Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul White.

Mining camps are certainly a minor one of the kinds of historic sites with which we are occasionally concerned. So began Franklin Fenenga’s prospectus for an archaeology of mining that appeared in the inaugural issue of our journal in 1967. Fenenga went on to identify areas where archaeology stood to make notable contributions and topics where archaeological attention promised only limited yields. Investigations of the mining industry had been sporadic at the time of Fenenga’s article, but...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Greg Katz.

Dr. Stephen Potter has a long-standing interest in Great Falls Park, a unit of the George Washington Memorial Parkway (GWMP), in Virginia. The park is located in the Potomac Gorge, a rocky area where rapids divide the upper and lower Potomac River valley. Breathtaking in its beauty, Great Falls was also an important feature of the Native American and Colonial era landscapes. The falls were able to be crossed, but not without difficulty and danger. Native American petroglyphs are concentrated in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel S. Tracey.

Existing sectarian divides in Northern Ireland are still perceived to originate from the 17th century expansion of British colonial control into Ireland, most resolutely seen in the atrocities of the Northern Irish Conflict, or ‘the Troubles’.  However an explosion of urban historical excavations in recent years has illuminated an archaeological record that appears to contradict dominant political powerhouses and rhetoric. Archaeological investigations throughout the former transatlantic port...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alasdair Brooks.

Ceramics analysis is central to historical archaeology on both sides of the Atlantic; indeed, the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology [SPMA], which is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2016, originally grew out of a group dedicated to the study of post-medieval ceramics in Britain.  This poster outlines some key components of SPMA's internationally significant contribution to ceramics analysis in historical archaeology over the last 50 years, as part of the celebration of this significant...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph M. Bagley.

A systematic re-processing of the ceramic assemblages recovered from the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston during the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (Big Dig) is revealing new insights and research avenues into this prominent 18th-century earthenware production center.  This paper will review the history of the dozens of potters participating in Charlestown’s potting industry in the 17th and 18th centuries and provide a preliminary typology and dating guide to Charlestown wares and decorations. ...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Huguette Lamontagne. Allison L Bain. Pierre Francus. Geneviève Treyvaud.

In Quebec City, the local earthenware ceramic industry began around 1636 with the production of both bricks and pottery. While post excavation visual examination and comparison with established earthenware typologies often suggest European productions, we propose a microscopic examination using archaeometric analyses in order to identify the presence of local wares. A collection of 52 earthenware sherds from four sites in the region was selected for analysis. Tomodensitometry (CT-scanning) and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only M. Jay Stottman.

The development of an activist archaeology has led to an examination of how archaeologists can collaborate with and benefit communities. The notion that the products of archaeological research are relatively weak tools for achieving activist goals has led some archaeologists to emphasize the performance of archaeology as a more effective way to engage communities. In this paper I will examine the performance of archaeology as a way to create heritage landscapes and achieve activist goals. I will...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Roger Dorr.

Public archeology and prehistoric technology demonstrations are powerful.  These tools serve to connect visitors to archeological sites and artifacts and create the next generation of stewards.  In this presentation, I’ll explore how these methods have been used to create meaningful connections between visitors and cultural parks.

DOCUMENT Citation Only boyd sipe.

The Columbian Harmony Cemetery was established in the mid-19th century to serve the District’s African American community and continued in use until 1960 when approximately 37,000 burials were exhumed and remains were re-interred in the National Harmony Memorial Park in Landover, Maryland.  However, the burial removal process at Columbian Harmony Cemetery was not complete; not all burials were exhumed and re-interred.  Headstones and other cemetery monuments, entire coffins, coffin fragments and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Moore.

Archaeological investigations of the seabed within Esquimalt Harbour and in advance of extensive seabed remediation have revealed archaeological evidence of human activity over millennia.  Testing methodologies have included testing between the upper inter-tidal area and the subtidal areas to about 10 m water depth.  Evidence of precontact use on landsurfaces that may have been exposed 7,000 years previously have included fragments of basketry.  The port has been well known for the last 150...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wesley S. Clarke.

The Nathaniel Clark pottery was established at Marietta, Ohio, in 1808 and is thus one of the first such operations in the region.  Excavations initiated in 2013 have encountered well-preserved features, and have produced a useful sample of product and production debris over three field seasons.  Concurrent documentary research is also providing details on the personal and business contexts of the Clark pottery.  The location of this manufactory at a major regional hub provides insight regarding...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen James. Gordon Watts.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District, in partnership with the Georgia Ports Authority, is proposing to expand the Savannah Harbor navigation channel on the Savannah River.  As designed, the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project (SHEP) will consist of deepening and widening various portions of the harbor. Previous surveys identified the remains of the CSS Georgia, a Civil War ironclad-ram within the Area of Potential Effect, and as proposed, the SHEP would adversely affect this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith M Hawkins Trautt.

During improvements to the Poplar Street Bridge in the City of St. Louis, Missouri, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) uncovered the Madam Haycraft (23SL2334) and Louis Beaudoin sites in 2012.  The Archaeological Research Center of St. Louis, Inc. excavated portions of the Madam Haycraft site in the winter of 2013/2014, which included features associated with a mid-19th century oyster bar and a domestic building.  Although archaeological investigations continue to be conducted at...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristin E Swanton.

In 2010, Dr. Kevin McBride from the University of Connecticut conducted an archaeological fieldschool at various archaeological sites associated with the Pequot War, which took place from 1636-1638. News of the archaeological survey illicted many diverse responses from interested parties and community members. As a result, students participating in the field school benefited from the opportunity to interact with descendant communities, property owners, and other interested publics. This brief...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa E. Fischer.

Disseminating archaeological findings to the public is an important part of the discipline’s mission. However raw archaeological data are often difficult for a non-specialist audience to interpret. Including a mediating layer of information that helps the reader to understand the data can provide needed contextual information when presenting archaeological findings for a public audience. Developing and maintaining this additional interpretive content, however, can be difficult, especially for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Victor.

Frontier spaces are busy, dynamic zones of meeting, and change, yet often in the realm of research and preservation, these locales are given peripheral attention in favor of more well-established metropoles. I examine two sites: Smuttynose Island, in the Isles of Shoals, Maine, and Highland City, Montana. Thanks to the efforts of the Smuttynose Island Steward Program and the United States Forest Service (especially the Passport in Time Program), these two frontier resource-extraction communities...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Morrow. Ian Kuijt.

What is the price of death?  Funeral wakes, at the intersection of religion, community, and material consumption, are one way to consider the connotation of marginal communities as representing national and local traditions and historic identity. The coastal islands of rural western Ireland have historically been presented as culturally isolated, economically disadvantaged, and geographically inaccessible. In the Western region, religious and local traditions surrounding death have been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kimberly P Kenyon.

In the ongoing excavation of archaeological site 31CR314 (Blackbeard’s flagship Queen Anne’s Revenge), approximately 3,000 concretions have been raised as of Fall 2014.  With a plan for complete recovery, and considering that an estimated 60% of the site has been excavated so far, over 5,000 concretions could eventually be recovered.  With the substantial amount of conservation to be done and only 2 full-time conservators, a plan for how to proceed through the collection was needed.  Over the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ranjith M. Jayasena.

Cesspits are a typical urban phenomenon and in Amsterdam these were usually brick structures beneath a latrine house. In addition to their primary sanitary function, they also became repositories for household waste, resulting in a record of domestic artifacts as well as faunal and botanical debris. Six decades of archaeology in Amsterdam have revealed over 300 cesspits, opening a window on the material culture and diet of the city’s population from the 14th-century onwards. This paper will...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Ness. Carl Halbirt.

For decades, Cultural Resource Management (CRM) projects have yielded a wealth of information and artifacts. While some of these projects have been incorporated into academic research, many remain unstudied and unpublished. The situation is especially problematic in municipal and small-scale archaeology programs that are constrained by time, logistics, and budgetary considerations. Fortunately, students are in a prime position to help remedy the issue by working with such programs. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Miller. James Davidson. Emily Palmer.

The Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN) was established in 2005 and within a year hosted its first Project Archaeology workshop. As a proud sponsor of Project Archaeology in Florida, FPAN staff partnered with the National Park Service and University of Florida to publish the first Investigating Shelter investigation in the southeast. It was also the first in the Investigating Shelter series to feature a National Park site. Investigating a Tabby Slave Cabin teacher guide and student...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Martha Zierden. Elizabeth J. Reitz.

Archaeological evidence for regional and inter-site landscape use during the antebellum period in Charleston, South Carolina, suggests that segregation and segmentation characterized much, but not all, of the city's economy.  Much of the city's architecture and material culture reflects economic disparity in an increasingly crowded urban environment.  Data from plantation, residential, commercial, public, and market sites reveal fluid and complex provisioning strategies that linked the city with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiffany C. Cain. Elias Chi Poot. Secundino Cahum Balam.

As a framework, collaborative archaeology forefronts reciprocity and shared knowledge as primary components of archaeological work. Historical archaeology has long been concerned with public engagement but continually tends toward the model of an expert archaeologist beneficently bestowing knowledge about "their history" on curious or concerned publics rather than toward reciprocal partnerships. If we are to consider the future of the field, we should be rethinking the role archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul R. Mullins. Timo Ylimaunu.

Cutting across the Arctic Circle in the heart of Finnish Lapland, Santa Claus Village celebrates familiar holiday legends while offering visits with Santa and the opportunity to purchase a host of consumer goods.  The Yuletide tourist attraction north of Rovaniemi sits on a landscape that was a Luftwaffe airbase during World War II, and many of the foundations of the massive base’s support structures visibly dot the forests around Santa Claus land.  The history of Finland’s status as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Beverly A. Chiarulli. Nancy Smith. marion smeltzer.

Five National Park Service units located in Western Pennsylvania present the history of the region from the days of George Washington through the 18th century industrial period to even more recent events.  From 1999 through 2009, a partnership between the NPS and Indiana University of Pennsylvania provided opportunities for students to gain field and lab experience working on NPS projects and conducting research for MA Thesis projects.  These opportunities provided the students with needed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amber J Grafft-Weiss.

Kingsley Plantation, a Second Spanish Period site located on Fort George Island in Jacksonville, Florida, has seen various excavations over the course of the past six decades. In addition to an intensive focus on the interiors of slave cabins, the investigation of which allows interpretation of private and personal spaces, yards around the cabins have been examined in order to better understand those areas that operate as both personal and public. Yards provided the settings for activities tied...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lyrsa M Torres-Vélez.

Puerto Rico’s history is a blend of the different ethnicities that settled in the island after the Spanish Conquest. This ethnogenesis can be studied through the culinary traditions that conform what we now refer to as criollo. Using the works of Mary C. Beaudry and Elizabeth M. Scott as a sounding board, this research consists of two parts. First, an analysis of cooking books available in Puerto Rico during the 19th century in order to establish the different methods and tools available at the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jason Boroughs.

By the antebellum era enslaved communities across large tidewater Chesapeake plantations boasted deep temporal and broadly dispersed roots, enjoining residents across quarters through bonds of kinship and camaraderie that often transcended plantation boundaries.  Broad cross-plantation neighborhoods encompassed mosaics of significant places suffused with notions of community and grounded in generational investments in labor and experience, places and ties that often retain value to present-day...

DOCUMENT Citation Only J. Eric Deetz.

By the early nineteenth century the game of cricket had gone through a major transformation.  In the eighteenth century it was it a game played mostly by the landed gentry with all of the associated drinking and gambling. By 1800 it had become a game played by common people and had come to represent a less decadent way of life as espoused by idea of Muscular Christianity.  The British took both the game and this ideology with them throughout their colonies.  This paper examines the physical and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John J. Mintz.

Public archaeology has been a long-standing practice at Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site.  Began by pioneering archaeologist Stanley South in the 1950s, his style of public archaeology involved having on-going excavations visible to the public and timely disseminated results through local newsletters.  Yet in the half-century dearth of investigations since South departed the site, public archaeology was largely forgotten and all but disappeared.  However, recent efforts to more...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James A Smailes. Steven Anthony. Dennis Knepper. David Shaw. Thomas Berkey.

The Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society (MAHS) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of historic shipwrecks and other underwater cultural resources. Since 2010 MAHS has been assisting the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) with an assessment of cultural resources on Pickles Reef, a small coral reef located within the sanctuary just south of Molasses Reef.  Our initial surveys suggested that the site was a barge that carried cement for Henry Flagler’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Graham J Henderson.

During June and July of 2015, a historical archaeological field school from Middle Tennessee State University’s Public History Program conducted a survey and assessment of Clover Bottom plantation (40DDV186) in Nashville, Tennessee. This excavation looked to bring forth new material evidence for the experiences of the property’s majority of enslaved and emancipated residents. This paper presents the results of topographic and shovel-test surveys and test excavations as they relate to ongoing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Chidester. David Gadsby.

The recent uprising in West Baltimore took place less than two miles from the neighborhood of Hampden, but, with a few notable exceptions, it made little impact there.  Writers and historians have long understood the Baltimore neighborhood of Hampden to be culturally, geographically, and racially  isolated from the city in which it is embedded.  Archaeological investigations performed there have helped to illustrate how class and power relationships changed over time, ultimately reinforcing that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lauren Alston Bridges.

The twentieth century, the formative period of historical archaeology, is marked by an ideological shift from the fervent consumerism and industrialism of the nineteenth century, towards a growing institutional concern for the nation’s finite natural and historical resources. A focused case study of twentieth century railroad stations highlights various themes pertinent to the discussion of the role of historical archaeology in the Historic Preservation Movement, which focuses on preservation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandra T. Parker.

The Fairfax County Park Authority’s museum standards and use of technology has changed over the years and we are currently reevaluating and improving our archaeology collections care. In spirit of this conference we are making a call to action: we are stressing to those working in archaeology collections the importance of good collections management. Without good collections management, field work, cataloging, researching, and artifacts can lose their original meaning, be insufficiently cared...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jim McKee.

The preservation and exploration of William Dry’s wharf and the entire Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site waterfront would not be possible without the involvement of many different organizations and entities. What started as an archaeological project has evolved into one of the largest and most innovative shoreline stabilization projects in the nation. Archaeologists from the NC Department of Cultural Resources, United States Army Corps of Engineers, East Carolina University, Wake...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles D Bendig. Nicholas C. Budsberg.

Protecting cultural heritage and disseminating archaeological research are two of the primary tenets of archaeology.  Protocols, such as the 2001 UNESCO Convention, emphasize monitoring sites over excavation and conservation because of the financial constraints and labor involved, as well as the physical space needed to treat, store, and display collections.  However, no concise field standards exist, few clear directives are offered, and as a result, the application of appropriate conservation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karin Bruwelheide. Douglas Owsley. Kathryn Barca.

More than three decades ago, a highway expansion project resulted in the excavation of thirty-five historic graves at Catoctin Furnace. Initial analysis was conducted by Smithsonian anthropologist J. Lawrence Angel, who identified the remains as African or African-American, presumably associated with the late eighteenth – mid-nineteenth century operation of the iron works. This report presents updated assessments of demography and pathology, as well as stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paola Ortiz. Castros. Francheska Martinez. Edith Morales.

Military confrontations during the first half of August of 1898, between Coamo and Aibonito, Puerto Rico, were the last known developments of the Spanish-American War. Historically, this area has been listed as the last battlefield of Spain in America. There are several factors about these military events, such as scarcity of historical resources, political conflicts of interest, and the unseemly lack of archeological research, that have kept them from being defined in the academic literature....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dominique Rissolo. James C. Chatters. Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales. Alberto E Nava Blank. Blaine Schubert. H. Gregory McDonald. Pilar Luna Erreguerena.

In addition to a nearly complete human skeleton dating to the Late Pleistocene, the submerged cave site of Hoyo Negro contains a diverse and well preserved assemblage of extinct and extant fauna from the Yucatan Peninsula. Recent and on-going investigations have focused on the documentation, sampling, and partial recovery of select specimens for description and analysis. Of particular interest are bears of the genus Tremarctos, a yet unnamed megalonychid ground sloth, cougars (Puma concolor),...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin P Ford. Nick J Bon-Harper.

Longstanding questions about the main house at Ash Lawn-Highland prompted a Phase I archaeological study of the plantation’s domestic core and adjacent hilltop in 2014. This work revealed an area of interest just east of and adjacent to the 1870s wing. Phase II testing of this area in 2015 identified a substantial masonry foundation with partial basement. Associated material culture suggests that the structure dates to the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The projected architectural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alistair G Paterson. Wendy Van Duivenvoorde. Souter Corioli. Green Jeremy.

The archaeological sites related to the wreck of the 1629 VOC Batavia and subsequent mutiny have been studied since the 1960s. As part of the 'Shipwrecks of the Roaring 40s' Australian Research Council project, new discoveries have been made at several Batavia sites, particularly of victims on Beacon Island and the first European execution site on Long Island. These and other innovations help illuminate one of Australia's grimmest moments in history.  

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Schwemmer.

During the recent field season in Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, and off the Golden Gate entrance near San Francisco Bay, several new shipwrecks were discovered. They included the passenger steamship S.S. City of Rio de Janeiro, referred to as the "Titanic of the Golden Gate" due to the high loss of life and the passenger steamship S.S. City of Chester also lost near the Golden Gate after a collision with the steamship RMS Oceanic. Off Point Reyes, the Norwegian tramp...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph A. Downer.

This paper discusses the ongoing archaeological survey of the African-American Cemetery at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Ultimately, this project was designed to bring about a better understanding of this space on the plantation landscape and to honor those unknown who call this spot their final resting place. Through the use of this space, it is believed that a portion of Mount Vernon’s enslaved population was able to culturally resist their imposed social position through the reinforcement...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ana F Edwards.

The Shockoe Bottom historic district in Richmond, Virginia holds an invisible 320-year old story of Black life in Virginia that coincided with and contributed to Richmond's origins and development - from 250+ years as a slave society to the end of slavery through Jim Crow and the civil rights era. The community-based struggle to reclaim the Black history of Shockoe Bottom sought first to assert the right to learn more about their history in Richmond but was later forced to focus on protecting...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandi Carrier. Antti Pulkkinen. Michael Heinz.

Strong magnetic field perturbations resulting from Earth-directed solar events can adversely affect marine archaeological survey. The immediate onset of geomagnetic storms and fast compression of the magnetopause create short duration, high amplitude spikes in Earth’s magnetic field that appear similar to signatures of archaeological anomalies. Aggressive processing, analysis, and comparison of single instrument survey and observatory datasets collected during geomagnetic storms prevented...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William L Fleming.

The PIllar Dollar wreck is well-known to treasure salvors and looters, but has only recently been investigated in an archaeological sense. East Carolina University's Program in Maritime Studies conducted an excavation of the site for the Program's 2014 Fall Field School in September. With the knowledge garnered from that project, as well as previous condition reports and treasure salvor guides, this project aims to reconstruct the vessel and learn about its origins and use. The final result will...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael C. Murray.

Since the dawn of underwater archaeology, the ability to record features with a high level of accuracy and detail compared to terrestrial sites has been an extremely difficult prospect. However, according to 2G Robotics, the ULS-200 underwater laser scanner can resolve features on an astounding millimetric scale, but under the most ideal conditions. While this has some very exciting implications for the field of underwater archaeology, the CSS Georgia resides in an extremely challenging and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey A. Pardee.

In 2015, the remains of the CSS Georgia, a Civil War ironclad-ram and a National Register of Historic Places listed site, were fully archaeologically documented and removed as a permitting requirement for the proposed construction of the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project (SHEP). Conducted and overseen by archaeologists with Panamerican Consultants, the data recovery project required the development and implementation of unique methodologies relative to both the working environment and artifact...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jason Raupp.

Penscola, Florida’s red snapper fishery was among the city’s most prosperous industries by the late 19th century. The vessels employed in the fishery, known locally as "snapper smacks", were heavily influenced by the evolving designs of New England fishing schooners, but adapted for conditions encountered in the Gulf of Mexico. And though these designs proved ideal for snapper fishing, external factors reduced capital in the industry and led Pensacola fish houses to simply recycle schooners...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thadra P. Stanton.

Located in south Wakulla County, FL, Byrd Hammock is a multi-component village and burial mound site. The site has been ravaged over the last century by looters but has never been developed. Recent potential development threats provided the impetus to seek partners to assist in procuring the site and add it to the St. Mark’s Wildlife Refuge. Efforts to conduct additional research for possible NHL nomination on the site were launched last year and a call for volunteers was issued to the greater...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stacy L Bumback.

A diverse team of spotters and archaeologists were assembled to assist Snohomish County with the site stabilization efforts following the massive landslide that occured March 2014 in Oso, Washington.  This three month project focused on the recovery of human remains and personal items from the 300,000 cubic yards of search and rescue piles that were created during search and recovery immediately following the slide. The community was intimately involved in every aspect of the project and their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary C. Mills.

Today as you walk beside the Delaware River in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood, you will find no evidence of the glass furnaces that stood along its banks from the 1770s to the 1920s. However, excavations are yielding an extraordinary assemblage of flint (lead) glass tableware, lighting devices, and other objects like those made at Union Cut and Plain Flint Glass Works, a little-known factory located between the project area and the Delaware River. Between 1826 and 1842 Union successfully...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brenda Altmeier.

 Navigational markers are prominent reminders of our country’s maritime heritage. In 1789 the Lighthouse Act was one of several laws the first congress passed to regulate and encourage trade and commerce of the new world. Shipping routes today are much like the historical routes used during discovery and colonization of the new world. Many maritime heritage resources in the Florida Keys Sanctuary are a result of complications along these historical shipping routes. Shipwrecks in the Florida Keys...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Delise Torres Ortiz.

This paper presents archaeological evidence on Isla de la Mona relating to periods of intense activity during the 19th century. Material remains inside many caves include evidence of guano extraction and mining-related. However, this is not the only evidence that can be obtained about the history of the 19th century in Mona; engravings, inscriptions and intentional marks abound in the caves. Various historic documents indicate that the island was visited by different individuals and communities,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Chadwick. Elisabeth A. LaVigne.

As geophysical surveys become more common and a standard procedure on archeological projects within the United States, the question raised is whether or not the methods and systems being used are appropriate for the questions being asked by the principal investigators. Therefore, a compilation of geophysical methods used during archaeological investigations and their results in the Middle Atlantic region, primarily those used on transportation projects, was conducted as part of the Route 301...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jenna K Carlson.

Since Bartosiewicz, Van Neer, and Lentacker published their ground-breaking research on the osteological identification of draught cattle, zooarchaeological studies of traction animals have proliferated.  Whereas most of these studies draw from Old World assemblages, this research applies Bartosiewicz, Van Neer, and Lentacker’s (1997) methodology for assessing draught cattle to eighteenth-century assemblages from Drayton Hall, South Carolina, and Oxon Hill Manor, Maryland.  In assessing the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dessa E. Lightfoot.

Faunal remains from archaeological sites are only the byproduct of meals, discarded after the meat has been stripped from them.  A detailed butchery analysis is one way of thinking of bones as vehicles for meat, making it possible to link what was removed for consumption with what is found archaeologically.  Seeking to reconstruct meat cuts is another way to get at not just what species or how much people were eating, but how that meat was conceived of, prepared, and served.  Butchery analysis...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Masur.

This poster exhibits a survey of recent (2000-2015) literature on historical zooarchaeology in eastern North America. Emphasizing studies of colonialism and cultural mixture, this survey evaluates ways that historical archaeologists use zooarchaeological data to investigate topics such as human impacts on environments, economic strategies, and the expression of social identities. By focusing on trends in analytical methods and the research questions posed by archaeologists, this survey...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samantha Malette.

Analysis of a medicine bottle assemblage excavated from a former Detroit household in Roosevelt Park acts as a starting point for discussing the material and social world of health and hygiene, and the dual role that patent medicine played in the lives of people at the turn of the 20th-century as both a remedy and poison. Drawing upon the history of pharmacy, a combination of artifact-based analysis and archival documentary evidence reveals patterns of medicinal consumption for the property’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sherene Baugher.

Andersonville is a familiar name to Americans because of the effective way both the POW camp and the cemetery are memorialized as National Heritage Sites.  But what were the conditions in the Northern POW camps for Confederate prisoners?  The Elmira, New York Prisoner of War Camp was the Andersonville of the north.  This site, like other Northern POW camps, was dismantled after the war. What was the fate of the Northern POW camp cemeteries? Were there monuments to the Confederate dead? Did any...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Veit.

This paper examines the commemorative iconography of Kolkata India's South Park Street Cemetery.  Established in 1767, the South Park Street Cemetery is the resting place of the leadership of England's colonial efforts in Bengal.  It contains over 1600 monuments and likely many more burials.  These monuments range from enormous masonry pyramids to scaled down Greek and Roman temples, and Hindu and Mughal inspired tombs.  Drawing upon an international commemorative vocabulary combining classical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah N. Janesko.

This paper compares two late nineteenth-to early twentieth-century African American tenant farm sites located on the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) campus in Edgewater, Maryland. I used historical population and agricultural census data to provide context for initial field findings, and used these contextualized findings to formulate questions about changing social and agricultural practices after emancipation.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Blair Atcheson.

The US Navy (USN) manages a collection of over 14,000 historic aircraft wrecks, a significant portion of which are terrestrial sites. In addition to planned research of terrestrial aircraft wreck sites, the Navy often receives notice from the public of a potential USN aircraft wreck and must determine how best to respond. Increasing notifications from the public have led to the development of various approaches to site management that take into account local public interest, property ownership...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott K. Parker.

Little Antietam Creek, Inc. (LACI) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to educate people of all ages about archaeological and historic research through hands on teaching.  Since 2012 we have been excavating the remains of an 18th-century house on the Stoner Farm near Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. The excavations have been conducted entirely by volunteers, students and interns with professional supervision. Our approach has been successful in introducing numerous school children and adults...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jean-Sébastien Guibert.

This paper presents results from the first excavations on the Saintes Bay’s wreck. The site was discovered in the 1990’s but no archaeological survey or excavation took place apart from a DRASSM expertise in 2002. Known by several divers the site was partially looted but has not been totally destroyed. The wreck may be Anemone a French schooner built in 1823 in Bayonne and used as a custom ship in Guadeloupe. Anemone patrolled the coast in order to prevent illegal trade, in particular the slave...

DOCUMENT Citation Only cassandra michaud.

Long overshadowed by and conflated with the fictional story of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the life of Josiah Henson is revisited at the location he was enslaved in suburban Maryland.  Archaeological research on the former plantation has uncovered traces of life on the farm and the 19th century landscape.  This work provides part of the framework for the design of a public museum to be built at the park, dedicated to Henson's life and slavery in Montgomery County.  This paper will discuss the ongoing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Kraus. Jason Shellenhamer.

Catoctin Mountain has always been a challenging landscape, but one that rewards perseverance. Native Americans negotiated its rocky slopes in search of rhyolite for stone tools, and hunted and camped along the freshwater streams and springs. Workers from the nearby Catoctin Iron Furnace burned its ample timber for charcoal to fuel the ironworks. Innovative farmers and homebuilders created flat terraces for their houses and gardens on the mountainside. During the Prohibition era, some of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nancy L. Powell. Paul Kreisa. Geri Knight-Iske.

In 2014 the District Public Schools began extensive construction and renovation of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, the former Western High School. Portions of the building date to the last decade of the 19th century, the former location of The Cedars residence, the home of the Cox family. The few photographs and descriptions of The Cedars were thought to be all that remained due to the construction of the school.  Stantec and EHT Traceries undertook archaeological and archival...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William A Griswold.

The fortification of Bemus Heights at Saratoga by the Americans during the Revolutionary War was engineered by Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Polish military engineer who had taken up the American cause at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Kosciusko designed the fortifications on Bemus Heights at the River Overlook to oppose the British plan to advance to Albany along the River Road.  In 2009, a geophysical study was conducted on one of the River Fortification elements in Kosciusko’s defense...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen D. Nagiewicz.

The Robert J Walker a paddlewheel steamshipin the service US Coast Survey, and predecessor to NOAA Office of Coast Survey, before it was lost  after a collision at sea in 1860. The wreck, identified in 2013 by NOAA was placed on the US National Parks Service, National Register of Historic Places. To document and protect the site, NOAA requested that a consortium of groups undertake the archaeological site work as a cooperative operation between governmental, non-governmental and academic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samantha J. Henderson.

In 2008, the archaeology department at James Madison’s Montpelier began a multi-year project that sought to understand the community dynamics between enslaved workers at the plantation in the early 19th century. This study excavated and analyzed four sites: South Yard, Stable Quarter, Field Quarter, and Tobacco Barn Quarter. Each of these sites represents a different community of enslaved workers, from those who worked in the mansion to field hands.  This paper will compare the macrobotanical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Lickliter-Mundon. Bridget Buxton.

In 1944, factory workers and community members from Tulsa, OK bought war bonds to finance the last B-24 Liberator built by the Tulsa Douglas Aircraft plant. They named her, wrote signatures and messages on her fuselage, and sent her to Europe with a part Tulsa crew. She went down off the coast of Croatia after a bombing mission but was never forgotten as a WWII community icon. Archaeologists are now in the process of preserving the cultural heritage and physical remains of the site, as well...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Keller. Dan Ott.

A number of organizations within the National Park Service collaborated in the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway to document the extensive United States Army Corps of Engineers "improvements" along the lower river below St. Croix Falls. From 1879 to 1900 the Corps built 3.6 miles of wing dams, closing dams, jetties, revetments, and shoreline rip-rap to regulate the river and make it a predictable commercial highway for steamboats and log drives. Through discovery and documentation of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brendan Doucet. Athena I Zissis. John F. Cherry. Krysta Ryzewski.

The Caribbean island of Montserrat’s historic and prehistoric cultural history is threatened by volcanic activity, modern development, and the natural processes accompanying mountainous, tropical environments.  Survey and Landscape Archaeology on Montserrat (SLAM) aims to document the nature and location of archaeological sites to inform our understanding of the island’s colonial landscape.  Because many areas are not easily accessible, SLAM conducted a hybrid survey process utilizing LiDAR...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kimberly R. Allen. Terry Brock.

Central to community conversations about the economic development of Shockoe Bottom was the general concession that any indication of significant archaeological findings would result in efforts to accommodate this possibility before development.  Recognizing that conversations about archaeology did not feature the significant "voice" of archaeologists, the community convened a day-long symposium on the history and archaeology of Shockoe Bottom.  This gathering led to the formation of RVA...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Titta Kallio-Seppä. Terhi T. Tanska.

In this paper we discuss how sacred places in Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland lost their sacred meanings. Churches and graveyards in the early 17th century town of Oulu and 14th to early 17th century rural Ii were destroyed, forgotten and eventually turned into part of secular residential areas. Consequently the social memory of these places changes over time, becoming forgotten, then erroneously remembered, and finally rediscovered and brought to public attention by archaeologists....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily A Williams.

Norfolk’s 1855, yellow fever epidemic offers a unique opportunity within which to consider the way a commmunity’s emotional response is manifested in the cemetery landscape.  Within a three month period, a third of the city’s population had died, martial law had been declared, and the city had been blockaded to prevent the fever’s spread.  The epidemic was well-documented in newspapers as well as in the accounts of diarists and epistolarians, which chronicle the overwhelming fear, disruption and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Liz Anne Thomas.

‘Sailortown’ is the unofficial name given to a tiny enclave of streets, located on Clarendon Docks, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Throughout the 19th century and up to the middle of the 20th century Sailortown was a diverse community with manufacturing and maritime industries. In1969, following the downturn of Belfast’s industrial economy, plans for redevelopment of the Docklands commenced. In 2015 archaeological investigations, first of its kind in this area, focused on investigating household...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean H. Reid.

This paper illustrates how images captured by satellite remote sensing technology can be used to detect vegetation that indicates archaeological sites in West Africa. These sites are typically marked by a pattern of vegetation that differs from the surrounding landscape, including concentrations of very large trees with sociocultural and historical significance: cotton (Ceiba pentandra) and baobab (Adansonia digitata). These features are conspicuous elements of the landscape both from the ground...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Allison L Bain.

In planning research strategies that integrate environmental archaeology, comparative data sets are strongly encouraged. If analyses of faunal, floral or insect remains reveal details about past environments and economies, then the integration of other methods can only provide more data, improving our knowledge of past populations and their daily lives. A decade of environmental research and sampling on a single site in Quebec City, the Intendant’s Palace Site, has allowed the opportunity to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bradley A. Krueger. Robert S. Neyland. Julie Schablitsky.

In 2010 and 2011, the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA), the Underwater Archaeology Branch (UAB) of the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC), and the Maryland Historical Trust (MHT) investigated a War of 1812 shipwreck (site 18PR226) in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The wreck, a relatively intact fully-decked vessel, is believed to have served in the Chesapeake Flotilla, a small fleet of gunboats and support craft commanded by Commodore Joshua Barney during the defense of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alicia Paresi. Jessica Costello. Nicole Estey.

Here in the NMSC archeology lab, we are privileged to work with archeological collections from national parks across the Northeast.  Many of these collections were excavated before 1987, and in many cases, sat untouched and unutilized in storage until they were eligible for cataloging funds.  We have seen firsthand the incredible research potential – unknown and untapped for decades – that these collections offer.  One memorable collection from Petersburg National Battlefield was excavated in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jolene Smith. Ellen Chapman.

Richmond, Virginia’s first official archaeological site record dates to 1963. In the intervening half century, the archaeological landscape has changed in physical and metaphorical ways. One important yardstick of these changes is the 1985 Richmond Metropolitan Area Archeological Survey (RMAAS), a large regional planning project conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University Archaeological Research Center. This paper explores Richmond’s archaeological landscape through a Geographical Information...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anne-Marie Cantwell.

Diana diZerega Wall has a distinguished career in Archaeology working as a pioneer in large-scale urban excavations, as a museum curator, and as a university professor.  In each of these endeavors, she has made it a priority to bring the major implications of her scholarship, and that of archaeology itself, to a wide array of general audiences.  Much of this has been done by analyzing, with a contemporary eye, huge amounts of archaeological and historical data, collected for various reasons and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mia L Carey.

What happens when a concerned citizen notifies the D.C. City Archaeologist that a possible historic human burial is threated with disturbance on privately owned property? This paper outlines the archaeological survey conducted between June and August 2015 to answer this question. The possible human burial is that of Yarrow Mamout, a Muslim slave who purchased property at what is now 3324 Dent Place, NW, in Upper Georgetown in 1800 and lived there until his death in 1823. Mamout became famous...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Crowell.

When improvements were proposed for the Whitehurst Freeway in Washington, DC, existing conditions would not have recommended this heavily urbanized project area for a research-oriented archaeological investigation. The area was traversed by elevated freeway ramps and major roadways. As well, it had been the site of a 20th century school and 19th and 20th century industrial use.  Yet, because of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, archaeological investigations led to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Proebsting. Daniel Druckenbrod.

This paper includes recent discoveries from a survey of natural and cultural resources along a proposed 1.7 mile parkway at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest.  In addition to locating archaeological sites and mapping aboveground features, 10 forest plots were established within stands of increasing age adjacent to the proposed path of the parkway.  By measuring tree diameter, identifying tree species, and coring trees from three different positions in the forest canopy using dendrochronology,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn L Sikes.

During the summer of 2015, Middle Tennessee State University's Public History Program conducted an inaugural field school in historical archaeology at Clover Bottom plantation, assisting the Tennessee Historical Commission in its efforts to resolve lingering questions about the property's historic landscape and the experiences of African American families within it. This paper introduces the research design and longterm goals informing a multidisciplinary study of Clover Bottom's African...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wade Tharp.

This study examines published and unpublished historical archaeological research, historical documents research, and datable extant buildings to develop a temporal and geographical sequence of French colonial architectural designs and construction methods, particularly the poteaux-en-terre (posts-in-ground) and poteaux-sur-solle (posts-on-sill) elements in vernacular buildings, from the Western Great Lakes region to Louisiana, dating from 1690 to 1850.  Whether European colonists during the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julie Schablitsky.

The Maryland State Highway Administration had an opportunity to delineate and research an unmarked African American burial ground in southern Maryland. Prior to exploring the site, archaeologists reached out to a local descendent community in Charles County who agreed to speak for their ancestors. Throughout the project, archaeologists and the African American community shared in the discovery of the people buried in unmarked graves on the Smith Farm between ca. 1790 and ca. 1810. Forensic and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin A. McBride.

The National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program has provided funding to research and document several battlefields associated with the Pequot War (1636-1637) and King Philip's War (1675-1676) in southern New England. These battlefield surveys have yielded hundreds of battle-related objects including weapons, projectiles, equipment, and personal items associated with the Colonial and Native American combatants. These battlefield surveys have also provided significant information...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexander D. Keim.

Historical and archaeological analysis of sex work in the 19th-century tends to focus on what happens inside brothels. What happens when sex workers venture out into the city in the course of their daily lives? In this paper I examine the historical and archaeological evidence recovered from the mid-19th century 27-29 Endicott Street brothel located in the North End neighborhood of Boston, MA, and consider where in the urban landscape the residents of the brothel—Madame, servant, sex worker and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James A Moore.

Sexuality provides a powerful mechanism for patrolling the boundaries of socially constructed communities.   Imagined as a natural expression of basic human behavior, sexuality naturalizes social boundaries and marks them as immutable.  In the Nineteenth Century, the medical ills of the "overly-civilized" were identified as having a sexual basis.  Hysteria was given an etiology of too frequent sexual activity.  Education or business would interfere with the proper development of the uterus. For...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark U. Wilde-Ramsing. David J. Bernstein. Chris W. Freeman. Benjamin J. Sumners.

In 2006, the NC Department of Cultural Resources/Underwater Archaeology Branch and the US Army Corps of Engineers undertook an experimental project by placing a mound ofdredge spoil sediments on the updrift side of the Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck site. This experiment was designed to promote site preservation and decrease exposure of subaqueous cultural artifacts. A series of high-resolution multibeam sonar surveys were conducted to quantify and monitor the morphology of the sediment mound...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Esther White. Anna Agbe-Davies.

Historical archaeological studies have always relied upon statistically valid datasets for quantitative analyses and often required that archaeologists wade through volumes of text for clues to a site’s historical context.  The digital age allows for the collection of these data in a variety of ways including gathering primary sources through crowd sourcing – multiple users, often from a diversity of sites or backgrounds, compiling data into a central repository.  This paper explores the utility...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carolyn Kennedy.

A team of nautical archaeologists from Texas A&M University, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology and the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum returned to Shelburne Shipyard in June 2015 to continue examining Wreck 2, a steamboat wreck from the early 1800s.  Wreck 2 was surveyed during a preliminary investigation of four steamboat hulls in June 2014 and determined to be the oldest of the four.  The 2015 team recorded Wreck 2 using both traditional archaeological methods and photogrammetric...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Garrett Fesler. Paul Nasca.

Alexandria Archaeology recently completed excavation of a 12 ft. deep well feature located in the basement of a historic building in the Old Town section of Alexandria, Virginia.  The artifacts recovered from the well indicate that it was filled ca. 1820, when Thomas Shields operated the property as a tavern and bathhouse.  Shields most likely dug the well in order to draw water directly from the premises instead of hauling water from a public pump down the street.  Alas, the story does not have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Hacker.

In 1997 Site 8 was uncovered at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello through excavations conducted by the staff of the Monticello Department of Archaeology and students in the Monticello-University of Virginia Archaeological Field School. Six features identified as either storage pits or cellars provide evidence of four buildings that once stood to house enslaved field hands between c. 1770 and c. 1800. This occupation is contemporaneous with the period in which Thomas Jefferson shifted Monticello’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua L. Marano.

The National Historic Landmarks Program is an initiative administered by the National Park Service to identify national significant historic places that possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States. While there are currently more than 2,500 historic properties throughout the country bearing this distinction, only a small percentage include maritime cultural heritage and only seven include shipwrecks. While many individual National...