Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eden Andes.

This paper addresses ship’s equipment, fittings, and rigging found on the late 18th century Storm Wreck off the coast of St. Augustine, Florida. Components of standing and running rigging are discussed along with the ship’s bell, lead deck pump, bricks, fasteners, and ballast. Rigging components recovered include an intact deadeye with iron stropping, another deadeye strop, a possible chainplate, and a variety of iron hooks and hanks. The lead deck pump was found bent and hacked from its...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alasdair Brooks.

The National Memorial Arboretum is the United Kingdom's 'national centre of remembrance', which 'commemorates and celebrates those who have given their lives in the service of their country, all who have served and suffered as a result of conflict, and others who, for specific or appropriate reasons, are commemorated here'.  One of the memorials remembers the 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers who were executed for cowardice and desertion during the First World War, but subsequently...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shawn F Fields. Terrance Martin. Dennis Naglich.

The summer of 2015 could mark a monumental shift in archaeological and academic research in the state of Illinois. State budget cuts threaten to close the Illinois State Museum (ISM) by the end of the summer. Immediate consequences of this closure include the loss of hundreds of jobs and reduced curation of millions of artifacts. With this looming threat, supporters of the museum are campaigning to prevent its closing. This paper examines how the media campaign to save the ISM uses archaeology...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Todd H. Ahlman.

Signaling theory is becoming a common tool in the interpretation of slave-era households in the United States and Caribbean. As a heuristic tool, signaling theory’s effectiveness lies in its ability to provide insight into the differential consumption and disposal habits of past populations. This paper addresses not only consumer and disposal habits, but also commodity exchange and personal networks to place the material culture of enslaved and freed Africans from the Caribbean island of St....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles H Leedecker.

The Monumental Core in the District of Columbia contains some of the nation’s most iconic landscapes, landmarks and memorials. The modern landscape bears little resemblance to the natural environment or the nineteenth-century city. For thousands of years, Native Americans camped along the bank of a tidal creek. After the City of Washington was established in 1790, the creek was transformed first into a canal, then a foul sewer that carried the city’s waste into the Potomac River.  Areas of open...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jed Levin. Deborah L. Miller. Alexander Keim.

Beginning in the early 1950’s archeologists began sifting the soil beneath Independence National Historical Park in an effort to help inform and guide the development of a new national park. Over the course of subsequent decades the formative work of Paul Schumacher, Barbara Liggett, and John Cotter, among others, shaped the park’s physical appearance, as well as the interpretive experience, for generations of visitors. In the process, these pioneers and their work played a key role in the birth...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Moore.

For more than 300 years, the slave trade transported human cargo to slave markets along the American Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and throughout the Caribbean. In 1808, Congress banned the slave trade throughout the U.S., although smuggling, especially in the Gulf of Mexico, continued for another half-century. While thousands of slave ship voyages have been documented, only a few slave ships have ever been investigated archaeologically worldwide. In the Gulf of Mexico, an untold number of vessels...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael C Smith.

The Slave Wrecks Project (SWP) Digital Archive is a multi-level relational database designed to facilitate research on slaver shipwrecks and their context. Its toolset allows researchers to quickly access information on ships, people and places involved in the slave trade. Currently the dataset contains information on over 1,000 slaver wrecks and draws data from a wide variety of sources, including: the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database; Digital Newspaper Archives in Denmark, the Netherlands,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Morgan. Jessica Keller. Jeneva Wright. Meredith Hardy. Dave Conlin. Stephen Lubkemann. Paul Gardullo. Chris DeCorse.

Since 2010 the National Park Service (NPS) has worked with the Smithsonian Institution and George Washington University to foster greater understanding of how the African slave trade shaped global history. This endeavor—the Slave Wrecks Project (SWP)—represents a long-term, multi-national effort to locate, document, protect, and analyze maritime sites pertaining to the slave trade, following the entire process including capture, transportation, sale, enslavement, resistance, and freedom. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Lubkemann. Jaco Boshoff. Dave Conlin. David Morgan. Jonathan Sharfman. Chris DeCorse. Ricardo T Duarte. Yolanda P Duarte. Justine Benanty. Michael Smith. Ibrahima Thiaw. Paul Gardullo. Meredith Hardy.

This presentation draws upon our research worldwide—and the Sao Jose investigation in particular--to discuss the Slave Wrecks Project’s emerging signature approach to the maritime archaeology of the slave trade. Slaver shipwrecks serve as points of entrée for broader multi-disciplinary, multi-country, collaborative investigations of African-sourced slave trades and enslavement experiences – aiming to incorporate archaeological, archival, and ethno-historical investigation of related...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kate Birmingham.

From 2010 to 2012, National Park Service archeologists, students, and volunteers conducted archeological investigations of the L’Hermitage plantation at Monocacy National Battlefield. The plantation was established in 1794 by the Vincendieres, French Catholic planters who came to Maryland to escape the Saint-Domingue slave revolution. They brought 12 enslaved laborers with them. By 1800 they owned 90 enslaved people. Traditional field methods, historical research, and genealogical studies were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bernard K. Means.

In 1994, comingled human remains were accidentally discovered during construction at the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) campus of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).  The association of these remains with MCV should not have been unexpected. Found in an abandoned well and dating to the first half of the 19th century, these human remains from people of African descent bear grim witness to the desecration of interred individuals in a bid to advance medical knowledge—knowledge that largely...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary L. Farrell. Linda F. Carnes-McNaughton.

Not long ago, Pennsylvania potter, Jack Troy declared "if North America has a ‘pottery state’ it must be North Carolina, as there is probably no other state with such a highly developed pottery consciousness,"  – and he is right!  North Carolina’s pottery heritage is unique in many ways:  it is the most southern state with a well-developed earthenware tradition (ca. 1750s);  it is the most northern state with an alkaline-glazed stoneware tradition, in addition to its salt-glaze; its early...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juliette J. Gerhardt.

Slipware ceramics have been unearthed in large quantities at archaeological sites around Philadelphia, most recently, at  the site of the future Museum of the American Revolution at the corner of 3rd and Chesnut Streets in Old City. What is known as the Philadelphia style was a mixing of two European traditions of slip decoration brought across the Atlantic with the earliest settlers: first English and then German. While many of the slip trailed designs appear similar, they vary in simple ways...

DOCUMENT Citation Only D. Brad Hatch. Danae Peckler. Joe Blondino.

From the beginning, initial studies at the Armstrong-Rogers site left more questions than answers. Located within the floodplain of Drawyers Creek just north of Middletown, Delaware, survey and testing efforts uncovered the partial remains of a stone foundation and many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artifacts. Was this the home built by the Armstrong family in the 1730s? An 1820s building occupied by James Rogers? Or something entirely different? The answer, in the end, is a little of all...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amalia Nuevo Delaunay. Javiera Letelier Cosmelli. Rodolfo Quiroz Rojas.

Cigarettes are the most numerous, ubiquitous, and tolerated form of trash on the urban landscape (Graesch & Hartshorn 2014:1). This statement has special meaning in Chile, leading country in cigarette consumption in the continent and highly ranked at a global scale. On this basis, it has became a critical public health issue.  Current approaches in the study of this phenomenon are based on interviews, but no material study has been conducted. Considering the differences between people´s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark F. Gardiner.

During the sixteenth century Iceland, the Faroes, Shetland and the Gaelic areas of Ireland were drawn into the networks of trade emanating from England and Germany. In each case preserved fish caught in the North Atlantic were exchanged for consumer goods. The response in each of these islands to this emerging trade was different, though we can also identify many common factors. The comparative study of these provide us with a variety of ways in which the economics, politics and government...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsey Cochran.

The comparison of patterns of refuse disposal between populations has been a consistent theme in historical archaeology. The present study acknowledges the impact of the physical environment and social status in shaping how people created and used their built landscape. Triangulation of three kinds of data—spatial, archaeological, and historical—facilitates recognition of the differences or similarities between groups on Sapelo, Ossabaw, and St. Simon’s Islands in the Georgia Lowcountry. A...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michelle D. Graham.

This research assesses the degree to which the type, form, and function of 19th century ceramics recovered from archaeological sites on Ballast Point reflect ethnic identities of their owners. A dualistic approach is employed to determine whether culture or economy played a greater role in influencing the acquisition of ceramic goods at these sites. Comparisons are drawn from contemporaneous deposits associated with a Chinese fishing camp (Trench 2), and a European American whaling operation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Abigail K Kindler.

In the summer of 2011, Lindenwood University began excavating in the Femme Osage Creek Valley in St. Charles County, Missouri. Near to the Historic Nathaniel Boone Home, a hidden 19th century homestead site has been found with the remains of numerous buildings, as well as a two-lane drive. The property also includes a stone well, middens, and evidence of domesticated plants. One of the main hypotheses of this site is the possibility of the self-sufficiency of the homestead. This would not have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Darlene E. Hassler. Justin P. Ebersole.

Harpers Ferry is fortunate to have a rich history of nearly 60 years of professional archeological endeavors. Over half of that has been under the tenure of Regional Chief Archeologist Dr. Stephen Potter. His relentless enthusiasm and support, as well as encyclopedic knowledge, were pivotal in driving new research within the park. Recently, the focus has been on the Armory site. While the Armory is best known for its history of firearm technology, the archeological investigation revealed a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Margaret R Clark.

For four decades, Hanford reactors produced plutonium, generating the fuel for America’s first atomic bombs. In 1950, as the Arms Race increased, the Department of Defense established Anti-Aircraft Artillery sites throughout Hanford to protect the nation’s top secret nuclear facilities. Under the Army’s command, these AAA batteries, base camps and battalion headquarters were home to the men that were "the last defense." This paper will present the historical artifacts recovered from a refuse...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathan W Fulmer. Jessica Irwin.

For over 40 years, SCIAA’s Maritime Research Division has championed efforts to preserve and protect South Carolina's maritime archaeological heritage through research, management, and public education and outreach.  The state's Hobby Diver License Program is a unique partnership between researchers and divers that combines management of underwater sites and submerged cultural material through licensing with a robust public education and outreach component.   In addition to outlining the MRD’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James D. Spirek. Daniel M. Brown.

In 2014, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s Office of Renewable Energy Program (BOEM) signed a Cooperative Agreement with the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium to explore potential Wind Energy Areas (WEA) offshore South Carolina’s portion of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The aim of the project is to conduct geophysical and archaeological survey of seafloor 11-16 miles offshore North Myrtle Beach and Winyah Bay to explore the possibility of developing future WEAs. The project consists...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David J. Breitkreutz.

The colonial settlement of Hanna’s Town is a vital connection to Pennsylvania’s frontier history. The significance of the Hanna’s Town site to regional heritage is represented by the effort expended by the Westmoreland County Historical Society on archaeological and geophysical projects that have taken place at the site since 1969. However, after numerous investigations, not much is known about layout of the Hanna’s Town settlement. This paper will potentially demonstrate that specialized...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Chenoweth.

Forming a different kind of plantation community, a unique group of African people who were never enslaved existed in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) in the 1830s to 1850s.  Captured for slavery in Africa after the British ended the slave trade in 1807, and after much loss and time, these people were given a plantation on Tortola where they lived—surrounded at first by enslaved people—in a settlement known as Kingstown.  An 1831 map of their settlement exists, providing insight primarily into...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kiley A. Gilbert.

Between 1850 and 1880, the First Election District of Anne Arundel County, Maryland hosted a variety of farm types and farm sizes. K-means cluster analysis of agricultural census data identified farm types over this forty-year period. The findings serve as a basis for understanding the archaeology of two farms on the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center campus and assessing the effects of late 19th-century land management strategies on local ecosystems.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn E Sampeck.

A variant of symbolic and structural violence can be termed "spatial violence".  Colonial reordering of space, expressed as civilizing, moral order, created iniquities in power that physically prevented access to resources and segregated people into controllable spaces for achieving imperial schemes. This process treated land as one thing and its residents as something separate, objectified, commodified, and thus removable. Spatial violence in the case of many Native Americans was extreme, not...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Muhammad Fraser-Rahim.

This paper will examine the encounter between Africa, Islam and American history in the antebellum period of the U.S from first hand accounts of enslaved Africans. Yarrow Mamout was a Muslim Fulani enslaved in 1752, and manumitted in 1796. He purchased property in Georgetown in 1800, and there is currently an archaeological investigation on his former property. Using original Arabic documents, this research explores the spirituality, literacy and religious tolerance of enslaved African Muslims...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lillian Azevedo.

In July 2013, community members in Sandy Point village on St. Kitts in the Caribbean’s Lesser Antilles, began collaborating with Brimstone Hill World Heritage Site to build a Heritage Trail along a 7.5-mile coastal route.  An assessment of the project’s progress two years later reveals critical challenges and innovative solutions- between Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park, a non-profit company and individual community stakeholders of that island.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nan Rothschild. Diana Wall.

The Stadt Huys Block Site in lower Manhattan was the first large-scale excavation in New York City (1979-80), serving as a test case to mandate subsequent excavations in the city. We found intact deposits from the 17th through 19th centuries. The collection was first housed at Columbia University’s Strong Museum and is now at the NYC Archaeological Repository. Artifacts from the collection have been used in domestic and international exhibits, and in several research projects. Some have analyzed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Agbe-Davies.

The Bennehan-Cameron family fortune started with a single store in the 18th-century North Carolina Piedmont.  Over several generations, their wealth expanded to include the ownership of up to 900 individuals, scattered across many farms in several states.  This paper examines the intersection between these two spheres: an emergent consumer society and the institution of slavery.  People owned by the Bennehans, Camerons, and their neighbors are among the purchasers enumerated in daybooks and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Bedell.

Between 1999 and 2011 the Louis Berger Group carried out a series of archaeological investigations in the Potomac Valley for the National Capital Region of the NPS. These investigations were planned by Dr. Potter as a connected series of studies, working westward up the river. The work included four years in the Prince William Forest Park, followed by four years in Rock Creek Park and then three years for each of three sections of the C&O Canal National Historic Park, culminating at Oldtown,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julia Steele. David Lowe. Philip Shiman.

Petersburg, Virginia, is known for the mine explosion that destroyed a Confederate fort and initiated the Battle of the Crater.  This was not the only mining effort on the siege line.  Even before the July 30, 1864, explosion, the Confederate defenders of Petersburg constructed countermines in places where the terrain was susceptible to underground enemy approaches.  The use of LIDAR imagery, map and photographic analysis, documentary research and field survey has revealed two extensive sets of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin S. Schwartz.

The myth of the "Southern gentleman" permeates the modern imagination of the historic American South. This archetype is simultaneously "other" and "normative": the concept is saturated in an air of mystery and deep, foreign tradition, yet is often set against studies of traditional American "others" such as women, immigrants, and enslaved peoples. Recent excavations at Graham Hall, an all-male antebellum dormitory on Washington & Lee University’s campus in Lexington, VA, have uncovered a rich,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jack Irion. Dave Ball.

When the South seceded from the Union in 1861, cotton was the currency they believed would fuel the war effort and bring Britain as an ally to the Southern cause.  Maintenance of two of the critical ports of the antebellum cotton trade, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama was key to the Confederacy's survival and ultimately to its failure.  Archaeological investigations at the site of the river defenses in the Mississippi River delta confirmed historical accounts leading to the fall of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only C. Andrew Buchner. Eric Albertson.

The Keeton Site is a 50-x-50 m mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century farmstead site located near Russellville in the Arkansas Valley Hills ecoregion.  During 2014, the site was the subject of  a Phase III data recovery project, with work includng documenting a partly collapsed frame residence, and the hand excavation of 270.5 m2 of site deposits. This paper will discuss the results of this multi-disciplinary study at the ca. 1860 farmstead of  Zachariah Keeton (1816–1908), a Tennessean who...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leigh Anne Ellison. Francis McManamon. Jodi Reeves Flores.

More public agencies, researchers and other managers of archaeological data are preserving their information in digital repositories and there is an exciting future for research, education, public outreach, and innovation.  There is a wealth of primary data and interpretive reports already available in tDAR for reuse in research and education.  Researchers can quickly track down digital copies of reports and grey literature for background surveys and comparative analyses.  Students can locate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diane F George.

Excavations at New York City’s South Street Seaport uncovered an early nineteenth century deposit within the foundation of a small building on the property of a wealthy merchant. Among the artifacts in the deposit was a creamware plate that paid homage to the "sacred" memory of George Washington. Along with this solemn memorial, the imagery on the plate included a neoclassic goddess waving an olive branch towards a mercantile ship on the horizon. Despite the irony, British potters produced many...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alicia Massey.

The new Sunken Military Craft Act regulations encouraged a reexamination of the Sunken Military Craft Inventory (SMCI). SMCI research is a dynamic process that continues to expand the management of sunken military craft overtime. The SMCI was challenged on 7 July 2014 when Nautilus Live discovered the USS Peterson (DD-969) in the Gulf of Mexico. The USS Peterson was a Navy sinking exercise (SINKEX) vessel that was intentionally sunk on 16 February 2004.  This discovery prompted detailed research...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hunter L. Brendel.

The Storm Wreck, a Loyalist refugee vessel fleeing Charleston near the end of the American Revolution in 1782, was discovered by LAMP in 2009. Since 2010, a systematic excavation of the shipwreck has been ongoing, aiming at documenting, recovering, and conserving diagnostic artifacts to further understand this shipwreck and its role in Florida’s Loyalist influx, a time of civil conflict and rapidly increasing population. This paper will review artifacts from the shipwreck categorized as personal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Heffner.

Chinese who worked on the transcontinental railroads often endured long hours of dangerous, backbreaking work. A typical work week lasted from Monday to Saturday, sunrise to sunset. Sundays were spent washing and mending clothes and participating in leisure activities. Railroad workers carried few belongings with them as they had to be able to quickly pack up camp and move to the next construction stop. This paper explores how Chinese railroad workers entertained themselves with few material...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carolyn Lewis.

     Last summer the Sapelo Island Cultural Resource Survey (SICRS) investigated the north end of Sapelo Island for archaeological sites that are threatened by both nature and man.  This area was inhabited by native peoples from the Late Archaic Period (5000-3000 BP) up until the Spanish Mission Period. Later european settlement divided the island up into plantations and estates, two of which occupied the north end of the island until the Civil War. In the 1920’s Sapelo became a private retreat...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan D. Postemski.

Frontiers are often perceived as dangerous and harsh peripheries pioneers adapted to, or replete with resources and ripe for settlement. Based on accounts of environmental stress and warfare in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the former perception pervades depictions of the Eastern frontier. To distinguish notions of frontier life from actual lived experiences of pioneers, I analyze enclosure – the continuous bounding and cultivation of the landscape – which structured frontier...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James R Pruitt.

The study of submerged aircraft, while not new, is a relatively unexplored area of maritime archaeology. Receiving even less attention is the study of site formation processes as they apply to submerged aircraft wreck sites—what processes affected the site between the time it crashed and now? These studies are becoming increasingly important, especially for cultural resource managers who are responsible for managing submerged aircraft. This paper summarizes the results of a case study of a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin C Wells.

ABSTRACT: With its headwaters in Alabama and terminus in Blackwater Bay, the Blackwater River is the major river of Santa Rosa County, Florida. For centuries this river has played an integral role in the development of northwest Florida as the primary avenue for transporting resources, goods, and people in and out of the interior of this area. In 2013 the Bagdad Waterfronts Florida Partnership, Inc., contacted Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN) Northwest Region office seeking assistance...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Kennedy.

The Market Street Chinatown was a bustling Chinese community in nineteenth-century San Jose, California, and its residents mixed the traditional and novel throughout their lives. This is especially the case in food practices, where Market Street’s residents consumed Chinese foods alongside new ingredients from North America. In this paper, I explore how fish consumption among Market Street’s residents was driven by notions of taste in nineteenth-century Southern China, where fish played a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan B Veness.

The Old Colchester Park and Preserve, located in southern Fairfax County, Virginia consists of approximately 145 acres along the Occoquan River.  This natural and cultural resource Park was acquired by Fairfax County Park Authority in 2006.  Located within the Park along the Occoquan River was the ca. 1754-1830 tobacco port town of Colchester.  Systematic and targeted testing over the past four years by Colchester Archaeology Research Team (CART) has yielded numerous artifacts and features. ...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katelyn Coughlan.

Archaeological sites excavated under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 provide scholars a wealth of data at their fingertips.  Due to the time and financial constraints of excavation, many collections are initially analyzed, stored in state and local repositories and forgotten.  However, both academic and cultural resource management (CRM) collections are an invaluable source of new data.  The re-examination of these assemblages can tease out more detailed or nuanced...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph E. Clemens.

The use of X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) as a tool for analyzing archaeological materials is becoming increasingly common.  Recently, various types of iron ore and iron products produced at furnaces in Maryland and Pennsylvania in the 19th century were analyzed using XRF measurements. These measurements were employed to create a representational graph of the elemental composition of iron artifacts in order to identify a connection between the source material and the iron product.  Documentary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer A. Stabler.

In November 2015, Prince George’s County, Maryland celebrates the ten year anniversary of the passage of local regulations that require review of all subdivision applications for their effect on archaeological resources. This paper will examine the results of ten years of archaeological investigations under the local regulations, lessons learned from these efforts, and future directions. Various techniques, such as conservation easements and the conveyance of sites to entities such as the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laurel Seaborn. Calvin Mires.

Through hands-on experiences on the North Shore of Massachusetts, college students and adults learned the basics in maritime archaeology during a field school program in the summer of 2015. Led by SEAMAHP (Seafaring Education and Maritime Archaeological Heritage Programs), the field school examined the "life-cycle" of a vessel, from its inception to its "after life" by exploring a working traditional shipyard, examining a floating tall ship and mapping shipwrecks on the foreshore. This unique...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara G. Laurence. Amy Borgens. Robert L. Gearhart.

As part of its effort in World War I, the United States and its Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) began an aggressive shipbuilding campaign to counter the merchant shipping losses from Germany’s submarine warfare. Over 100 wooden ships were contracted in the Gulf District (the Gulf Coast west of New Orleans). Construction of these vessels was far slower than anticipated, and when the war suddenly ended, the country was left with a surplus of both complete and incomplete wooden ships. The EFC...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tane Renata Casserley.

Situated just 16 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., NOAA’s Monitor National Marine Sanctuary protects the shipwreck of the famed Civil War ironclad, USS Monitor. In 2015, thirteen years after the turret was recovered, NOAA launched an expedition back to the Monitor to document the site. Using closed circuit rebreathers, NOAA and its partners are using the latest technology to assess the ironclad’s current state of preservation. This presentation will highlight NOAA’s efforts to protect...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua L. Marano. Lee Pape.

Since the fall of the Batista regime during the Cuban Revolution of 1959 more than one million Cubans have fled the country seeking protection and opportunities as political refugees. While many of these refugees traveled to the United States by more traditional means, many others desperate to flee the nation took to sea in improvised watercraft to attempt to cross the Straits of Florida. These craft, which greatly vary in size, construction, and technology are often found cast ashore and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ellen Chapman.

In Richmond, Virginia, racial discrimination is clearly visible in the condition of historical burial grounds. Efforts to reclaim these sacred sites have generated controversy surrounding the proposed Revitalize RVA development adjacent to the city’s oldest cemetery for people of color. Recent outrage, activism, and attempts at dialogue have also occurred in relation to some archaeological collections of human remains from Richmond, while other such collections have received comparatively little...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Eck.

As we prepare to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the NHPA, it is worth remembering that a nearly forgotten federal law established the first federal battlefield parks a mere 25 years after the end of the Civil War and placed federal authority and protection over cultural resources – the "Act to establish a National Military Park at the Battlefield of Chickamauga" of 1890 and the subsequent related statutes, such as the Military Parks Act of 1897. This paper explores this law, its early...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jenna Wallace Coplin.

During the first half of 19th C, dramatic economic changes are evident at the household level. Straddling the urban-suburban divide, residents of Rock Hall on the South Shore of Long Island hybridized farming and summer tourism as they sought to improve their family’s position.  A microcosm of economic choices, this household combined labor and residence in ways that used, and rendered them beholden to, the urban juggernaut of the City while remaining rooted in a distinct local economic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alicia Paresi.

Since the inception of the Northeast Museum Services Center’s archeology program in 2003, we have consistently strived to bring NPS archeology collections into the public eye.  Our commitment to public outreach encompasses a variety of efforts through which we hope to reach a variety of people. We maintain a facebook page and a blog though which we offer articles on specific artifacts, site histories, and archeological preservation.  Our social media program continues to attract new readers,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jack Gary.

Archaeological research at Poplar Forest, Thomas Jefferson’s retreat home in Bedford County Virginia, has revealed numerous transfer  printed pearlware patterns on ceramic vessels interpreted as being owned by Jefferson. Despite their mass produced nature, the imagery on these ceramics connects very closely to the aesthetics he tried to achieve in the design of the house and landscape. Did Jefferson or a member of his household, seek out specific patterns through specialized merchants or was the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Owsley. Karin Bruwelheide.

In 1988, archaeologist Stephen Potter supervised the excavation of four battlefield burials found by relic collectors on the Roulette farm of Antietam Battlefield. Archival research into the discovery location, and the analysis of the artifacts and meager bone fragments, linked these men to the Irish Brigade. Nearly thirty years later, Civil War human remains continue to be the subject of inquiry. This review cites examples from several Civil War sites and contexts to illustrate how the process...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Monroe. Katie Simon.

The royal palace of Sans Souci anchored elite attempts to inculcate royal power and authority in the Kingdom of Haiti, a fledgling state that emerged out of the turmoil of the Haitian Revolution. Despite the role this site has played in the production of historical memory in Haiti, negligible archaeological work has been carried out to study building chronology and the organization of space at Sans Souci. In the summer of 2015, an international team from the University of California, Santa Cruz,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie M Byrd.

The waterfront area of Brunswick Town, a small but important transatlantic port on the Cape Fear River, was a major shipping and commercial center for southeastern North Carolina. The major export of tar, pitch, and turpentine to British controlled areas helped established this town for naval supplies. In his original investigations of Brunswick Town, Stanley South noted ballast stone piles in the river that might be evidence of up to five colonial wharves. At one of these locations, river front...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonas Nordin.

In the seventeenth century the Danish and Swedish states strengthened their control over the northernmost areas of Fenno-Scandinavia: Sápmi. Borders were constructed, market-places founded and the Lutheran Church gained a firm foothold through mission and the founding new churches. A main force in this development was the hunger for the regions resources, such as pearls, furs, precious stones and metals. Through landscape analysis and the study the material remains of several sites, spatial...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Smits.

Recent archaeological investigations at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in western Washington state have confirmed the location of Tlithlow (site 45PI492), a Puget’s Sound Agricultural Company (PSAC) outstation that operated between circa 1847 and 1858.  As a subsidiary of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), the PSAC supplied agricultural products to HBC posts and promoted British settlement of territory that was jointly occupied by Great Britain and the United States until 1846.  After the boundary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diana Loren. Christina Hodge. Patricia Capone.

Several systematic excavations have been carried out in Harvard Yard since the late 1970s, focusing on different locations, including the Old College, Holden Chapel, and, most recently, the Indian College. These projects have produced significant collections that exist in a variety of forms and conditions.  Despite challenges, with attention, these finds can provide a rich, robust data set. New perspectives and analyses are enhancing our understandings of life at the college as it transitioned...

DOCUMENT Citation Only LouAnn Wurst.

Metaphors connecting capitalism and the phantasmagorical have always been rampant. References to the ghostly and ghastly point to the contradiction that capitalism is equally pervasive and invisible or, at least, elided. While all aspects of the monstrous have become important narrative tropes in the modern world, we seldom use this same discourse to name capitalism as a monstrous system. And yet, the ghosts are restless; capitalism as a system has created a ‘nightmare world’ where the products...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wade Catts.

  The Upper Delmarva Peninsula was a region on the periphery of military activity during the American Revolution. For a short time in 1777 the area witnessed some troop movements and experienced the effects of invasion and war. The longer lasting impact on the region was the constant need for foodstuffs and materiél required of the fledging American nation. With no strong logistical system, state and national governments called on their civilian population to fill the void. While the 1777...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Danny Younger.

The discovery of a hitherto undocumented massacre site has prompted a radical reinterpretation of the French & Indian War in northeastern Pennsylvania.  Following the extermination of the missionary populations at Gnadenhutten and Dansbury, this third massacre of Moravian women and children has established a pattern best explained in the context of a Delaware Indian/Moravian "religious war" whose proximate cause can be traced to the earthquake of 18 November 1755 – the single largest earthquake...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Peles.

Chartered in 1789 and enrolling students in 1795, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is one of three schools that claims the title of oldest public university in the United States. Despite this storied history, relatively little is known about the lives of antebellum university and Chapel Hill residents, particularly archaeologically. In October 2011, contractors excavated a trench around the Battle, Vance, and Pettigrew buildings at UNC. In the process, they exposed archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tatiana Niculescu.

For archaeologists artifacts are data, objects to be measured, weighed, described, and interpreted.  They are items that can shed light on past political, economic, and social systems.  However, the objects we excavate in the field or study in museums also forge multiple connections and obligations in the present and into the future.   Considering objects in this way allows one not only to better understand the past, but also to more effectively engage the present. More effectively presenting...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily C. Taber. Douglas C. Wilson. Robert J. Cromwell. Katie A. Wynia. Alice Knowles.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas C. Wilson. Meagan Huff.

National Park Service (NPS) archaeologists and museum professionals must engage the public through media to augment traditional outreach events and programs. Transforming the digital experience is at the heart of the NPS 2016 centennial. The cultural resources program at Fort Vancouver NHS in Vancouver, Washington, engages the public in a variety of archaeology outreach events and works with students in diverse educational contexts. A crucial component of this program is routinely informing the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David M Markus.

The Block Family Farmstead in Washington, Arkansas represents the first Jewish immigrant family to the state and is the most extensively excavated Jewish Diaspora site in North America, dating to the first half of the 19th Century. The site gives unique insight into the domestic practices of a Jewish family in absence of an ecclesiastical support network or coreligionist community. In particular, a pit feature adjacent to the home may indicate the manner in which the Block family transgressed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Molly T. Greenhouse.

Located in the picturesque foothills of the Catoctin Mountains, the village of Catoctin Furnace is a burgeoning heritage tourism destination. Recently, work began to renovate the Forgeman’s House, a stone "workers’ cabin" constructed ca. 1817. The primary goal of the project, sponsored by the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society, is to restore the house to its original layout and appearance. The cabin will serve as a short-term/vacation rental, available for visitors to reserve nightly....

DOCUMENT Citation Only William S Sassorossi.

Maritime Archaeologists from the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary teamed up with divers from the Roanoke Island Outfitters and Adventures Dive Shop of Manteo, NC, to complete a survey of one of the most popular shipwreck sites in North Carolina. Following an underwater archaeology training course with avocational divers supported by the dive shop, a full site recording of Carl Gerhard, a freighter wrecked in 1929 off of Kill Devil Hills, NC, was undertaken. Interest ballooned beyond just those...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dan Mouer.

Richmond, the capital of Virginia, former capital of the Confederate States, has a deeply buried early history and a highly troubled recent one. The oldest parts of the city sit at the base of a 7-mile long cataract through which the James River falls from the Piedmont to the Coastal Plain. Archaeological remains lie beneath flood deposits and centuries of accumulated urban debris. For decades these resources have been ignored or viewed as obstructions to development. Archaeology in the city has...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ian Burrow.

In 1743 Boaz Boyce, guardian of the son of William Cardon, deceased, accused tenant Robert Whiteside of cutting valuable timber, and evidently of obstructing the planting of an orchard. The Cardon/Holton site is identified with Whiteside’s tenant homestead.  Artifact analysis suggests an occupation date range of circa 1720 to the 1760s.  Dendrochronological dates from well timbers indicate construction in c.1737 and rebuild or repair c.1753. The core of the farmstead was fully excavated,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Somerville. Christopher P. Barton.

Fringe archaeology is one of the most controversial and inflammatory aspects of archaeology, occupying an uncomfortable position between academic rigor, public perceptions of the field, and interpretive value. Historical archaeology in general has also encountered these issues in a number of different ways. This paper briefly outlines fringe archaeology, and we examine case studies from Rhode Island, Masssachussetts, and the Northeast to better understand the appeal of fringe archaeology to its...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael B Thomin.

Unearthing Florida is a radio program designed to enhance the public’s understanding and appreciation of Florida’s archaeological heritage.  This program was created following the 14 year success of the Unearthing Pensacola radio program broadcast on NPR member station WUWF 88.1. The creation of Unearthing Florida was made possible through a partnership between WUWF Public Media and the Florida Public Archaeology Network. Over 100 episodes have been produced since this program was first launched...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Meagan Dennison. Eric G. Schweickart.

This presentation considers the foodways of plantation inhabitants in the antebellum costal South with reference to one particular food resource, the turtle.  Turtle remains represent a small but ubiquitous portion of faunal assemblages recovered from late 18th and early 19th century sites in the southern states, and historic documents indicate that antebellum Americans drew upon European, African, and Native American cooking traditions to create a turtle-based cuisine which played an important...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jose L Casaban.

During the 16th century, Spain created an empire whose territories spanned Europe, America, and Asia. The most renowned ocean-going vessel employed by the Spanish during this period was the galleon. However, our knowledge of galleons is limited due to inaccuracies in their contemporaneous representations and the absence of archaeological evidence. This paper uses the Twelve Apostles, a series of newly-designed Spanish galleons built between 1589 and 1591, to bridge the gaps in our current state...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert S Neyland.

Underwater archaeology was officially incorporated into the US Navy with the creation of a dedicated Branch (UAB) at Naval Historical Center, now Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) in 1996. This presentation discusses the reasons that led to the creation of the Branch, the hurdles that had to be overcome and unique problems posed by Navy ship and aircraft wrecks, the UAB program's development and growth, and major achievements, as well as the outlook for the future. Prominent ship and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Pilar Luna Erreguerena. James Delgado.

The brig Somers gained fame in the United States as the setting of a notorious mutiny in 1842 that directly inspired the writing of Herman Melville’s Billy Budd.  The vessel was subsequently lost while on blockade duty off Veracruz during the war between the United States and Mexico in 1846.  Rediscovered in 1986, the wreck was an untouched archaeological resource.  It also served as the means for a pioneering international collaboration between the two former combatants in the management and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Clarke. Heidi Krofft.

The Delaware Department of Transportation is in the midst of its largest public works project in over 15 years. The U.S. Route 301 project will construct 17 miles of new highway across the central portion of Delaware. The archaeology program for Section 106 compliance for this project has utilized the talents of 10 cultural resource management firms (CRM). To date the CRM firms have identified 66 archaeological sites at the Phase I level, 27 at the Phase II level and 14 were found eligible for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eleanor Breen.

This paper adopts an object-centered, material culture approach that triangulates between three primary sources – George Washington’s orders for goods through the consignment system, inventories from a local, Scottish-owned store, and the archaeological record at Mount Vernon plantation – lending fresh insight into the nature of the mid-eighteenth century consumer revolution and addressing questions about elite and non-elite consumer behavior.  By quantifying the robust dataset of Washington’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only D. Rae Gould.

Since the earliest encounters of Native Americans and Europeans, places and landscapes with thousands of years of use and history in the "New World" have been renamed, depleted of resources, appropriated and stolen. Despite almost 500 years of contact, colonialism and repression by European settlers and their descendants, Native tribes continue to define places on the landscape in terms of tribal understandings, meanings and uses. This paper addresses the topic of place and landscape...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristen L. McMasters.

Since its inception, the ABPP has made over 559 planning grants with over $18 million available to preservation professionals for the long term care of battlefield resources.  Approximately 40% of those funds have driven both underwater and terrestrial archeological projects since 1996.  The vast majority of those battlefield projects have centered on resource identification, inventory, assessment and setting boundaries for aggressive resource protection.  A system of identification of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ole Varmer.

The law protecting and managing underwater cultural heritage (UCH) is relatively new and has largely been developed over the past 50 years.  This presentation will look back at the threats to UCH from treasure hunting and provide an overview of the laws that have been applied and developed to address that threat as well as from other activities that may inadvertently effect or harm UCH, such as fishing, the laying of submarine cables and energy development.  Special attention will be given to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Durst. Dwayne Scheid.

Until the advent and widespread adoption of modern plumbing, the privy vault played nearly as important a role to permanent occupation as would a sustainable water source. This paper will examine the various construction methods employed while investigating the rationale behind changes in morphology. Special focus will be given to privies within the urban setting of turn of the century East St. Louis, Illinois and comparisons will be made between privy vaults found in various St. Louis, Missouri...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erica Gifford.

The Savannah District is proposing to expand the Savannah Harbor navigation channel. Diving investigations identified the remains of the Undine, a historically significant tea clipper built in Sutherland, England by the shipbuilder William Pile. In a class with other famous Clippers like the Flying Cloud and the Cutty Sark, the Undine represents the evolution apex of the sailing merchantman, and is in the class of the most significant clippers, those built specifically for the China Tea or Opium...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Victor Weiss. Ronald L. Collins.

Since the creation of the National Historic Preservation Act, a pairing has developed between environmental and cultural resource management.  Wetland and stream mitigation banking is a common way to offset the environmental impacts of activities permitted under the Clean Water Act.  These projects are intended to create or enhance aquatic resources in order to offset impacts within the same geographic region.  Their location within perpetual conservation easements and need for Section 106...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Magdalena Naum.

In the recent years colonialism has been a subject of debate and new research in Scandinavian historical and anthropological scholarship. This scholarship is scrutinizing the impact of colonial expansion on societies in Scandinavia as well as the role and participation of the Swedish and Danish kingdoms in the colonial enterprises. Drawing on this research, my paper will explore the background and consequences of this interest in Scandinavia’s colonial past; the ways it rewrites historical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiffany N. Momon.

Recent excavations at Clover Bottom Plantation are contributing new information to a rich documentary record of the lives of enslaved and later freed African Americans who lived and/or worked there. Clover Bottom Plantation was owned by the Hoggatt family for the majority of its nineteenth-century history. At its peak, it was home to 60 enslaved individuals who were listed, but remained unnamed in the 1860 census. Through a comparative study of available primary sources and newspaper accounts,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Crystal L. Ptacek. Katelyn M. Coughlan.

Over the past thirty years, archaeologists at Monticello have excavated portions of the lawns located on opposite sides of Thomas Jefferson’s home. To date, no comprehensive synthesis of the archaeological data from these excavations has been conducted.  Because of the varied tasks undertaken in the structures adjacent to these yards, the areas on the North and South side of the mansion were functionally different. Comparative stratigraphic and ware-type analysis aim to expose stratigraphic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hugh B Matternes.

Box tombs (aka False Crypts) are a common grave cover in late eighteenth and nineteenth century cemeteries.  In areas above the fall line in Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama, local granites and similar igneo-metamorphic stone were used to form rectangular surface chambers approximating the shape and dimensions of their more formally milled counterparts.  While frequently observed, very little is known about the form.  Variants include the slot-and-tab and tombs made from milled stone panels...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gwenyth A. Davis. Alice H. Guerrant. Craig Lukezic.

A 2007 study conducted for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program examined cultural resource professionals’ views on the usefulness of historic contexts, and found that, "…SHPO and state DOT staff rarely use historic contexts to evaluate the National Register eligibility of properties." However, Delaware has a long and well-established practice of encouraging the development – and use – of historic contexts. The US 301 project archaeological investigations presented an opportunity to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Lenert. Brooke Blades.

Survey along the US Route 301 corridor was guided by a 2006 predictive model. The effort was informed by previous modeling efforts in Delaware and by earlier models primarily prehistoric in focus.The historic component identified margins adjacent to older roadways as having at least medium potential for sites and isolated house locations shown on nineteenth-century maps as high potential locations. Sites dating to the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were at times encountered in medium...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joyce H. Steinmetz.

An East Carolina University graduate PhD researcher utilized historical research methods to narrow down the Robert J. Walker’s general location and its key archaeological features for site identification. Interviews with key local wreck divers and commercial bottom fishermen provided local environmental knowledge of unidentified wrecks and fishing gear snags within the general search area. This information was essential input to the remote sensing search planned and executed on the NOAA...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew D. W. Lydecker.

An important consideration in the excavation of an archaeological site is spatial control. Establishing provenience is particularly challenging in a harsh environment such as the Savannah River, where black water, high current, limited dive windows, safety constraints, and limited budgets do not allow traditional archaeological methods to achieve success in a project with the scope of the excavation and recovery of the CSS Georgia. The nature of the Savannah River environment dictates a more...