North America: Northeast and Midatlantic (Geographic Keyword)
226-250 (385 Records)
Supported by the U.S. National Park Service's Historic Preservation Fund program to identify coastal archaeological sites damaged by 2012's Hurricane Sandy in Rhode Island, archaeological surveys of Block Island were conducted in 2014 and 2015. The survey identified 163 archaeological sites of which 33 were tested and partially excavated. Previous archaeological surveys of Block Island concluded that a high frequency, density, and complexity of Woodland (2700 – 400 years before present (B.P.)...
No Good Deed: The Recovery of Philadelphia’s First Baptist Church Cemetery (2018)
What to do when one box of bones becomes a whole cemetery? In late 2016, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that human remains were uncovered at a local construction site, 218 Arch Street, formerly a cemetery that closed in 1859, its dead supposedly having been interred elsewhere. Because the site is privately owned and the construction privately funded, no clear legal guidelines exist governing authority over human remains. Seeing a potential research project, the authors contacted the...
Northern Iroquoian Conflict: From Coercive Adoption to Community Destruction in a Matter of Decades (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although the cause of the enmity between the Huron-Wendat and the Haudenosaunee is unknown, it commenced in the late 1400s and intensified in the early to mid-1500s, impacting the north shore of Lake Ontario, eastern Ontario, the Ottawa Valley, and central New York. This is demonstrated...
Not Your Average Shovel Test Pit Survey: Archaeology at the WALK Bridge, Norwalk, CT (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Science Outside the Ivory Tower: Perspectives from CRM" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Connecticut Department of Transportation’s rail bridge replacement in Norwalk, CT required a variety of innovative archaeological survey techniques. The heavily developed urban landscape, future construction impacts in the Norwalk River, and constantly evolving engineering plans led to a flexible and thorough...
Oakley Cabin: Revisited (2018)
This presentation will give an overview of the past and present investigations of this African American archaeological site in the heart of Montgomery County, Maryland. Particular attention will be given to Oakley Cabin's historical context as a "geography of resistance."
Of Palisades and Postmolds (2018)
The fieldwork conducted in Tyler Bastian’s 1969-1970 salvage trench at Biggs Ford revealed a unique window into two Late Woodland villages, a Montgomery Complex and a Keyser Complex. The post mold patterns observed in the initial analysis of the trench may indicate the footprints of both complexes. Linear post mold arcs and a ring of pits may be consistent with other known Montgomery Complex sites, namely the Winslow site in Montgomery County. Additionally, post mold patterns in the extreme...
Of Wharves and Watercraft: Exploring the Maritime Archeology of Theodore Roosevelt Island (2018)
Situated in the Potomac River within the District of Columbia, Theodore Roosevelt Island serves as a living memorial to the 26th president of the United States. Secluded from the bustling capital city, the island’s rich history extends beyond the memorial itself. It served as a site of American Indian occupation in the pre-contact era, hosted John Mason’s plantation beginning in the late eighteenth century, was the training ground for the 1st U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War and then...
Old Site, New Data: Challenges and Success in the Re-Analysis of the North Shore Site, Providence Covelands Archaeological District (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Science Outside the Ivory Tower: Perspectives from CRM" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The multi-component North Shore site has been frequently cited as a point of comparison in regional subsistence, settlement, and ceramics studies in part because 1980s-era archaeological investigations included marine shell thin section and tooth cementum analyses, and a large number of radiocarbon dates used to...
The Old Stone House Revisited: (2018)
The Old Stone House was built in 1765, making it the oldest standing building in Washington, DC. The house has been used throughout its history as a residence or residence/shop. This presentation provides an overview of archeological research conducted at the site and the results of recent investigations. This paper also addresses how historical narratives are produced and consumed and the role of archaeology in public heritage.
"Once an Indian Village:" The Buffum Street Site, Dispossession, and Contested Municipal Landscapes in Buffalo, New York (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Contested Landscapes: The Archaeology of Politics, Borders, and Movement" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Buffum Street Site in South Buffalo, New York, is the location of a multicomponent Seneca Village, with an historic component dating between AD 1780 and 1844. This village served as the focal point of the Buffalo Creek Reservation, and important cultural features such as a mission church, the first permanent...
An Overview of the History of LaGrange Cemetery and Some of its Notable and Not So Notable Residents (2018)
The First Baptist Church of Philadelphia was faced with something all churches confronted – the death of their parishioners. Their burying ground along with their church would evolve and change in both size and location over time. By mid-eighteenth century Lagrange Cemetery was in full use. Who occupied the First Baptist’s Lagrange Cemetery in early Philadelphia? Who were the notable and not so notable residents buried side by side? In exploring the history of over one hundred years of its...
Paleoindian Archaeology in the Munsungun Lake Region: Beyond Norway Bluff (2018)
In the late seventies and early eighties Robson Bonnichsen identified and tested several fluted point occupation loci adjacent to chert deposits on Norway Bluff, Piscataquis County, Maine. Since that time various research projects have demonstrated the importance of chert from this region to the lithic economy of fluted point groups in northeastern North America. Despite these new insights little archaeological research has taken place in the Munsungun Lake region since Bonnichsen’s original...
Paleoindian Research in the Middle Atlantic Region (2018)
Paleoindian studies in the Middle Atlantic region have been at the forefront of Paleoindian research in the Eastern Woodlands. William Gardner’s research in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in the 1980s emphasized a focus on micro-cryptocrystalline lithic sources in the settlement system; smaller territories on the order of 40 to 150 km in diameter and a flexible social organization during the seasonal round involving a pattern of changing micro- and macro-bands. These issues continue to be...
Pandemic2: Archaeology of the 1832 Cholera Epidemic in Washington, DC (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Covid-19 lockdown, the DC Archaeology Team completed emergency salvage of burials found in a Georgetown basement crawl space, part of an undocumented cemetery. We have visited this block on multiple occasions and believe that the cemetery likely served Georgetown’s large African American community - both enslaved and free - in the first half of the...
Partnerships for Heritage Stewardship (2018)
The objective of my Master’s thesis was to formulate a history of the Carroll Cabin and farm, a historic log house located in Fayette County, Pennsylvania on Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) land. My research focused on how archaeological and historical records could be used to answer questions about the farm's extant home and the property's history. In Pennsylvania and other states (and at the federal level) multi-use public land managers are responsible for similar...
Paths of Connection in the Great Dismal Swamp: Wetland Watercourses as Indigenous and Maroon Landscape Features (2018)
Speckled with mesic islands and peat hummocks, the soggy lowlands and standing water of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina (USA) were home to thousands of African and African American Maroons ca. 1608-1863 and were a significant feature of the landscape of Indigenous Americans for many centuries prior. The Great Dismal Swamp Landscape Study and the Swampscapes project archaeologically investigate the landscape of resistance created by Maroons. The Dismal is far from a...
The Patient Work of Patient History: The Creation of Medical Records for Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Interments at the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia Burial Ground (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Bones and Burials in Philadelphia: The Arch Street Project’s Multidisciplinary Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As of Fall 2018, the remains of approximately 500 individuals have been recovered from a disturbed burial ground site at 218 Arch Street in the historic "Old City" district of Philadelphia. These are a fraction of the larger interred population. The Arch Street Project’s historical research team...
PennDOT Highway Archaeological Survey Team: Providing Immersive CRM Work Experience to Students (2018)
Despite there being more applicants with graduate degrees than there are jobs, the CRM industry suffers from the number of people holding graduate degrees but lacking experience conducting archaeological surveys for Section 106 compliance. Additionally, conducting archaeological surveys is cost-prohibitive and can be a burden on state agencies on projects where federal funds are not involved. These two issues in the field of compliance archaeology prompted the creation of the PennDOT Highway...
The Pennsylvania Precontact Predictive Model (2018)
In 2015, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration sponsored the development of a predictive model for prehistoric site locations in Pennsylvania. Since the development and release of the model, numerous surveys have been performed across the state, and many new prehistoric archaeological sites have been identified and mapped. During the 2016 and 2017 summers, undergraduate and graduate archaeology students participating the Pennsylvania Department of...
Performing a Queer Aesthetic in Early 20th Century Washington: Preliminary Findings from the Halcyon House Site (2018)
Located in the Georgetown area of Washington, DC, the Halcyon House is one of the only archaeological sites with a documented queer inhabitant. Albert Adsit Clemons, who was purportedly a relation of Mark Twain, lived on the property with a male carpenter, and together the two filled the house with oddities and antiques. In this paper, I will analyze the way that Clemons performed a queer aesthetic through his household décor and personal adornments. Although the site was excavated in 1985, the...
Persistent Places, Enduring Objects: Ritualized Spaces and Things in the Powhatan Political World (2018)
Seventeenth-century colonial chroniclers repeatedly mention a series of places and objects that surrounded political negotiations and efforts at alliance-building by Powhatan societies. While regional scholarship has focused on competition over subsistence resources, regional trade dynamics, and the regulated exchange of "prestige goods" as central to the development of these political structures, we shift the focus toward the engagement between these societies and specific places and objects...
Phytolith Analysis of Woodland Period Carbonized Food Residues from Block Island, RI (2018)
Due to poor preservation, Woodland-era plant resources in New England, both wild and cultivated, have long been poorly understood. Previous macrobotanical analyses have suggested that Woodland subsistence strategies for plant resources in New England are unique to the region, with further intra-regional variation between coastal and interior contexts. This paper presents a preliminary analysis of phytoliths extracted from carbonized food residues found on ceramic sherds from the Early Woodland...
Pig Manure and Swizzle Sticks: Defining an Archaeological Site Type (2018)
Low-density scatters of historic-era artifacts can be interpreted as byproducts of manure spreading. These are pieces of trash inadvertently mixed with food refuse that was fed to pigs. While most of these artifacts were not ingested, they became mired in the resulting manure which farmers spread on their fields as fertilizer. Whether or not a scatter of late historic artifacts represents manure spreading or some other kind of behavior can be tested archaeologically, and that is the subject of...
The Pig Point Complex: 10,000 Years of Mid-Atlantic (Pre)History (2018)
Excavations at the Pig Point site have redefined our understanding of Native American history in the Mid-Atlantic. The site is located near the freshwater-saltwater interface on the Patuxent River in Maryland, an area tremendously rich in biodiversity, and radiocarbon dates from stratified deposits at the site span more than 9000 years; however, artifacts uncovered more than two meters below surface suggest people have lived in this area far longer. Features discovered at Pig Point include a...
A Place to Heal: Archaeology at St. Elizabeths Hospital (2018)
Established in 1852 as the Government Hospital for the Insane, St. Elizabeths is situated on a bluff overlooking the historic City of Washington. Charles Nichols, the first superintendent, sought to provide a therapeutic setting in a picturesque environment for mentally ill patients to recover. Originally located outside the main core of the city, the campus has witnessed massive changes over its 150 years of operation. These changes often coincided with innovative new treatment practices for...