Society for Historical Archaeology

This collection contains the abstracts and presentations from the Society for Historical Archaeology annual meetings. SHA has partnered with Digital Antiquity to archive their annual conference abstracts and make the presentations available. This collection contains meeting abstracts and presentations dating from 2013 to the present.

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Formed in 1967, the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) is the largest scholarly group concerned with the archaeology of the modern world (A.D. 1400-present). The main focus of the society is the era since the beginning of European exploration. SHA promotes scholarly research and the dissemination of knowledge concerning historical archaeology. The society is specifically concerned with the identification, excavation, interpretation, and conservation of sites and materials on land and underwater. Geographically the society emphasizes the New World, but also includes European exploration and settlement in Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Ethical principles of the society are set forth in Article VII of SHA’s Bylaws and specified in a statement adopted on June 21 2003.


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  • The Wreck Of The Submarine USS H1 SEAWOLF At Baja California, Mexico (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Roberto Junco. Kotaro Yamafune. George Schwarz.

    This is an abstract from the "Technology in Terrestrial and Underwater Archaeology" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In 2016 an expedition located the wreck fo the Submarine H1 Seawolf in the Pacific coast of Baja California, Mexico, after rumors of fishermen extracting brass objects in the area. The wreck is the only known submarine wreck in mexican waters. This submarine from WWI sank in 1920, and work to rescue the wreck at the time failed...

  • The wreck of the São José Paquete d’África, unlocking Hidden Histories: Archaeology as Protagonist (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaco Boshoff.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Uncovering of the World of the São José Paquete d’África, a Portuguese Slave Ship", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Wrecking of the São José Paquete d’África on the Cape coast in December 1794 was not seen as different from any other shipwreck at the time. History only recorded the basic details of the incident relegating it to no more than a footnote. In the 1980’s treasure hunters misidentified the...

  • The Wreck of the Warwick, Bermuda 1619 (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Katie Bojakowski.

    While visiting Bermuda in 1619, the earl of Warwick’s race-built galleon Warwick wrecked during a hurricane in Castle Harbour Bermuda. The ship carried the new governor of Bermuda, settlers, their possession, tools, and provisions for England’s earliest colonies across the Atlantic. Notwithstanding the official designation of the vessel as Virginia Company’s ‘magazine’ ship, the Warwick was not an ordinary freighter. It was a finely crafted vessel and a powerful fighting machine. Over the course...

  • The Wreck of the Warwick: History and final analysis of an early 17th-century Virginia Company ship. (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Katie Bojakowski. Piotr T Bojakowski.

    The Warwick which carried the new governor, settlers, their possession, tools, and provisions across the Atlantic to the nascent Bermuda colony in 1619 sank during a hurricane while at anchorage in Castle Harbour. Over the course of four field seasons, a team of archaeologists, students, and volunteers excavated and recorded the Warwick’s hull. The remains of the Warwick are one of the largest and most articulated fragments of an early 17th century English ship. Notwithstanding the historical...

  • Wrecked! An Interactive Exhibition on a Revolutionary War Shipwreck in St. Augustine, Florida (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Brenda Swann.

    The upcoming exhibition of the Storm Wreck, a Revolutionary War shipwreck in St. Augustine, Florida, is two-fold. As with traditional archaeology exhibits, it will share how historical documents and artifacts from the shipwreck tell the story of British Loyalists who, after evacuating Charleston, South Carolina and leaving behind all they knew and taking with them only what they treasured and needed most, arrived in St. Augustine only to run aground and have many of their precious few items...

  • Writing the Archaeology of America's Modern Cities (2013)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nan Rothschild. Diana Wall.

     Over the last few decades, archaeologists have contributed a great deal to our understanding of contemporary American cities.  We  have just finished writing a book about the work these colleagues have done, based on material they have provided from  all over the country, mostly from the grey literature.  Their archaeological investigations are informative at two scales of analysis.  Some studies, on the macro scale, have encompassed the whole city, and reveal patterns of urban development, ...

  • Writing, Sewing, Eating: Faunal Analysis of a post-Emancipation School for Girls in Montserrat, West Indies (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexis K Ohman.

    Potato Hill is located on the western side of Montserrat, which is a small volcanic island in the West Indies. Initial surveys conducted at this site during the 2010-2014 field seasons identified three historic structures. They were subsequently excavated in 2015-2016, and ranged from the 17th century through the 19th century. Of these, the 19th-century structure Feature 16 became of particular interest due to the artifacts related to writing (slate, pencils), sewing (thimbles, buttons, and...

  • Writing|Righting the History of Missoula’s Recent Past: Reflecting on the Outcomes of Intense Public Archaeology amid Extensive Growth (2020)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelly Dixon. Nikki M. Manning. Kate Kolwicz.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Revolutionizing Approaches to Campus History - Campus Archaeology's Role in Telling Their Institutions' Stories" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Missoula Historic Underground Project (MHUP) started with a request from the local Historic Preservation Office in 2012 to see if we archaeologists at the University of Montana (UM) could address local lore by systematically investigating Missoula's underground...

  • WWI and the Philadelphia Navy Yard: An NPS Teaching with Historic Places Lightning Lesson Plan (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica L Clark.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. "WWI and the Philadelphia Navy Yard: Modernization of the US Navy," was completed as a public education and outreach initiative for the Philadelphia Navy Yard Annex by Ohio Valley Archaeology, Inc. through the National Park Service's Teaching with Historic Places program. The program highlights NRHP-listed properties across the...

  • WWI Concrete Shipwrecks in Texas (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Dorothy Rowland.

    During World War I, raw material supply shortages in the United States caused many manufacturing innovations to be made, including the use of concrete for the hulls of merchant ships. Concrete ships were manufactured by both the US government and private companies, but few were ready in time to contribute to the war effort. These ships were unique in their design, sailing capabilities, and working lifespan. There are four recorded archeological examples of concrete oil tankers in Texas, wrecked...

  • WWII-Related Caves, Community Archaeology and Public Service Announcements: A Community Approach to Raising Awareness and Protecting Caves (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer F McKinnon. Toni Carrell. Genevieve S. Cabrera.

    A recent ABPP-funded project explored community consensus building for the protection of WWII-related caves on the island of Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The project utilized radio and television public service announcements for the purpose of sharing a local message of protection and preservation of caves with the island community. This paper outlines the process of community engagement and involvement, recording privately owned WWII cave sites, developing a...

  • X-ray Fluorescence and Conservation: It's Elementary (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul G Cochran.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Current Research at Texas A&M University's Conservation Research Laboratory" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. At the Texas A&M Conservation Research Laboratory, we pride ourselves on the breadth and quality of our research capabilities. Among these capabilities, x-ray fluorescence allows us to study the elemental composition of objects under our care. We use this tool to accomplish a number of goals, such as...

  • Xenia, IN: A Comparison Study Based on the Carolina Artifact Pattern (2017)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew D Earle. Christopher R. Moore.

    During the early to mid-19th century, Xenia, Indiana was an occupied town in Carroll County.  As the region grew, Xenia did not and the town was abandoned.  During the summer of 2011, the University of Indianapolis performed a siteless survey of a 60+ acre agricultural field that included portions of the abandoned town.  We used Stanley South’s Carolina Artifact Pattern to categorize data from the site.  Additionally, we used South’s mean ceramic date formula to confirm the mean dates of...

  • XXVIIth SHA-CUA Government Maritime Managers Meeting: "There is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing" (Sir Ranulph Fiennes, OBE) (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Langley.

    This is an abstract from the "XXVIIth SHA-CUA Government Maritime Managers Meeting: "There is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing" (Sir Ranulph Fiennes, OBE)" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. At no time more than in recent years has being properly "attired" been more important to maritime heritage management. While not included in any job description, maritime managers are experts at making the most of opportunities; the theme of this...

  • Yaughan and Curriboo: A New Look at Two Eighteenth-Century Low Country Plantations (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Leslie Cooper.

    A Save America’s Treasures grant allows researchers, for the first time, the ability to examine data from excavations conducted in the 1980s at Yaughan and Curriboo plantations in the South Carolina Low Country. The sites represent some of the most extensively excavated slave quarters at that time in South Carolina. They are unique both in terms of the phenomenal amount of colonoware recovered from them as well as the presence of architectural evidence for a slave quarter building sequence from...

  • A Yeoman’s House in Marshfield: the c. 1638 Robert Waterman House (2020)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ross K. Harper. Mary G. Harper.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. As Plimoth Plantation became crowded for ever-increasing numbers of newcomers, colonists spread into neighboring areas within the Old Colony. One of these areas was Greene’s Harbor, or Marshfield. In the 1630s Robert Waterman and his wife Elizabeth, a daughter of prominent colonist Thomas Bourne,...

  • Yes! You Can Have Access to That! Increasing and Promoting the Accessibility of Maryland’s Archaeological Collections (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca J Morehouse.

    Eighteen years ago, the State of Maryland’s archaeological collections were moved into the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory (MAC Lab) at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum in Southern Maryland. This was an important step towards improving the storage conditions of the Maryland collections, but it did little to make the collections more accessible. Understanding the need for better access to archaeological collections, MAC Lab staff spent years rehousing, inventorying and...

  • "Yes, Sir. All Was in Arms:" An Account of the Small Arms Discovered on the Wreck of Queen Anne’s Revenge (1718) (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only J Myron Rolston. Kimberly P Kenyon. Teresa E Williams.

    Until recently, weapons from Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge (31CR314) were primarily represented by large artillery: the ubiquitous twenty-nine cast iron cannon found on the wreck to date. The only trace of small firearms has consisted of isolated gunlocks, flints, and the occasional copper alloy fittings, such as side plates, trigger guards, and a lone musketoon barrel. X-radiography, however, has now revealed additional evidence. Five articulated small arms and additional disarticulated...

  • Yes, Us Too: Sexual Harassment and Assault in Historical Archaeology and What Can Be Done About It (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Whitson.

    This is an abstract from the "Yes, Us Too: Sexual Harassment and Assault in Historical Archaeology and What Can Be Done About It" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The #MeToo movement that began in 2017, had profound impacts on how people across the United States looked at and approached topics such as sexual harassment and abuse. While no one would argue that archaeologists are part of the greater social world at large, little conversation of...

  • Yield Strength of the Egadi 10 Warship: Using Nonlinear Computer Simulations to Examine Collision Dynamics in Greco-Roman Naval Conflicts (2020)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristina J. Fricker.

    This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The study of ancient Mediterranean naval warfare expanded dramatically with the emergence of maritime archaeology and the subsequent discovery of artifacts and ship remains such as the Athlit and Egadi rams. The ship timbers preserved inside the rams radically increased available information on ancient warships. These timbers offer a tantalizing glimpse at vessel construction, but...

  • "Yorktown’s Second Most Famous Couple": Landscape, Heritage, and the Politics of Memory in Yorktown, Virginia (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Chandler Fitzsimons.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Yorktown, Virginia occupies a substantial space in the American national historical consciousness: it was the location at which the British Army surrendered to George Washington’s Continental Army, effectively ending the Revolutionary War and establishing American independence from Great Britain. The battlefield was once again used...

  • You Can't Keep a Workin' Man Down: Black Masculinity, Labor, and the Frontier (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Annelise E. Morris.

    Historical archaeologists have long examined changing structures of labor in the context of modern global capitalism. This paper will focus on rural sites in the Midwest, challenging normative notions of labor structures. I will examine how, in the face of changing labor economies, Black men on the frontier deployed specific types of skilled labor to create social networks, familial bonds, and to subvert economic inequalities. I will examine shifts from agrarian economies to wage economies,...

  • You Can’t Tell a Book by its Hardware: An Examination of Book Hardware Recovered from James Fort (2017)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Dan Gamble.

    Book Hardware was utilized both to protect books and to keep them closed.  Books typically do not survive in an archaeological context but the hardware does. This is the case at James Fort.  After over twenty years of excavations, more than one hundred of these artifacts have been recovered.  Book hardware consists of many materials, numerous designs, and varying sizes. But what can be gleaned from this hardware?  First, where they were made can be determined using XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence) and...

  • You Don’t Find Jack: Archaeological Investigations at Two Rural, Nineteenth Century Midwest School Houses (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only John D. Richards.

    The archaeology of rural one-room school houses is part of the larger archaeological enterprise of the study of institutions, but remains relatively undeveloped. In large part this is due to the often frustratingly incomplete archaeological and historical records associated with these resources. As a result, these sites rarely conform to the criteria needed to be potentially eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. It is thus often impossible to either preserve such...

  • You Don’t Have to Live Like a Refugee; Consumer Goods at the 19th Century Maya Refugee Site at Tikal, Guatemala (2017)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James Meierhoff.

    In the mid-nineteenth century Maya refugees fleeing the violence of the Caste War of Yucatan (1857-1901) briefly reoccupied the ancient Maya ruins of Tikal.  These Yucatec speaking refugees combined with Lacandon Maya, and later Ladinos from Lake Petén Itza to form a small, multi-ethnic village in the sparsely occupied Petén jungle of northern Guatemala. The following paper will discuss the recent archaeological investigation of the historic refugee village at Tikal, with a focus on the recent...

  • "You Have Harmed Us": Structural Violence and the Indian School experience among the Port Gamble S’Kllalam community. (2020)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsay Montgomery.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Reckoning with Violence" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In 1855, the U.S. government signed the Treaty of Point No Point with the S'Klallam community. In exchange for fishing rights, the S’Klallam ceded 750,000 acres of land and accepted formal education. The Indian education system has enacted both symbolic and structural forms of violence among the S’kllalam, violence that has contributed to the...

  • You Missed a Spot: How Proper Conservation Revealed Much about an Obscure Aspect of Nineteenth Century Naval Technology (2017)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Miguel Gutierrez.

    The Texas A&M Conservation Research Laboratory is currently in charge of the conservation of artifacts from the CSS Georgia, a massive Confederate ironclad vessel purposely scuttled in 1864. Among the artifacts being treated are brass gun sights used to enhance the accuracy of naval cannon. However, literature on these specific sights is simply nonexistent. Yet, great research is not always the consultation of numerous scholarly articles or thick, heavy tomes. Sometimes, great research is just a...

  • "You No Longer Leave Your Heart in San Francisco. The City Breaks It": Reconciling the Realities of Urban Displacement and Slow Archaeology. (2020)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith Reifschneider.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Slow Archaeology + Fast Capitalism: Hard Lessons and Future Strategies from Urban Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. “Slow archaeology” includes a diverse array of theoretical and methodological concerns that orient scholars towards inclusive and engaged practices that foster longstanding relationships with stakeholder communities to develop meaningful research. This paper explores the suitability...

  • You Say You Want a Revolution: Eighteenth Century Conflict Archaeology in the Savannah River Watershed of Georgia and South Carolina (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Elliott. Rita F. Elliott.

    Revolution came with a vengeance to colonial Georgia and South Carolina by the late 1770s. This poster explores revolutionary events at Savannah, New Ebenezer, Brier Creek, Carr’s Fort, and Kettle Creek in Georgia, and Purysburg in South Carolina.  Since 2001 several entities have completed battlefield archaeology studies in the Savannah River watershed of Georgia and South Carolina. This includes investigations by the LAMAR Institute, Coastal Heritage Society, and Cypress Cultural Consultants....

  • You Say You Want A Revolution? Diverging Consequences Of The French Revolution On French Caribbean Slave Societies. (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenneth Kelly.

    The late 18th century was a period of tremendous social and political upheaval throughout the Atlantic World, as revolution wracked the British colonies of North America, leading to the establishment of the United States.  The American Revolution in turn inspired the French Revolution, with far-reaching impacts throughout the Americas, including the abolition of slavery in some colonies, revolution in other colonies, and a degree of stasis in yet other French colonies.  All of these outcomes had...

  • You Wanna Take This Outside?: Porches, Parkitecture, and the Creation of an American Identity (2020)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Whitson. Hunter W Crosby.

    This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Outdoor space in mid-to-late 19th-century America grew into a force that drove recreation and tourism across the United States. From porch spaces to parks, Americans began spending increasing amounts of time outside. Following common 19th-century themes, Americans used these spaces to boost a Nationalist agenda meant to express and reify class, gender, and racial divisions. These...

  • Zanzibar Before the Transnational Storm: Considerations of the Uneven Stops and Starts of the Colonial Project (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Neil Norman. Adria LaViolette.

    Much recent scholarship has addressed the uneven nature of the colonial project.  Metropoles are no longer theorized as monolithic fonts of culture or centers of political power.  Likewise, the dynamism and influence of peripheries are topics enjoying intense archaeological investigation.  This paper builds on such scholarship by exploring the fits and starts as well as the failures associated with early colonialism.  In so doing it provides a stark contrast between the tenuousness of early...

  • Zooarchaeological Evidence of Dietary Impacts from Contact at Maima, Jamaica (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Shea Henry.

    Recent field research at the Taino village of Maima on the north coast of Jamaica has revealed a complex late prehistoric and contact era village settlement.  Occupied during the late prehistoric era, Maima was impacted by Columbus and his crew when they were stranded on the island for a year in 1503.  After that initial contact, the villagers were forced into labour at the nearby Spanish settlement of Sevilla la Nueva.  Faunal evidence, including shell and vertebrate bone, show that the impact...

  • Zooarchaeological Insights from Upper Delaware (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only adam heinrich.

    Analyses of faunal assemblages dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are able to show how domestic livestock and wild fauna were managed, collected, and consumed by colonial and post-colonial New Castle County, Delaware farmers and their laborers. Animal species, their numbers, and butchery marks on their bones reveal identities, possible coping strategies and/or cuisine in rural Delaware. These faunal remains are also able to provide some data that can allow archaeologists to...

  • Zooarchaeological Perspective on a Portuguese Enclave in Nineteenth-Century Springfield, Illinois (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Terrance J. Martin. Christopher Stratton. Floyd Mansberger.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Recent archaeological mitigation of four city lots in Springfield, Illinois, provides information on Portuguese immigrants from Madeira who came to central Illinois during the 1850s. Dozens of privy pits spanning the mid-nineteenth through the early twentieth century yielded more than 13,000 animal remains that reveal insights into...

  • Zooarchaeology and Commerce at the Old Village of St. Louis: An Examination of the Berger Site (23SL2402) (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Terrance Martin.

    This is an abstract from the "From Iliniwek to Ste Genevieve: Early Commerce along the Mississippi" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Since 2013, Missouri Department of Transportation archaeologists have investigated grounds that are being impacted by rehabilitation of the Poplar Street Bridge in downtown St. Louis, an area that was part of the original village that was platted in 1764. Late in 2016, excavations at the Berger site revealed possible...

  • Zooarchaeology and GIS: Enslaved and Free Black Diet at a Late Eighteenth– to Mid–Nineteenth–Century Delaware Farm, New Castle County, Delaware, United States (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam R. Heinrich. Michael Gall.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Archaeological investigations at Locus 1 of the Rumsey/Polk Tenant/Prehistoric site (7NCF112) in St. Georges Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware, United States have found spatially distinct features and artifacts that provide information about the lives of eighteenth–...

  • Zooarchaeology and the Siege of Fort Stanwix: Reconstructing an American Revolution Landscape (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Charlene A. Keck. Amy Fedchenko.

    Recently, National Park Service archeologists at Fort Stanwix National Monument, Rome, N.Y., excavated a previously undisturbed feature after an inadvertent discovery was unearthed during trenching to connect city water to a new fire suppression system at the reconstructed fort. Data recovery and laboratory analysis of artifacts confirmed the feature dated to the siege of Fort Stanwix by British forces during August 1777. Observations of taphonomic signatures present on faunal remains indicate...

  • Zooarchaeology of Historic Fort Snelling (21HE99) and the Native Ecology of Bdote (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Mather.

    Animal remains from Fort Snelling in Minnesota provide detailed information about the native ecology of the Twin Cities metropolitan area before it was irrevocably changed by urbanization. This paper presents a case study of the Officers’ Latrine feature, with dated deposits ranging from 1824 to 1865. The assemblage is incredibly well preserved, and includes a significant variety of wild bird remains. These and other animal species reveal aspects of the original upland prairie, floodplain forest...