation, and Far Reaching Entanglements" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper will address women’s role in 16thcentury San Juan, Puerto Rico, through documentary sources produced by the Royal Treasury. Their role made part of the sociocultural transformations that were caused by the intensity of the Spanish conquest in the so called...
Wood and Wampum: Transformative Expressions of Indigenous Power (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Beyond Ornamentation: New Approaches to Adornment and Colonialism" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. While surveying wampum in museum collections, I encountered a unique category of ethnographic objects: Northeastern Native American wooden clubs and bowls embedded with wampum beads. These seventeenth century objects include beads that — from the obvious evidence of drilled holes and traces of fiber weft —...
Wood Work: Excavating the Wilderness Economy of New York’s Adirondack Mountains (2016)
At the end of the 19th century, New York's legislature responded to the clarion call of conservationists concerned for the state's diminishing timber resources and threatened watershed by creating the Adirondack Forest Preserve, which kept millions of acres of public land in northern New York "forever wild." At the same time, the Adirondack logging industry witnessed tremendous growth on account of expanded railroad networks and paper industry innovations that opened up new areas of private land...
Wooden Histories: Narratives of Rural Abandonment and Disappearing Landmarks (2018)
The post 1820 wooden barns of the American mid-west are both physical structures, made of large beams, pegs and stone foundations, and silent witnesses to the dynamic interface between local, national and global social and economic changes. Drawing upon research in rural Indiania, this presentation explores the interface of regional historical research, personal interviews, and visual recording, to explore the process and potential contributions of documentary filmmaking in narrating local...
Wool’d You Be My Neighbor: Excavation of a German Immigrant Household in Providence, RI (2020)
This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Since 2015, Brown University’s “The Archaeology of College Hill” class has excavated the former home of A. Albert Sack and his family. Sack was a German immigrant to Providence, who owned several wool mills in the city and was of some local prominence. Built in 1884, the house was occupied by Sack and his descendants for some fifty years. In 1939, Moses Brown School acquired the...
Worker’s Housing and Class Struggle in the Northern Forest (2017)
Worker’s housing is the material embodiment of the contradictions and class struggle between capital and labor. These contradictions stem from capital’s goal of securing cheap and reliable labor while workers strive for higher wages and gaining a measure of control and autonomy over their own lives. Archaeologists tend to overly simplify these complex social relations by uncritically adopting common ideological descriptions such as paternalism or overusing dualisms like dominance and resistance....
Working Class Providence: The Gaspee Street Neighborhood in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Reinterpreting New England’s Past For the Future" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. For the last six years, The Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc. has worked to catalog and analyze the Providence Cove Lands Collection. This assemblage represents artifacts from two archaeological sites from the edges of what was once the Great Salt Cove: the Carpenter’s Point Site (on the south shore), and the North Shore...
Working in Small Areas: The Archaeology Of An Urban Backyard in St. Charles, Missouri (2018)
Working in small, urban backyards is challenging due to often numerous ground disturbing activities. Often lurking between these disturbances, archaeological deposits can offer interesting and surprising glimpses of past activity. One backyard along Main Street in St. Charles, Missouri offers just such a glimpse that includes family life and dumping activity interpreted through 20th-Century children's toys and an unusually dense concentration of 19h-Century ceramics,
Working Off the Farm: Extracurricular Labor Expenditures and Farm Households (2018)
Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries farmers in the town of Hector, Schuyler County, New York, sought out additional employment oppurtunies at an increased rate. These occupations included endeavors that ranged from shopkeepers and schoolteachers to stenographers and doctors. Furthermore, these additional strains on household labor impacted agricultural production across the town of Hector. This included differential product choices and land improvements. Historical and archaeological...
Working on the Edge, Dealing with the Core: Emic and Etic perspectives on Island Heritage (2016)
Heritage is a relative concept. Perceptions of the value and importance of heritage, both tangible and intangible, is fluid, changing and contextually dependent. Stakeholders have various views on definitions of the past, the cultural and historical relevance of people places and objects, and the extent to which this should be shared when creating multivocal histories. Research on Inishark and Inishbofin, Co. Galway, Ireland, two islands five miles into the Atlantic Ocean, explain the...