Identity (Other Keyword)
201-225 (227 Records)
Identity, a central concept in contemporary historical archaeology theory, has been enlivened by recent scholarship that is mindful of bodily experience. Some scholars emphasize embodiment, others explore further sensory dimensions of historical identities embodied in human and material interactions, including emotion, memory, sensuality, and nostalgia, to explore the sensing body in the material world through sound, smell, touch, sexuality, and emotion. The intent in focusing on sensual...
The Social Value of Ornaments from Pueblo Bonito and Aztec Ruin (2015)
Ornaments are generally considered to be items of wealth, luxury, and value, and are often used as one of several indicators of social inequality. However, the value and meaning of ornaments is often assumed rather than demonstrated. Aside from power and wealth, jewelry may also relate to various aspects of social identity. It has been proposed that ornaments, turquoise, and shell may have been important symbols of status and ritual (or socially valuable goods) in Chacoan society, as they form...
Soothing the Self: Medicine Advertisement, Non-Performative Identity, and the Cult of Domesticity. (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Health and Inequality in the Archaeological Record" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Excavations for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum were conducted in 2008 and 2009 by Fever River Research and yielded dozens of unique features in downtown Springfield, Illinois. This case study focuses on Feature 35 in the East Parking excavation block that yielded five bottles of Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup....
The Southern Maya in the Late Preclassic: The Rise and Fall of an Early Mesoamerican Civilization (2011)
From 400 BC to AD 250, the southern Maya region was one of the most remarkable civilizations of the ancient Americas. Filled with great cities linked by flourishing long-distance trade, shared elite ideologies, and a vibrant material culture, this region was pivotal not only for the Maya but for Mesoamerica as a whole. Although it has been of great interest to scholars, gaps in the knowledge have led to debate on the most vital questions about the southern region. Recent research has provided a...
"Space, Division, Classification": Gender, Class, and Race in the Treatment of Insanity in 19th-Century New England Lunatic Asylums (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Constructing Bodies and Persons: Health and Medicine in Historic Social Context" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The nineteenth-century lunatic asylum was envisioned as a curative environment, which would administer salutary influences to the mind through the medium of sensory experience. Bucolic vistas and attractively furnished wards, calming music and freedom from the disturbing racket of urban life, appetizing...
Statistical Documentation for Neutron Activation Analysis Compositional Group Assignments (2018)
This document provides detailed information on the statistical procedures used to produce compositional groups from NAA data in the greater Cibola region sample, as well as table documenting statistical assessments of those groups. This document accompanies: Peeples, Matthew A. (2018) Connected Communities: Networks, Identity, and Social Change in the Ancient Cibola World. University of Arizona Press. Tucson, AZ.
Subconscious Expressions of Identity in Migrant Communities: A Look at Lithic Debitage (2017)
Subconscious expressions of cultural identity can be found in low-visibility attributes of every-day processes such as lithic production. In the late 13th century, Kayenta migrants into the southwestern New Mexico maintained or adapted many archaeologically visible traditions. This research examines lithic debitage assemblage morphology and attributes from three archaeological settings: southwestern New Mexican sites, Kayenta sites, and Salado sites (representing post-migration communities)...
The Sweet Spot: Cultural Identity, Sugar, and Trade Relationships in 17th-Century Dutch and British North America (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Sal, Bacalhau e Açúcar : Trade, Mobility, Circular Navigation and Foodways in the Atlantic World", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Recurring tension and outright warfare between the Netherlands and Britain in the 17th century did not prevent Dutch ships from transporting desirable goods from their far-flung trading outposts to the expanding North American colonies. An examination of material culture and...
To and From Hopi: Negotiating Identity through Migration, Coalescence, and Closure at the Homol'ovi Settlement Cluster (2017)
The Homol’ovi Settlement Cluster (HSC) holds a significant place in Hopi history as a source of immigrants and a destination for emigrants. In addition to representing an important location along the migration route for groups from the South and East, these villages also housed people who temporarily emigrated from the Hopi mesas. As such, the HSC provides a unique perspective on the processes of population and social movement that contributed to the current form of Hopi society. Using the...
Trade, migration and movement at Cerro de Trincheras, Sonora, Mexico (2015)
Archaeologists study the movement of potters, materials and techniques to understand migration and exchange on both a local and regional scale. Modern international divisions, such as the Mexican- US border, interrupt these research questions in the Greater Southwest culture area. In Sonora, archaeologists have clear evidence of population upheaval after AD 1300; Southern Arizona Hohokam groups migrated into the Altar Valley, bringing with them new ceramic technologies and displacing a resident...
Transferprinted Gastroliths And Identity At Fort Vancouver’s Village (2016)
Transferprinted ceramics and other objects ingested by fowl provide unique data on the household production associated with a fur trade center in the Pacific Northwest. Gastroliths are an indicator of the use of avifauna at archaeological sites, specifically of the Order Galliformes. The presence of ceramic, glass, and other gastroliths at house sites within Fort Vancouver’s Village provide evidence for the keeping and consumption of domestic fowl including chickens and turkeys. The presence and...
Transforming material collectives: the subaltern vs the global (2016)
In this paper the relation between transforming material collectives and subalternity is investigated. When a people or group incorporate new materials hereby slowly transforming its own material collective into the similar new ‘dominating’ material collective, does that imply that the ‘subaltern’ loses its archaeological identity? Does it mean the dominating new collective always represents ‘hegemony’? Not necessarily. In this paper, cases from the circum-Caribbean are discussed concerning...
The Trip of a Lifetime: Archaeology, Tourism, and Irish-American Identity (2015)
In America, millions of people claim Irish ancestry and celebrate their heritage in myriad ways. Many actively embrace the identity of Irish-American generations after their family members became U.S. citizens in the aftermath of the famine and socio-political turmoil of the mid-19th to early 20th century. Over the past two decades, the tourism industry in Ireland has flourished with Americans among the most numerous visitors each year. Several of the top destinations are those connected to...
Uncovering German Identity on the Colonial Virginia Frontier (2017)
Archaeological excavations began during the summer of 2016 at Fort Germanna, an 18th century piedmont Virginia fort. The fort was built in 1714 at the bequest of Governor Alexander Spotswood to expand the western frontier of Virginia. Fort Germanna was only in existence for 4 years, from 1714-1718, and inhabited by German miners brought to Virginia by Spotswood to set up an iron mine. While building the research agenda for this project we consider how a German ethnicity and identity could be...
Urns, Mounds, Pyres, and Pits: The Many Pathways of Middle Bronze Age Bodies in Transylvania (2016)
Communities of the Wietenberg Culture in Middle Bronze Age Transylvania (2000-1500 BC) participated in diverse and dynamic social, economic, political, and ideological institutions. Traditional approaches to the mortuary practices of this period, however, have obscured diversity in the archaeological record in favor of a more homogeneous characterization of burial practices as cremation and burial in urn cemeteries. This paper traces the many different pathways that Middle Bronze Age...
Venezuela between Spanish and English: an identity formed through images (2017)
Previous analysis of ceramics from the historic center of Barcelona in Venezuela demonstrated that the decorative motifs of English ceramics and other European countries influenced the shaping of the identity of Barcelona during the 19th century. In this paper, we compare the Barcelona study with collections with the Historical Center of Caracas, in order to establish whether this change and unification of patterns and customs in everyday life was also reflected in the capital of Venezuela. This...
Visual Representations and Entanglements: Photography and Native Identity-Making in the Classroom and Museum (2015)
This paper examines politics of representation of Native North American communities, past and present, through the use of photographs in academic and museum settings. We consider how photographs of people and objects have been used to naturalize precepts of colonialism, as well as how they have been used to empower indigenous subjects. The implementation of NAGPRA has provided a framework for museums to determine if they should display certain objects deemed culturally sensitive; however, there...
Wagons, Trains, Trucks, and Bottles: Transportation Networks and Commodity Access in Castroville, Texas. (2017)
Transportation networks greatly influence the movement of commodities into a community. This paper uses a model of commodity flow developed by Pred (1964) and elaborated on by Adams and colleagues (2001) to analyze glass bottle assemblages from Castroville, Texas. The model suggests that a combination of commodity value, shipping costs, and distance from the North American manufacturing hub influence the movement of goods around the country ca. 1880-1950, creating regional differences in market...
A Wake of Change: Investigating Biocultural Interaction During the Early Colonial Period in the Central Andes, Peru (2017)
Burial practice in the Central Andes was transmitted continuously from the Middle Horizon (AD 700-AD 1000) onward, if not earlier in some areas, reflecting an agreed-upon understanding of Andean social identity throughout time. However, when the Spanish colonized the Andes, they drastically altered this continuity, forcing indigenous populations to bury their dead under the Church in idealized Catholic tradition. This sudden change in burial practice ruptured Andean identity as indigenous...
The Weimar Joint Sanatorium: Memory, Movement, and Access (2018)
The towns of Colfax and Weimar in Placer County, California, were once the location of seven different tuberculosis sanatoriums, both privately-operated and government-operated. The Weimar Joint Sanatorium had patients from fifteen counties in California, and operated in collaboration with six nearby, privately owned sanatoriums. During the Vietnam War, the buildings and landscape housed Vietnamese refugees, and today it is used is a religious health institute. This paper explores memory and...
What Trash Tells Us: A Look at Fort Davis's 20th-Century Population (2017)
Following closure of the military post in 1891, the racially and socially diverse community that had grown around Fort Davis lost one of its main economic resources. In the decades after, the civilian population saw a shift of resources from predominately military issued goods to items brought in by rail through the neighboring communities of Alpine and Marfa. This paper analyzes a select assemblage of metal, ceramic, and faunal materials excavated from an early twentieth-century domestic trash...
When All You Have are Artifacts: Reassessing Intrinsic Issues in Assigning Cultural Identity to Artifact Assemblages in Colonial South Carolina (2016)
Just several years after the 1670 founding of Charles Towne, occupants of Barbados, England, and France seized opportunities for land and prosperity. By the 1680s, English settlers from Barbados began to settle the area along the Wando River, encroaching on land designated for the remaining indigenous population. Researchers and investigators examining archaeological sites do so with the aim to reconstruct the history about past landscapes. Inherently, archaeologists assign cultural identity to...
‘When the King breaks a town, he builds another’: Space, Politics, and Gerrymandered Identities in Precolonial Dahomey (2015)
Scholars have long argued that sub-Saharan Africa in the era of the slave trade was dominated by ethnically distinct communities whose members underwent the process of creolization after being displaced to the New World. Archaeological research across West Africa, however, is challenging this notion, revealing how West African cultural identity transformed in response to intersecting economic, political, and cultural forces unleashed by trans-Atlantic commerce. This paper examines the political...
Who was Maria Grann? Balancing Archives of Narratives and Facts of a Contested Sámi(?) Skull (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper Bodies: Excavating Archival Tissues and Traces", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. One of the late nineteenth-century skulls in the anatomical collection at Lund University (Sweden) belongs to a middle adult woman (28-45 years of age); according to the archival documentation (including writing on the skull) she was a 28-year-old Sámi woman named Maria Grann. Media reports in Sweden have generally...
With This Bone I Thee Make (2022)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "More than Pots and Pipes: New Netherland and a World Made by Trade" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Invisible yet famous, a small number of enslaved Africans were brought to Fort Orange in the seventeenth century. Their presence is known yet no objects have been tied to them. This paper explores the possibility that some worked bone objects made from domesticated mammals were crafted by enslaved Africans....