North America: Northeast and Midatlantic (Geographic Keyword)
76-100 (385 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Linear enamel hypoplasia, also known as LEH, becomes apparent in dental enamel as horizontal indents from thinner layers of enamel being produced. This defect forms as the dental enamel responds to physiological disturbances from systematic stress attributable to biological, cultural, and environmental factors. LEH has allowed researchers to time the defect...
Conceptualizing Lithic Technological Variation in the Late Archaic Period: A Case Study of the Broadspear Assemblage Type (2018)
The archaeology of the Archaic Period in Northeastern North America is dominated by site-based research used as a springboard for discussing regional and pan-regional concepts and ideas. New results are often understood using paradigms created from these studies of singular origin. The present paper takes a different approach and discusses the author’s exploration of the broadspear lithic toolkit phenomenon across the Northeast. The collections-based study in question updates known datasets of...
The Connecticut State Archaeological Preserve Program (2018)
In this introduction to Connecticut’s State Archaeological Preserve program, I will talk about the legislation that created it, the process for designating sites as Archaeological Preserves, and how these properties are used or managed after designation. Although the program has the explicit goal of site preservation, in practice it has spurred many additional benefits. Foremost among these additional benefits has been the forging of partnerships with the State Historic Preservation Office and...
Connecticut’s First Fishermen: The LeBeau Fishing Camp (2018)
Located on the Quinebaug River, the LeBeau fishing camp and weir is the oldest known weir in Connecticut. Approximately 8,700 artifacts were recovered from the site, primarily lithic tools made from locally sourced materials such as quartzite. These tools indicate the specific activity of fishing and processing. Diagnostic artifacts recovered from the site indicate that it was utilized by indigenous people over the course of thousands of years, from the Middle Archaic to the Early Woodland....
Consumer Agency beyond Identity: Indigenous Demand and Euro-American Wampum Production between New Jersey and the Plains (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The popular "object-biography" approach to commodities generally focuses on hegemonic material culture in the hands of unintended consumers, such as the analysis of "European" goods found in "Native" contexts. What this fails to capture, however, is a kind of consumer agency that extends beyond the politics of identity. In other words, what are the structural...
Creating Context: Analyzing Legacy Documentary Data to Understand the Emergence of Enslaved Societies at Flowerdew Hundred Plantation (2019)
This is an abstract from the ""Re-excavating" Legacy Collections" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. By late 1619, 15 of the first 25 enslaved Africans imported into British North America were laboring at Flowerdew Hundred, a thousand acre plantation on the James River in Virginia. They joined indentured Europeans, neighboring Weanock Indians, and elite European landowners in shaping the mid-17th century expansion of plantation settlements across the...
A Cultural Landscape Study of Generals Highway (2018)
Generals Highway (MD-178), a major roadway that stretches from Annapolis to the Severn River in Anne Arundel County, was paved in the early part of the twentieth century, but portions of the original colonial roadbed still exist. Anne Arundel County’s Cultural Resources Division, in partnership with Maryland State Highway Administration, conducted a multi-year investigation to identify, locate, record, assess, study, and share with the public the range of archaeological and cultural resources...
Cultural Transmission in the Paleoindian of Eastern North America (2018)
The Paleoindian (ca. 13,000–11,000 calBP) record of eastern North America has long been characterized as exhibiting a remarkable variety of fluted-point forms. The temporal, spatial, and cultural significance of this variety remains poorly understood owing to a sparse radiocarbon record as well as to inconsistencies in nomenclature and traits used to define point forms. Building on previous studies, paradigmatic classification is used to create replicable fluted-point classes from a large...
Curating Archaeological Collections in the Private Small Liberal Arts Context (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Navigating Ethical and Legal Quandaries in Modern Archaeological Curation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper considers archaeological curation in a private, small liberal arts college (SLAC) context. Many SLACs have archaeological collections acquired through donation from alumni or local residents, occasionally through purchase or orphaning, and increasingly through student and faculty research on and off...
Current Middle Atlantic Paleoethnobotany (2018)
A growing body of research from across the Middle Atlantic reveals patterns of native plant use that are both highly variable and unique within the North American landscape. This paper provides an overview of the current state of paleoethnobotanical research across the region, with a focus on the Chesapeake Bay where maize (corn) was a relative latecomer to the native subsistence regime. Multiple lines of evidence (including macro and micro-botanical data, direct radiocarbon assays and stable...
The Current State and Future Possibilities of Ground-Penetrating Radar in Cultural Resource Management (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. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is an established prospection method in cultural resource management (CRM), yet despite its contributions its use is not universal. The goal of this presentation is to demonstrate the utility of GPR surveys before and during CRM excavations, and to underscore the need for maximizing the...
The Cutting Edge: Versatility and Preference for the Semi-Lunar Knife in the Southern New England Archaic (2018)
Semi-lunar knives, or ulus, have been considered a diagnostic tool of the Laurentian Late Archaic in the Northeast since William Ritchie’s 1940 report on the Robinson and Oberlander No. 1 sites in upstate New York. Archaeological research conducted since Ritchie’s definition of the Laurentian Aspect demonstrate semi-lunar knives were used in New England long before 5,000 B.P. and occur in both coastal and interior settings. Recently identified semi-lunar knife fragments from a coastal Laurentian...
D.C. Urban Archeology Corps: The Surveying is in the Details (2018)
In the summer of 2017, the D.C. Urban Archeology Corps (UAC), jointly managed by the National Park Service, National Capital Parks-East, and Groundwork DC, conducted a Phase I shove test pit survey at the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, where Douglass lived between 1877 and 1895. The UAC is a summer program where urban youth learn about the field of archeology and how it applies to local communities and parks. Participants research the archeological significance of local parks,...
Deep History, Colonial Encounters, and Revitalization 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 idea that the Powhatan paramount chief’s relocation to the town of Werowocomoco represented an act of revitalization intended to renew the power of a ceremonial place. Studies of revitalization movements often trace a historical process of social stress, cultural distortion, and...
The Devil’s Head Site in Maine: The Organization of the Protohistoric Wabanaki World (2018)
Archaeological studies of the Protohistoric period in Maine and the Maritimes have emphasized cosmology implicitly through their focus on copper kettle burials. Archaeologically, copper kettle burials may be the only truly diagnostic archaeological manifestation of the Protohistoric period in this region. The Wabanaki ethnographic record reveals that seemingly mundane activities—the organization of space, the disposal of animal remains, for instance—were also central to Wabanaki relational...
Digging Out: Finding Creative Solutions to Four Decades of CRM Collections (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Navigating Ethical and Legal Quandaries in Modern Archaeological Curation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When Wetland Studies and Solutions Inc. purchased Thunderbird Archaeology in 2004, they found themselves responsible for some 800 boxes of artifacts from more than four decades of CRM projects. The story isn’t an uncommon one . . . boxes of CRM projects sitting in basements, sheds, storage units, or warehouses in...
Digital Engagement Strategies Using Location-Based Gaming in Community-Based Participatory Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Gamification offers participatory experiences for diverse communities to engage with archaeological research. In informal and formal learning situations, undergraduate students used the location-based mobile game platform ARIS Field Day to create narratives that play through the process of excavation, addressing questions of the ethics of collecting, and...
Discoveries on Campus: Archaeology in Harvard Yard (2018)
While many may immediately associate Stephen Williams with his work and interest in the prehistory of the Lower Mississippi Valley, the historic period also caught his attention. His interests ranged from historic aboriginal groups of North America to a variety of topics and periods within historical archaeology. Williams had a notable enthusiasm and concern for the archaeology of the immediate Cambridge area and was often a first point of contact when it came to local discoveries. He took...
Diversity and Use of Ducks and Loons at the Hornblower II Site, MA (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent evaluation of avifauna from the Hornblower II site on Martha’s Vineyard has revealed a rich diversity of birds, including Red-breasted loon (Gavia stellata), Common loon (G. immer), and various dabbling and diving ducks (Anatidae). The majority of the identified assemblage is represented by Anseriformes (70.6%) and Gaviiformes (17.6%), with very few...
Domestic Pottery: Styles, Variation and Social Organization at the Droulers Site (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Droulers is a prehistoric Saint-Lawrence Iroquois village occupied during the 15th century in Southern Quebec. The site has been excavated by Université de Montréal’s field school since 2010 and the goal of the excavation, under the banner of social archaeology, was to understand the social organization of the village. In continuity with the excavation, my MA...
Domesticity, Trade, and Warfare: An Analysis of Three Early 17th Century Indigenous Domestic Sites in Southern New England (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 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. Throughout the process of documenting this...
Early Seventeenth Century French Feasting in Acadia and its Relation to Pre-Contact Mi’kmaq Practices (2018)
The early French settlers at the Port Royal Habitation relied heavily on the local Mi’kmaq to survive the cold Nova Scotia winters. In the winter of 1606-07 Samuel de Champlain initiated a social club, commonly referred to as "The Order of Good Cheer", primarily to battle against scurvy, but also to create camaraderie among the colonists and to strengthen their relationship with the local Mi’kmaq. The French developed elaborate rituals for the feasts, partly based on those of their homeland....
Early to Late Archaic Cultural Traditions in Southeast Massachusetts (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 is poorly represented in Southeastern Massachusetts. Following recent excavations in Somerset, hundreds, if not thousands of pieces of quartz chipping debris, cores, and expedient edge tools were recovered from a relatively small area of distribution. This large amount of non-diagnostic...
Ethnography, Routine Archaeologies, and Social Justice Research (2018)
As the organizers of this session argue, understanding the ethics of engagement in archaeology is maturing rapidly and we are reaching the point where our community engagements are no longer self-evident. Rather we increasing understand that they need interrogation and critique, and this needs to be an embedded part of our routines. This paper will argue that knowing the nature of our engagements requires a deep ethnographic reading of the contexts of our research and the multiple roles it plays...
Evaluating the Timing and Duration of Dwelling and Non-dwelling Elements in the Reversing Falls Site, a Middle Maritime Woodland Shell Midden in the Far Northeast (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Hearth and Home in the Indigenous Northeast" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we consider the temporal relationships between dwellings and shell-bearing deposits at the Reversing Falls site in the Maine-Maritimes region of the far Northeast. Shell middens are multitemporal, comprised of the archaeological signatures of historical processes that took place over vastly different durations. They are also...