Society for Historical Archaeology 2017

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin C Kirby.

While much work at James Madison’s Montpelier looks at the differences in faunal remains between sites, the amount of intra-site analysis is lacking. This paper seeks to explore the relationship between previously analyzed faunal remains and their physical locations within the South Yard. The majority of domestic tasks at Montpelier centered around the South Yard, which included three dwellings for domestic slaves, two smokehouses for cured meats, and a kitchen where Nelly Madison had her meals...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William J. Wilson.

Proposed improvements to Berth 1 at the Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding Yard in Sturgeon Bay will require removal of the remains of the self-unloading, wooden schooner barge Adriatic. Built by master shipbuilder James Davidson as a three-masted schooner-barge, the 202-foot long, wooden-hulled Adriatic was launched in 1889 and later converted into a self-unloading barge, one of the earliest examples of what would become an iconic vessel type on the Great Lakes. The vessel spent its final seventeen...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley R. Hannum. Laura Ferries.

Public outreach and involvement is an increasingly important part of the field of archaeology. Yet for many people outside of the discipline, archaeology education comes solely from misleading television documentaries and fictional movies. The average visitor to The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is no exception to this, with many unaware of the difference between archaeology and paleontology, let alone the difference between archaeology and looting or treasure hunting. In fact, many of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathleen Clifford.

     Colonel Horatio Sharpe, governor of colonial Maryland for sixteen years, left behind a testament to his position and wealth in the form of Whitehall, his plantation home on the Severn River.  The home has been through many renovations, but in the 1950s, a man named Charles Scarlett bought the home and passionately attempted to restore it to its original glory.  The restoration included building an earthwork fortification that at first glance appears to have been part of the original layout,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Kostro.

The Raleigh Tavern stands out as both a pioneering excavation in the history of historical archaeology, and as one of Colonial Williamsburg’s earliest reconstruction projects.  First excavated in 1928, the foundations recorded at the site formed the basis of a tavern reconstruction that when completed in 1932, marked the official opening of Colonial Williamsburg to the public.  In summer 2016, Colonial Williamsburg’s archaeologists revisited the iconic tavern site with the hopes of reexamining...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alex D Velez.

Prairie madness is a documented phenomenon wherein immigrants who settled the Great Plains experienced episodes of depression and violence. The cause is commonly attributed to the isolation between the households and settlements. However, historical accounts from the late 19th and early 20th century also specify the sound of the winds on the plain as a catalyst. A number of conditions such as acute hyperacusis can cause increased sensitivity to environmental sounds. These conditions can result...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Miriam A. W. Rothenberg.

As James Delle recently argued, Caribbean plantation landscapes were built environments designed to mediate interactions between planters and enslaved labourers. In this paper, wind-powered sugar mills on the island of Montserrat are singled out as being prominent components of the plantation environment that were not only economically productive, but also served as markers of planter power and control. The mills’ distinctive shape and height renders them instantly identifiable, and their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only LouAnn Wurst.

Worker’s housing is the material embodiment of the contradictions and class struggle between capital and labor. These contradictions stem from capital’s goal of securing cheap and reliable labor while workers strive for higher wages and gaining a measure of control and autonomy over their own lives. Archaeologists tend to overly simplify these complex social relations by uncritically adopting common ideological descriptions such as paternalism or overusing dualisms like dominance and resistance....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dustin W Conklin.

Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries farmers in the town of Hector, Schuyler County, New York, sought out additional employment oppurtunies at an increased rate. These occupations included endeavors that ranged from shopkeepers and schoolteachers to stenographers and doctors. Furthermore, these additional strains on household labor impacted agricultural production across the town of Hector. This included differential product choices and land improvements. Historical and archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth A. Long.

This investigation of historical ceramics is conducted on a collection that dates from 1886 to 1915. Saenger Pottery Works was in operation from c.a.1885 through c.a. 1915. The size, form, and function variability of the ceramics inform about production techniques used and what forms are preferred over others. The issues in provenience and provenance are discussed because the pottery, while attributable to the site, do not have records of surface collection. Background research is a joint effort...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Glenn J. Farris.

During the California Gold Rush, hopeful Argonauts from all over the world descended on California, bringing whatever coinage they had with them. Merchants of the time were adept at accommodating the new arrivals. Whereas the silver reales of Spanish America had long been a mainstay of the economy on the East Coast of America, now many other forms of coinage made their appearance. Silver and gold were the accepted forms of currency because with the runaway inflation copper coins were of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marco Meniketti.

For over two centuries galleons carried treasure and commodities between Asia and Mexico, crossing the Pacific along established routes that took advantage of currents and winds. The voyage was difficult and the hardships endured were extreme. At least four are known to have been lost along the Pacific coast between Washington and Baja California, although none have been recovered archaeologically. In California, just north of the San Francisco Bay, the galleon San Agustin was wrecked at Pt....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Corey Malcom. Michael Pateman.

In 1860, the New Orleans-based slaving schooner Peter Mowell wrecked along the shore of Lynyard Cay in The Bahamas, while attempting to carry 400 captive African people to Cuba. Bahamian wreckers rescued the survivors and took them to Nassau: the crew was jailed and released, and the Africans were made indentured servants. After completing their indentures, the shipwrecked Africans blended into Bahamian society but maintained distinctive traditions from their homelands. In 2012, a Bahamian/US...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexis K Ohman.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dorothy Rowland.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew D Earle. Christopher R. Moore.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only J Myron Rolston. Kimberly P Kenyon. Teresa E Williams.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dan Gamble.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only John D. Richards.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Meierhoff.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Miguel Gutierrez.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Neil Norman. Adria LaViolette.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charlene A. Keck. Amy Fedchenko.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Mather.

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