Chesapeake (Other Keyword)
1-25 (47 Records)
Within the first few weeks of landing on Jamestown Island in the spring of 1607 the colonists set about constructing a triangular palisaded fort. At first tents served to house the colonists, and to shelter their place of worship. Slowly but surely with the first public buildings, the storehouse and the church, more permanent structures began to rise. The interior of the fort would see many changes during these years, both reflected in the documentary record as well as the archaeological record....
A 19th Century Military Landscape in Southern Maryland (2016)
The Maryland State Highway Administration's recent archaeological investigations in Charles County have helped to increase the understanding of a landscape that directly contributed to events that shaped a developing nation. The discovery and study of several War of 1812 and Civil War sites and loci, all within close proximity of one another, the port town of Benedict, and major waterborne and overland transportation corridors, has provided insights on choices made by 19th century military...
Above Water, Below Ground: Toward an amphibious archaeology of empire in the early American Chesapeake (2025)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. A tenet of the maritime cultural landscape is that however expansively it is applied, its starting point is maritime culture. The maritime cultural landscapes of European coloniality were, however, enmeshed in greater taskscapes spanning media and species. An essentialized “maritimity” continues prioritizing this land-water binary...
Analysis of Pipe Stems Recovered from Excavations of the 17th Century Structures at Eyreville (44NH0507) on Virginia's Eastern Shore. (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeological Research of the 17th Century Chesapeake" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Since excavations began at Eyreville in the Spring of 2017 nearly 2000 tobacco pipe bowls, stems, and fragments have been recovered. These include pipes manufactured in both England and Holland as well as many unique, locally made, “Chesapeake” pipes likely manufactured by Native Americans and possibly enslaved Africans....
Analysis of Pipe Stems Recovered from Excavations of the 17th Century Structures at Eyreville (44NH0507) on Virginia's Eastern Shore. (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeological Research of the 17th Century Chesapeake" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Since excavations began at Eyreville in the Spring of 2017 nearly 2000 tobacco pipe bowls, stems, and fragments have been recovered. These include pipes manufactured in both England and Holland as well as many unique, locally made, “Chesapeake” pipes likely manufactured by Native Americans and possibly enslaved Africans....
Anglo-Native Interaction in Virginia’s Potomac River Valley (2018)
Trade played a crucial role in the relationships that formed between European colonists and Native Americans during the early colonial period. In the 17th-century Potomac River Valley the interactions between Natives and Europeans laid the foundations for the emergence of a truly creolized society. This paper examines the influence of Native Americans on the early settlement of Virginia's Potomac Valley from 1647-1666 using the Hallowes site (44WM6) as an example. Analyses of the faunal remains,...
Archaeology and the Challenge of Storytelling at George Washington Birthplace National Monument. (2025)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Archaeology of Chesapeake Landscapes in Transition", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Recent excavations and archaeological record re-study projects have enabled considerable changes in the interpretation of the George Washington Birthplace National Monument National Monument (NPS). Sites there have been the subject of excavations from as early as the 1890s and has seen several digging approaches...
Archival Silence, Archaeological Fluency: Finding Indigenous Slavery In The Chesapeake (2024)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeological Imaginaries, Regional Realities: 50 Years of Work in the Chesapeake", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The capture, enslavement, and sale of Indigenous people emerged early in the colonized Chesapeake Tidewater but remains understudied by archaeologists, in part because researchers have traditionally considered Indigenous enslavement as rare in the region. I use a fragmentary archive,...
The Ben Ross Homeplace at Indian Landing: "Ten Acres of Land for and During of His Life Time, Peaceable to Remain…" (2025)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Archaeology of Harriet Tubman's Birthplace", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Details gleaned from 19th century documents and archaeological excavations on the Eastern Shore of Maryland resulted in the discovery of a small, unexpectedly intact domestic site on the USFWS Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. Research indicates this climate change endangered site is part of the homeplace of Ben Ross, the...
Beyond Nicolas Cage and the "Book of Secrets": An Archaeological and Architectural Study of George Washington’s Cellar at Mount Vernon (2024)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. An often forgotten (and sometimes mythologized) place at George Washington’s home, the cellar at Mount Vernon has been the focus of recent intensive archaeological and architectural research. A multidisciplinary team of archaeologists and architectural historians have been excavating and analyzing the mansion basement since 2017 in...
The Black and White of It: Rural Tenant and African American Enslaved and Free Worker Life at the Rumsey/Polk Tenant/Prehistoric site (2016)
Rich and provocative data on 1740s to 1850s tenant occupations were revealed by Phase II and III archaeological investigations at Locus 1 of the Rumsey/Polk Tenant/Prehistoric site. Documentary research, the recovery of 42,996 historic artifacts, and the discovery of 622 features, provided a rare glimpse into the lives of free and enslaved African American workers and white tenants living side-by-side in the racially charged atmosphere of 18th- and 19th-century Delaware. Artifacts like wolf...
Cities, Seas, and Forests: Legacies of Timber and Agriculture in Chesapeake Port Cities (2024)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Co-Producing Space: Relational Approaches to Agrarian Landscapes, Labor, Commodities, and Communities", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. As the forests of the Chesapeake were cleared for tobacco and wheat agriculture, timber consumption reformed both agricultural and port landscapes. The systematic clearing of timber opened land for Euroamerican-style open-field agriculture while directly contributing to the...
Conservation of the Knights Tomb (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Excavating the Foundations of Representative Government: A Case Study in Interdisciplinary Historical Archaeology." , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In 1627, a gravestone was laid over the remains of Sir George Yeardley, who served as Governor of Virginia during the meeting of the first legislative assembly in 1619. Called the Knight’s Tomb, this stone was unique, being one of the first of...
The Discovery and Excavations of the 17th Century Structures at Eyreville (44NH0507) on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeological Research of the 17th Century Chesapeake" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. VDHR staff was informed of early colonial artifacts recovered at Eyreville Farm, in Northampton County on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, in February of 2017. Documents available at the Northampton courthouse indicate that John Howe built a house there sometime after 1623. Colonel William Kendall, a wealthy merchant and the...
Drinking Buddies: Wine Bottle Seals as a Window on Williamsburg’s Social Scene. (2022)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. As individual artifacts, wine bottle seals are valued for the names and dates they that they deliver, for their utility as status markers, and for their unique beauty. Considered in large numbers across a broader spatial context, personalized bottle seals hold additional potential to reveal social interaction. Colonial...
Early Colonial Livestock in the Northern Neck: A View from Coan Hall (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "A Land Unto Itself: Virginia's Northern Neck, Colonialism, And The Early Atlantic", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In the early 17th century, European colonists introduced new livestock and agricultural practices to Virginia which developed into unique management and farming practices. These practices had significant influence on the development of environmental and cultural spheres of interaction within the...
Early Colonial Meat Provisioning on Maryland’s Western Shore (2020)
This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Early Colonial (1650s through 1750s) sites on Maryland’s Western Shore occupy several distinct ecosystems, each offering opportunities for, and imposing constraints on, provisioning strategies. Faunal data assembled from eight Maryland sites along the Chesapeake Bay measure that variability as the first phase in a larger study that explores varying dietary patterns and the effects...
Early Colonial Meat Provisioning On Maryland’s Western Shore (2021)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Meat and Ale (General Sessions)" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Early Colonial (1650s through 1750s) sites on Maryland’s Western Shore occupy several distinct ecosystems, each offering opportunities for, and imposing constraints on, provisioning strategies. Faunal data assembled from eight Maryland sites along the Chesapeake Bay measure that variability as the first phase in a larger study...
Exploring The Architecture Of "My Lord’s Gift": An Analysis Of A Ca. 1658 - Ca.1750 Archaeological Site In Queen Anne, County, Maryland (2017)
An archaeological rescue project in 1990 on the "My Lord’s Gift" site (18QU30) in Queen Anne, County, Maryland revealed a fascinating complex of colonial structures. This tract was granted by Lord Baltimore in 1658 to Henry Coursey, an Irish immigrant and important official in the colony’s government. Excavators found a variety of architecture represented at the site. The largest building they uncovered was the substantial cobble stone foundation of an unusual T-Plan house with a massive...
A "Fortified Citadel": The Archaeology of an English Civil Wars Fortification in St. Mary's City, Maryland (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeological Research of the 17th Century Chesapeake" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Between 1642 and 1651, the English Civil Wars, or English Revolution, would rage across the British landscape. Actually a complex series of conflicts, this civil war would have profound implications for the history of the British Isles. Less well known is how this conflict resonated in other regions within the British...
Garden and Landscape Archaeology at the Robert Carter House in Williamsburg, Virginia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Meaning in Material Culture" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Robert Carter House, built circa 1727 and restored by Colonial Williamsburg in 1931, is one of the largest domestic properties within the eighteenth century townsite. At a time when the best rooms in most gentry houses in town were oriented toward the front of the house, the best rooms at the Robert Carter House are at the back. A series of terraces...
Historic Context for Historic Period Archaeological Sites on Virginia's Coastal Plain (Legacy 05-262)
This report synthesizes archaeological data from nineteenth and early twentieth-century sites that have been identified and/or studied in the Coastal Plain of Virginia. The document focuses on the Antebellum (1830-1860) and Postbellum (also known as Reconstruction and Growth) eras (1865-1917) because the associated sites are frequently difficult to evaluate since the significant research issues that are applicable have not been well-defined.
Historic Context for Historic Period Archaeological Sites on Virginia's Coastal Plain (Legacy 05-262) (2007)
This report synthesizes archaeological data from nineteenth and early twentieth-century sites that have been identified and/or studied in the Coastal Plain of Virginia. The document focuses on the Antebellum (1830-1860) and Postbellum (also known as Reconstruction and Growth) eras (1865-1917) because the associated sites are frequently difficult to evaluate since the significant research issues that are applicable have not been well-defined.
Identifying 17th Century Indigenous Community Formation within the Potomac River Valley (2022)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In recent years, Chesapeake archaeologists have placed more emphasis on the unique cultural landscape of the Potomac River Valley, including studies on sub-regional British community formation. However, one area that has been undertheorized in the sub-region is Indigenous community formation during the colonial period. In this...
A Landscape They Didn’t See: The Great Rappahannock Town at Mid-Century (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "A Land Unto Itself: Virginia's Northern Neck, Colonialism, And The Early Atlantic", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Northern Neck of Virginia appears to have had an especially large Indigenous population at the moment of English occupation in 1607. That population grew through the 17th century as colonial authorities generally prevented settlers from moving into the region while Indigenous nations from...