North America: Northeast and Midatlantic (Geographic Keyword)
201-225 (385 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Public Lands, Public Sites: Research, Engagement, and Collaboration" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Thousands of people are employed by Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), Department of Parks and Recreation, Prince George’s County, but only two of them are full-time archaeologists. These professionals are supported by a small part-time staff and are responsible for the stewardship of...
Making Public Archaeology More Public (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology as a Public Good: Why Studying Archaeology Creates Good Careers and Good Citizens" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. American archaeology today is focused on the identification and evaluation of historic properties in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. While this has created a body of work in compliance with environmental and historic preservation laws, for the most part, these...
Management and Memory Work: How Site Management Practices Affect the (Re-)Presentation of Archaeological Landscapes in Western New York (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Living Landscapes: Disaster, Memory, and Change in Dynamic Environments " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological landscapes embody shifting conceptualizations of the individuals who live, work, and play at those locations, both in the past and present. While other papers in this session address such changes in the context of the archaeological past, we bring the discussion to the present. We explore these...
Management of WWI Training Trenches in Light of Current Military Training (2018)
More than nine miles of World War I training trenches have been identified on USAG Fort Lee (Fort Lee) in Prince George County, Virginia. Constructed by the 80th Division at what was then "Camp Lee" beginning in the fall of 1917, these trenches represent a significant historic resource associated with the Great War. Fort Lee is also one of only a few locations where such trenches survive in the United States. However, the trenches also pose a significant challenge in balancing mission and...
Managing the Effects of Erosion and Sea Level Rise on Archaeological Sites at Fort Eustis, Newport News, Virginia (2018)
Fort Eustis, part of Joint Base Langley-Eustis, located on Mulberry Island along the James River in Virginia, is extremely vulnerable to the threat of erosion resulting from sea level rise, increased tidal range, and flooding from increased rainfall and storm surge. Currently, dozens of archaeological sites on the island are experiencing damage resulting from erosion, including sites where human remains have been found protruding from erosional scarps. To meet the installation’s short and...
Mapping Transience: An Archaeology of Hobo Movement and Placemaking (2018)
GIS has become a powerful tool for visualizing cultural activity over time and space. We have found that it is invaluable in the archaeological study of movement and transient labor. In this paper, we aim to demonstrate how the use of geospatial technology in conjunction with the material record can offer a glimpse into the daily movements of transient laborers along Mid-Atlantic railway networks and industrial centers in the late 19th century through the Great Depression. Specifically, we...
Martha’s Vineyard Beach Economy: Scavenged Seals and Washed-up Whales at the Frisby Butler Site (2018)
Marine mammals, including whales and seals, were a source of meat, blubber, baleen, and bone to the settlers of Martha’s Vineyard from the earliest occupation until the historic period. Numerous species of whales have been observed in New England’s shallow waters, including migratory species like the North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) and other marine mammals like the Harbor seal (Phoca vitulina). During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Wampanoag on Martha’s Vineyard and...
The Maryland Archaeological Synthesis Project: One State’s Solution to Archaeology’s Crushing Gray Literature Problem (2018)
Since passage of the National Historic Preservation Act fifty-two years ago a growing body of valuable data has been generated by state agencies, CRM professionals, and preservation officers. Unfortunately, this data is usually trapped in an archaic paper-based format, restricted geographically to a single state archive. All too often the data is brought to light only to be "reburied" in the SHPO’s library where it may be largely inaccessible to researchers scattered throughout the country. This...
Material Bodies, Living Objects: Bodily Adornment and Death in the Algonquian Chesapeake (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Deep History, Colonial Narratives, and Decolonization in the Native Chesapeake" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper explores the relationship between the human body and the objects that adorned them within the Late Woodland through early colonial (AD 900–1680) Algonquian Chesapeake. Drawing on theories that cite the human body as the battle ground upon which political authority is established, I seek to explore...
The Materiality of Authority: I7th Century Native Leadership in Colonial New England through the Lens of Value Theory (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The practices of men and women leaders in Native Southern New England pose a number of interesting questions for scholars interested in the intersection of materiality and value. In the 17th and early 18th century, Native leaders claimed authority through descent, colonial patronage, and/or religious practice. Central to their success moreover, was...
Measuring Mobility by Proxy: Use and Maintenance of Lithic Tools in Pennsylvania from Paleoindian to Middle Archaic Times (2018)
Archaic peoples in Pennsylvania were less mobile than their Paleoindian predecessors. One form of evidence supporting this argument is the increased use of local lithic raw materials in the Early and Middle Archaic. The utilization and retouch of unifaces and bifaces is a second form of evidence of mobility. The production of tools designed for long-term use and maintenance is associated with highly mobile groups where maximizing tool use-life reduces transport cost and reduces risk when moving...
Meta-analysis of the North Atlantic Cod Fisheries: The Zooarchaeology of the Sixteenth- to Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Cod Trade (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Animal Bones to Human Behavior" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The distribution and abundance of animal populations have significantly impacted human settlement decisions, mobility, economics, and conflict throughout history. The abundance of cod (*Gadus morhua) in North Atlantic fisheries enticed English, French, and Basque fishermen to the region to catch, salt, and export cod to Europe. Efforts to monopolize...
Middens or Monuments? The Shell Middens of Maine and the Construction of Peace (2018)
Although some attention has been given to the possibility that circular, semi-circular, and U-shaped piles of shell in southeastern North America represent monumental architecture (e.g., Thompson and Pluckhahn 2012), little attention has been afforded to the possibility that large shell middens of the eastern North American coast might be monumental constructions. Here, using an argument drawn from New Guinea ethnography, we hypothesize that some Maine middens were not simply rubbish heaps, but...
Migration, Dispersion, or Purposeful Relocation?: Flexibility as an Adaptive Settlement Strategy in Northern Iroquoia, ca. A.D. 1300–1650 (2018)
Flexibility is a defining characteristic of the Iroquoian settlement landscape. Population movement, amalgamation, coalescence, dispersal, resettlement, incorporation, and abandonment occurred at the local and regional scales throughout Iroquoian history. Even those groups that persisted within more or less the same territories from A.D. 1300 through the contact era had complex and dynamic settlement histories. This paper considers patterns of settlement relocation in Northern Iroquoia with an...
Mind the Gap: Laws and Policies Related to Burial Places in Pennsylvania (2018)
Pennsylvania has a long history of human occupation and an array of community types and settlement patterns ranging from large cities to sparsely populated rural communities. This geographic and cultural diversity resulted in varying burial practices including small family plots in farm fields, religious burial grounds, as well as private and publicly-owned cemeteries. As the state grew and changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, the legislature enacted or revised laws affecting...
Minimally-Invasive Geoarchaeological Investigation of a Sub-marsh and Intertidal Precontact Site in New Hampshire (2018)
Many precontact archaeological sites in New England exhibit poor preservation of organic materials but they occupy relatively stable upland landforms. Conversely, intertidal and submerged sites often contain exceptional organic preservation but exist in or near high-energy and erosive environments. This paper describes minimally-invasive geoarchaeological investigations of an Archaic to Terminal Archaic site in New Hampshire that is buried by salt marsh peat, exposed at a rapidly-eroding...
Modeling Discrete Paleoindian Work Areas (2018)
At many archaeological sites, discrete concentrations of artifacts or the clustering of similar tool types are often interpreted as individual work areas or evidence of specific activities. Using sets of refitted artifacts from the Shawnee-Minisink site, representing individual knapping and tool use events, I examine the relationship between known work areas and areas with varying artifact densities, where activities are less defined. By examining the relationship between refit distance,...
Modeling Small-Arms Distribution on Eighteenth-Century Battle Sites (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The application of geographic information systems (GIS) technologies to archaeological investigations continues to provide new perspectives on historical events. Applied to battlefield archaeology, GIS analysis offers an efficient means of predicting potential artifact distribution across a conflict landscape. The approach proposed in this paper allows a...
Monitoring and Managing Eroding Archaeological Resources (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Middle Atlantic Regional Transect Approach to Climate Change Impacts on Archaeological Resources" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fort Eustis is an approximately 8,000 acre peninsula bound by the Warwick and James rivers in Virginia’s Tidewater region. There are 234 identified archaeological sites on Fort Eustis that range in age from 10,000 BCE to the early twentieth century. In 2010 the Fort Eustis Cultural...
Monitoring, Planning, and Treating Archaeological Sites for Climate Change (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Triage: Prioritizing Responses to Climate Change Impacts on Archaeological Resources" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Fort Eustis portion of Joint Base Langley-Eustis is a peninsula of 8,000 acres bounded by Skiffes Creek, the Warwick River, and the James River on Virginia's coastal plain. The installation has 233 identified archaeological sites. Thirty-one sites are subject to erosion by the surrounding...
The More Things Change, the More They Change: Persistence and Evolution in the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Changes in the Land: Archaeological Data from the Northeast" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition has been defined as a persistent technological pattern that spans the Early to Middle Archaic Periods ca. 9,500-6,000 B.P. in the northeast, although sites containing this component have remained poorly documented. It is possible that human population density in New England was low throughout...
Motivations of Indigenous New England Potters and Researchers: Technical Choice, Social Context, and Identity Construction (2018)
Archaeological research on aboriginal ceramics in New England has been limited in content and scope since its beginnings in the late 19th century. Few studies have attempted to connect aboriginal ceramics research with contemporary Native peoples, either through past-to-present identity connections or through Indigenous community engagement. Additionally, there have been few efforts to integrate research across New England’s contemporary geopolitical boundaries. Recognizing these deficiencies in...
The Narrow Point Tradition and Long-Term Continuity in the Northeast (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Narrow Point tradition extends across a wide area of eastern North America and its signature point type is one of the most frequently found in Archaic contexts in New England. Decades of research on the relationship between Narrow Points and other types of the Late Archaic Period has not yet produced a consensus regarding their use and origins. However,...
New Data and Potential Pathways of Paleoindian Exploration in the West Virginia Highlands (2018)
Comparatively few Paleoindian artifacts have been found throughout the Appalachian Highlands, especially in the uplands of West Virginia. Lack of professional research in West Virginia appears to be the leading cause for this paucity of data. A literature review and newly identified artifacts from surface collections provide a baseline for future research questions and survey strategies. Most artifacts derive from the Ohio and Kanawha river valleys, but new artifacts from the most mountainous...
A New Frontier: Archaeology and Heritage Management Meet Urban Planning and Creative Placemaking (2018)
Heritage Placemaking is a thing - embrace it! Learn from our mistakes. The DC Office of Planning received a grant from the Kresge Foundation to engage in creative placemaking by artist/curators with the goal of activating underused public spaces. The DC Archaeology Program saw this as an opportunity to engage in a novel form of public outreach funded by someone else. Despite best intentions, false starts, permitting issues, need for cultural sensitivity, and last-minute directives, the...