North America: Northeast and Midatlantic (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leslie Reeder-Myers. Kathryn Cross.

Today, the Rappahannock River is known for having some of the best oysters on the east coast of North America, and people have been taking advantage of that resource for thousands of years. A large, multi-component shell midden site at Belle Isle State Park provides a glimpse into shellfish harvesting for the past 4500 years, and suggests that the estuary’s ecosystem changed significantly over that time period. During Woodland and Colonial phases of occupation, oyster makes up between 98 and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ross Owen.

This is an abstract from the "Case Studies in Toolstone Provenance: Reliable Ascription from the Ground Up" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The prehistoric quarries of South Mountain, the primary source for metarhyolite in Pennsylvania, are well-known for their importance as a lithic resource—especially in association to the Susquehanna Broadspear industry. While they are widely known, the quarries have not been studied intensively. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julia King.

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. A study commissioned in 2015 by the St. Mary’s County, Maryland Historic Preservation Commission sought to measure the impacts of residential and commercial development on the county’s archaeological resources. The study’s findings revealed minimal impact by development but a stunning...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Dhody. Jennifer Klunk. George Leader. Kimberlee Moran. Nicholas Bonneau.

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. The human remains from the Arch Street assemblage offer a unique opportunity to use nondestructive sampling techniques to study the population from the later 18th to early 19th century of Philadelphia. Many of the human remains contain at least partial dentition with calculus deposits present. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Veit.

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community-Based Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 1764 the Sandy Hook Lighthouse has guarded the treacherous approaches to New York Harbor. During the American Revolution Continental forces unsuccessfully tried to deny the British control of the lighthouse. British troops and partisans captured Sandy Hook early in the war and, despite repeated raids by Continental forces, retained...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Blackwood. Kate Pontbriand.

Analysis of archaeological clam shells can provide important indicators of the seasonality of an archaeological site. To address the question of seasonality at four Woodland period archaeological sites along the coast of Maine, we have collected monthly modern samples of the soft-shelled clam Mya arenaria from nearby clam flats to establish a baseline to which excavated samples can be compared. The analyses of modern shells will show how seasons are recorded in the target species in Maine;...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Bomberger.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The passenger pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, is an extinct subspecies of pigeon that was used as a staple food source by the Haudenosaunee. The largest passenger pigeon flocks were described by eyewitnesses as covering hundreds of miles and their peak population has been estimated in the billions. During the nineteenth century, Euroamericans industrialized...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ross K. Harper. Katharine Reinhart.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The early period of settlement in New England has most often been examined through the available historical documents and accounts, with little in the way of tangible material culture or features to connect what we read to the lived experiences of the colonists. However, AHS, Inc.’s 2013 extensive data recovery of the ca. 1638 Waterman House site in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caroline Watson. Jacob Daunais. Eric E. Jones.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This pilot research is using archaeology to examine the role of agriculture, particularly dairy farming, in the formation of historic and modern rural spaces and landscapes in the United States. Our larger goal is to describe and explain what rural is and how it was constructed by and has influenced people throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries....

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Hyche.

From 1850 to 1860, the Blue Ridge Mountains were home to roughly 1,900 Irish laborers as they worked on the construction of the Virginia Central Railroad. Upon its completion, the railroad stretched from Norfolk, Virginia, to the Ohio River. Along the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Irish immigrants constructed several cuts and tunnels, including the Blue Ridge Tunnel. At its completion, the tunnel measured 4,263ft long and bridged two Virginia counties. This project proved to be an especially...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Michael Garbellano.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research focuses on reanalyzing the Dogan Point site and other Archaic shell midden sites along the lower Hudson River. The Dogan point site has a shell component with calibrated dates ranging from 7919 B.P. and 2343 B.P., and a non shell component with calibrated dates ranging from 3261 B.P. and 473 B.P. Dogan Point was originally investigated by Louis...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Vanessa Sullivan.

GIS has become a widely utilized tool for analyzing archaeological sensitivity. The state of Rhode Island has more documented shipwrecks per square mile than any other, making it an ideal place to develop an archaeological sensitivity model for submerged sites. In 2008, the Beavertail Lighthouse Museum Association started compiling a shipwreck database. The Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission has incorporated the database findings, documented submerged archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Courtney Birkett.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2010 the Fort Eustis Cultural Resources Management staff has been conducting a program of annual site monitoring visits in which each of the 233 known archaeological sites on Fort Eustis is visited regularly. The monitoring program has provided a baseline knowledge of site conditions and regular opportunities to observe any disturbance. In recent years a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Taylor Emery. Joseph A. M. Gingerich.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Shawnee-Minisink Archaeological Site (ca. 12,900 cal BP) is one of the most well-excavated Clovis sites in North America. The site is interpreted as a single Paleoindian occupation that measures over 4,000 square meters. This poster focuses on the excavations of a 365 square meter area from which over 18,000 artifacts were mapped using 3D coordinates. As...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kurt Jordan.

This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sites in Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) territory that yield small numbers of artifacts diagnostic of Postcolumbian indigenous occupations typically are treated as ephemeral occurrences: travel stop-overs, resource-procurement stations, and the like. Concentration on obvious diagnostic artifacts such as glass...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alice R. Kelley. Bonnie Newsom. Jacquelynn Miller. Kristin Schild.

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. Climate change induced impacts (accelerated sea level rise, increased storm frequency and intensity, and additional freeze/thaw events) are destroying shell heap, or midden, sites all along the Maine coast. Some sites described 20 years ago are now gone. With approximately 2,000 known sites, it...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Larsen.

Some archaeologists and other preservationists perceive a growing hostility in conversations about cultural heritage issues. At times it feels as though people are questioning the very foundations of archaeological work. Other times, it seems as though people just think you need to apply the technique they recently saw used on TV or the web (a la the "CSI Effect"). The implications can leave the archaeologists feeling as though the public don’t believe we know what we are doing or that they are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Scholnick.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines the role of workshop organization in the emergence of shared stylistic conventions of Colonial-era Massachusetts gravestones. Deetz and Dethlefsen argued that changes in the stylistic motifs carved on New England gravestones show reflect changing attitudes towards death (1967), and that certain motifs diffuse through space and time...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carole Nash.

As permanent landmarks, waterfalls and associated plunge pools are documented among traditional peoples as liminal and sacred spaces. A review of ethnographic and archaeological literature identifies these features as sources of life and transition, requiring proper preparation in advance of approach. The symbolic and experiential character of waterfalls may be in evidence in the Virginia Blue Ridge, where a small number of Middle and Late Woodland sites near named waterfalls are outside the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Donald Gaylord.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. People have impacted the Liberty Hall landscape for thousands of years, though with the greatest intensity between 1782 and the American Civil War. During this time the majority of people who lived here were held captive and forced into agricultural, light industrial, and infrastructural labor by elite enslavers closely tied to Washington and Lee...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Vavrasek.

Pottery motifs are known to change across time, space, and group affiliation, and are something that can be observed archaeologically. Rim sherds recovered from archaeological sites in and around Jefferson County, NY, are observed in an attempt to better understand the occupation by the St. Lawrence Iroquoians. Each of the observed sherds displays some form of decorative motif that can potentially inform researchers about when and where it came from. It is hypothesized that these sherds can...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Margaret Schulz. Laurie Rush.

One of the hazards of doing archaeology on federal land is being viewed as a roadblock to training, construction and other undertakings. The normal treatment for National Register eligible sites once they are found is to set them aside as off limits to training and other activities. Naturally, this is not popular with those providing funding to keep training lands open and sustainable. The Fort Drum Cultural Resources Program has developed unique methods for protecting sites while allowing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Rockwell. Nathaniel Kitchel.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Red Munsungun Chert appears in Paleoindian archaeological assemblages throughout Northeastern North America. While ubiquitous, the source location for this material has only been recently discovered. The NKP quarry, in far Northern Maine, identified by the authors is located within the Munsungun Lake region. Over the past three years, the authors have been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Peresolak.

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. The Carroll Cabin is a late eighteenth-century hand-hewn log home with extant mid-nineteenth-century addition located on State property in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania within Forbes State Forest. Since the donation of the home and surrounding property, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) has...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arthur Anderson.

As investigations of the Protohistoric period move away from a reliance on the reliable material culture recovery found in burial contexts, our basis for investigation of protohistoric sites and landscapes in the Far Northeast often begins with European historical records. Recent excavations in the area described in 1607 by Champlain as the village of Chouacoet in Saco Bay, Maine highlight the fact that many of the equivalencies drawn between the archaeological record of the protohistoric and...