North America - Northeast (Geographic Keyword)
76-100 (219 Records)
Narragansett Indian Tribal oral history relates to us that "More than 15,000 years ago, the ancient villages of the Narragansett were out where the ocean is now. The waters began to rise overnight and the people had to abandon their homes." This Tribal oral history echoes the regional geological record indicating that at the time of the last glacial maximum, ca. 24,000 years ago, what are now the Atlantic waters of Rhode Island and Block Island sounds were part of a subaerially-exposed...
An Illustrative Case Study for an Archaic House Structure in Southern New England: Insights from the Halls Swamp Site and Beyond (2016)
The Halls Swamp Site represents an Archaic and Woodland Period multi-component Native American occupation in Kingston, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Excavation of just two percent of the Halls Swamp Site yielded over 24,000 artifacts and 78 cultural features, including evidence of an Archaic Period house structure. Archaic Period dwellings have largely gone unnoticed in southern New England due to poor preservation conditions and the ephemeral nature of these features. However, a concentration...
Impacts of population resettlement due to sea level rise on archaeological resources: a case study (2016)
Coastal communities in the United States, as well as other portions of the world, are contending with challenges posed by sea level rise. As coastal areas are inundated and subjected to coastal processes, action is generally limited to mitigation of sites with great local significance experiencing immediate threat, while the destruction of archaeological sites by the resettlement of affected communities has been given little attention. This secondary impact of climate change threatens cultural...
Indigenous Metalworking: An Examination of Metal Production and Use During the Pequot War (2016)
One of the most iconic moments of the Pequot War was the massacre at Mystic Fort, an event which occurred on May 26, 1637 and took the lives of hundreds of Pequot men, women, and children. Immediately following the massacre, the English retreated back to their ships and were followed by returning Pequot warriors. This paper will examine the native cuprous and ferrous objects recovered along various points of engagement on the English retreat route and analyze them in relation to metallic objects...
Influences of Gaming on Mi'kmaq Culture During the Late Woodland Period (2015)
About A.D. 1320, the bones of ten people were cremated in an ossuary on Canada's east coast. Grave offerings recovered from the eroding site in 1990-91 included fragments of tiny, calcined bone rods and charred plum pits with smoothed surfaces. They are interpreted as parts of a gaming set that probably included a shallow wooden bowl and a small bag to hold the dice, still used by members of the Mi’kmaq First Nation to play waltes. Although game sets were traditionally a woman’s property, 17th...
Insights into Dog Domestication from Psychological Studies on Dog and Wolf Behavior (2015)
The nature of the cognitive similarities and differences between dogs and wolves is highly relevant to considerations of possible mechanisms for the origin of dogs. I shall present results which show that wolves possess the potential to match dogs’ levels of responding adaptively to human actions if the wolves have been carefully hand-reared by people skilled in raising wild animals. Hand-reared wolves match pet dogs’ ability to follow human points to a desired object and to interpret the...
Integrating Community, History, and Objects: Reflections on Eastern Pequot Reservation Archaeology (2016)
We use this paper to take stock of more than 12 years of collaboration between the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation and the University of Massachusetts Boston in the context of the Eastern Pequot Archaeological Field School. This is important to discuss in a session dedicated to a broader Pequot archaeology, as the Eastern Pequot and Mashantucket Pequot nations share many cultural, historical, and familial connections, yet have had different political and economic positions and archaeological...
An Intersectional Archaeology of Colonial White Male Privilege? (2017)
I suggest that it is worth pursuing an archaeology of white male privilege through the contextual study of white privileged males. Among many outcomes, this project can de-naturalize "maleness" and "whiteness" as nomothetic and unmarked—thereby advantaged—social categories and reveal systematized advantage/oppression. Historical gendering was a nuanced process. Masculinity had multiple practiced and experienced forms. They persisted even within a tightly controlled environment, such as colonial...
Intersectional Feminist Theory and Materializations of Diverse Plural, Fluid, Multivalent, Intersectional Gender Identities in the Historic Jewish Diaspora on Greater Boston’s Landscape (2017)
Intersectional feminist theory was introduced in the 1980s as an African-American critique of structural feminist theories that universalized white middle-class women’s experiences of patriarchy. Language shifted from interactions to intersections of gender systems with an expanding set of social structures, from race to class, ethnicity, religion, etc. These intersections became the basis for research on plural, fluid and multivalent identities. Intersectional feminist theory focuses on gender...
Intra-Site Spatial Patterning of the Templeton Paleoindian Site in Northwestern Connecticut (2017)
The Paleoindian occupation at Templeton is reconsidered based on research conducted since the site’s initial study by Dr. Roger Moeller in the late 1970s. This poster describes the intra-site spatial patterning at Templeton gleaned from the 2016 excavations at the site and the reanalysis of the Paleoindian materials recovered by Moeller. Aspects of intra-site spatial patterning ascertained via ground penetrating radar surveys of the landform, lithic microwear analyses, micromorphological...
Investigating Diet Variability at Early Fortifications in the American Colonies (2015)
Variability in historic faunal assemblages is believed to be related to niche construction effects associated with the establishment and cultivation of Old World domesticated flora and fauna in the New World. Fort Shirley, a French and Indian War period fortification in Central Pennsylvania occupied during the mid 1750's, is an important case study in this picture as it was occupied during the introduction of domestic livestock to Central Pennsylvania. Published zooarchaeological analyses of...
Irish Built Arteries: Ethnic identification along the canals and railroads of New York (2015)
This study explores the materiality of cultural boundaries manufactured around immigrant communities in industrial localities in New York State. The immigration of thousands of Irish to the United States throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was met with an intense animosity. Religious and economic differences combined with an anti-immigrant sentiment to provide the Irish-American with a continuation of the racist attitudes similar to the ones that plagued English Improvement. Using...
"Irish Fever": How the Intersection of Ethnicity, Class, and Typhus Fever created an Epidemic of Prejudice in 19th-century NYC (2017)
During the height of the Great Hunger in Ireland in the late 1840s, epidemic typhus fever infected thousands aboard emigrant ships destined for New York City. Suddenly, a disease that had long been known as "jail-fever" or "ship-fever" became the "Irish fever." It was no longer associated with a place, but with a people. This paper will explain why (for many Americans) the intersection between typhus fever and the bodies of rural Irish laborers created a new disease, one they used to naturalize...
Irish Immigration and Urban Transformation in a Boston City Neighborhood (2015)
When working class European immigrants first arrived on American shores, they had a profound effect on American cities. Throughout the nineteenth century, the processes of industrialization coupled with Boston’s position as a shipping hub created an influx of low-income laborers in need of housing. The Clough House, a colonial home built around 1715, functioned as a single-family residence for a century before being converted into a tenement for the working class. This poster explores the impact...
Isotopic analyses of predatory pelagic fishes show significant environmental change in Lake Ontario following European settlement (2017)
Isotopic analyses of archaeological faunal remains can add significant temporal depth to modern and historical baseline data, which play an important role in understanding present and future environmental change. In this paper, we use stable nitrogen isotope analyses of archaeological (A.D. 1000-1900) bone collagen of pelagic predators, such as lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) and whitefishes (Coregonus sp.), as a proxy measure for environmental changes in Lake Ontario over time. Results show...
The Karl Site: New Insights on Archaeology in the Upper Allegheny Valley and Life During the Archaic Period (2017)
Most archaeological sites within the upper Allegheny Valley of Northwestern Pennsylvania and Southwestern New York have been heavily damaged by decades of plowing. The Karl Site, while no exception, has revealed that a precious few undisturbed features can exist beneath the ravages of the plow zone. Investigations at the site, involving geophysical survey, controlled surface survey, and limited excavations, have revealed some insights into the function of the site within the broader landscape....
LA ICP-MS Analysis of Glass Beads from 17th Century Huron-Wendat Sites in Ontario (2015)
We present the results of a preliminary study of glass bead chemistry from several contact period Wendat sites in Ontario. Much important work on the chemistry of glass beads found in Ontario was carried out by Hancock and colleagues using Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis in the last several decades. We compare our results with theirs. In some cases we were able to analyze the same beads that had been previously examined using INAA. We consider our results in terms of insights they may...
The Lake Oneida Durham Boat: A Previously Unrecorded Vessel Type (2016)
A shipwreck recently discovered in Lake Oneida, NY, and recorded by a team of professional and amateur archaeologists, appears to be the remains of an early 19th-century Durham boat. Durham boats plied the inland waters of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic during the 18th and 19th centuries offering an efficient means to transport bulk cargoes during the pre-canal era. While no archaeological example of a Durham boat has been previously identified, this shipwreck closely matches all available...
Late Archaic Plant Remains from the Québec City Area (Canada) (2015)
It is more and more recognized that mobile hunter-gatherers can have a significant impact on their environment. In the Northeast, one of the traits of the Late Archaic period is the intense consumption of nuts and acorns and possible management of this key resource to increase its productivity. The botanical macro-remains recovered at the site of côte Rouge, located near Québec City, indicate that butternuts and hazelnuts were indeed consumed but their low densities in the archaeological record...
Leading Each Other to Water: Queer Archaeology and Consciousness Raising in New York’s Adirondacks (2017)
In 1903, white middle-class women founded Wiawaka Holiday House in New York State’s Adirondack Mountains for "working girls" to have an affordable vacation away from unhealthy factories and cities. In 2013 and 2014, I and dozens of community volunteers (ages 18 to 70) excavated on the grounds of the still-operating Wiawaka Holiday House (now the Wiawaka Center for Women). Underpinning all of the conversations and instruction about interpretation and excavation at the site were the queer...
Levels of Public Engagement in Vermont Archaeology and Striving to Match Outreach with Outcomes (2015)
A review of the last 15 years of the University of Vermont Consulting Archaeology Program’s public outreach activities suggests that projects with experiential learning components and strong community partnerships have had the greatest impact. Efforts that combine visits by school groups to the field, excavations open to the public and field work opportunities for volunteers generate the greatest participation and public interest and yield the most positive feedback. Handbook style publications...
Life on the Conemaugh: Spatial Analysis of Artifact Densities of the Monongahela Tradition at the Johnston Site (36In2) in Southwestern Pennsylvania (2016)
The Johnston site (36In2) is associated with the Johnston Phase of the Monongahela tradition during the Late Prehistoric period in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Located on the Conemaugh River floodplain in Blairsville, Pennsylvania this large village site was excavated both in the 1950s by the Carnegie Museum and more recently by Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and is one of the largest known Monongahela sites. This project aimed to describe the artifact densities for this site to interpret the...
Lithic Variation and Tool Technology at the East Pasture Site, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts (2015)
In 2003 the Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc. (PAL) completed survey and data recovery excavations at the East Pasture Site, located immediately east of Menemsha Pond on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The investigations revealed a multi-component site dating from the Early Archaic to Late Woodland/Contact Period, and recovered a total of 19,679 artifacts and 24 cultural features. The artifact assemblage was dominated (99%) by lithics, including debitage, projectile points, groundstone...
Lives as Lived in the Archaic: A Human Agency Perspective (2015)
Archaeological fieldwork in the Northeast over the last 20 years has resulted in a significant increase in the number of known pre-Contact sites with radiocarbon-dated components; we no longer speculate on whether or not people occupied the region during the Early and Middle Archaic periods. However, the emphasis has largely been on fitting new data into an existing framework of anthropological and evolutionary generality, rather than on exploring the historical specificity of the archaeological...
Mandating Community Archaeology: Using Law to Bridge the Gap Between Public Outreach and Community Engagement (2015)
The task of decolonizing the practice of archaeology for a collaborative community project in the public sector is one that is at times easier said than done. While many archaeologists working in federal, state and local agencies may subscribe to a postcolonial approach to research and dissemination of data, political bureaucracy, budget cuts, limited staff and time, among other issues, all make this endeavor challenging to say the least. However, for federal agencies, a variety of laws and...