Boundaries and Defenses: Current Archaeological Perspectives on Areas of Conflict

DOCUMENT Citation Only David R. Starbuck.

The Lake George Battlefield Park is located at the southern end of Lake George, New York, where it was the setting for the Battle of Lake George between the British and the French in 1755; for an entrenched camp of British reinforcements for Fort William Henry at the time of the massacre in 1757; for Gen. James Abercromby's army in 1758 and Gen. Jeffery Amherst's army in 1759; and then for additional British and American occupations during the American Revolution.  The Park thus contains the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only LisaMarie Malischke.

Fort St. Pierre (1719-1729), in present-day Mississippi, was a short-lived fort on the periphery of colonial Louisiane. In December of 1729 its physical boundaries, the dry moat and palisade, were breached and burned as the fort and its soldiers were attacked by Yazoo and Koroa warriors. Using statistical and documentary evidence, along with newly analyzed information from the 1977 excavations, this presentation will discuss first the slow-decline and then immediate demise of the fort. It will...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric B. Gleason.

In April 1873 Eadweard Muybridge and Louis Heller came to the Lava Beds in northern California to photograph the sites, scenes, and participants of the Modoc War. They produced more than 75 stereo photographs, providing an unparalleled record documenting fortifications, weapons, U.S. Army field camps, and Modoc cave and camp locations. Many of these photographs detail Captain Jack’s Stronghold, the site of both Modoc and U.S. Army camps, and two major battles. These photographs proved to be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Pippin. Aericka Pawlikowski. Kyle Honness.

During the American Revolutionary War, the British outpost on Carleton Island was an integral connection between the cities of Montréal and Québec, and frontier military posts in the Great Lakes. Situated at the head of the St. Lawrence River, the diverse activity on Carleton Island included a military fortification, naval base, shipyard, merchant warehouses and civilian refugee settlements. In the eighteenth-century British Army, deep class and status differences existed between the officers...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michelle D. Sivilich.

The field of conflict archaeology has begun embracing KOCOA as a regular part of battlefield analysis. However, I argue KOCOA can be further expanded to include indirect expressions of warfare and incorporate them into a meaningful discussion of their role in the outcome of conflict. To accomplish this, I develop a model that allows for the investigation of hypotheses about decision-making processes and their effectiveness using the Second Seminole War (1835-1842) in Florida as a case study. In...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacqueline Y. Cheung.

Approximately 60 Modoc warriors and their families occupied and held off over 600 U.S. Army soldiers and volunteers at Captain Jack’s Stronghold during the 1872-1873 Modoc War. A 2008 wildfire revealed a remarkably intact Indian War battlefield that includes Modoc and U.S. Army camp areas, stacked rock fortifications and artillery emplacements. The 2008-2010 archaeological survey identified, mapped, and documented hundreds of features and artifacts, which provide insights into how the Modocs...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Martin ELOUGA.

Shortly after settling in the upper Mbam catchment due to migration which took them from the Adamawa highlands to their current habitat, the Tikars faced attacks from neighboring and distant ethnic groups. The fortifications that encircle the chiefdoms created indicate the conflicts that marred relations with other social groups. These fortifications which could be seen as factors of reconfiguration of space in the chiefdoms, were temporal borders put in place to ensure the safety of property...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tom Connolly. Julie M. Schablitsky. Robert S. Neyland. Guy L. Tasa. Vivien J. Singer. Chelsea Rose. Michael P Roller. Bob Ward. John S. Craig. Jaime Dexter.

The "Debatable Lands" of the Scottish-English border region remained a frontier in a virtual state of war for centuries. Conflicts with England (the Border Wars) were punctuated with feuds among powerful Scottish families for dominance. Landholding families built small fortified towers for security in this hostile environment. Amisfield Tower, one of the best preserved small towers in Scotland, served the Charteris family from at least AD 1400 to 1630. Excavations adjacent to the tower sampled a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesse A West-Rosenthal.

From Lexington and Concord to Yorktown, fighting for the newfound independence of the American colonies occupied soldiers for only a fraction of the eight years spent engaged in conflict. The archaeology of the American Revolution goes well beyond the battlefield locations that dot the American landscape. With soldiers spending up to six months of the year in encampments, places like Valley Forge offer researchers the opportunity to understand the time spent outside the fighting season. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gwendolyn S. Wallen-Sena.

A study of identity and agency among Victorian-era Army washer women was conducted through an analysis of alcohol-related containers collected from laundress quarters across three archaeological sites. Few field studies have considered the experiences of these women, yet material correlates from excavations at Fort Massachusetts, Fort Garland, and Fort Smith provided valuable evidence regarding the lives of laundresses who resided there, including evidence of alcohol consumption. Although women...