Conflict, Archaeology, and the Culture of the West

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

Conflicts in "The West" have an intersectionality of power, structure, functionalism, and pride that is hard to find in other places. This session dedicates itself to the understanding of how archaeology can help inform the relationships of culture and conflict, utilizing the concepts of Conflict Event Theory.

Other Keywords
Fort • Reuse • Labor • Colonialism • Children • Spanish • Idaho • conflict archaeology • The West • U.S.-Dakota war

Temporal Keywords
Historical • 1862 • 1598-1680 • mid nineteenth to early twentieth centuries

Geographic Keywords
North America • Coahuila (State / Territory) • New Mexico (State / Territory) • Oklahoma (State / Territory) • Arizona (State / Territory) • Texas (State / Territory) • Sonora (State / Territory) • United States of America (Country) • Chihuahua (State / Territory) • Nuevo Leon (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-4 of 4)

  • Documents (4)
Documents
  • The Archaeology of Asymmetric Warfare in the U.S. Dakota War of 1862, Woodlake Battlefield Minnesota (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sigrid Arnott. David Maki.

    Investigation of the patterns of asymmetric warfare at the Wood Lake Battlefield, the location of the last armed conflict between the Oceti Sakowin and the U.S. Military, revealed evidence of tactics used in asymmetric warfare in 1862 Minnesota. Conflict archaeology provides a new way of understanding the complexity of the cultural conflict as it played out in battle. Dakota traditional warfare, which relied on knowledge of the landscape and avoided loss of life, was adapted to fight against the...

  • "I Feel Like Taking Their Heads Off": Children in Fort Boise (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathan J. May.

    The archaeology of children has been an increasingly visible part of historical scholarship in recent years. However, there are places where they are still not visible. Work by the University of Idaho on the former grounds of Fort Boise (in Boise, ID) has provided an opportunity to explore the archaeology of children in a most unexpected place - a military fort. Excavations in multiple contexts on the former grounds of the fort have resulted in the recovery of many children's items dating from...

  • Laboring along the Rio Grande: Contextualizing Labor of the Spanish Early Colonial Period of New Mexico. (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam C Brinkman.

    Labor was a core component of the early period (1598-1680) of Spanish colonization of New Mexico. After failing to uncover mineral wealth in their new colony, the Spaniards kept their colony afloat by focusing on another exploitable resource: Indigenous labor. Historical archaeologists (e.g Silliman 2001, 2004; Voss 2008) have recently been reconsidering colonialism from a framework grounded in labor relationships. We know that Pueblo Indians and enslaved Plains people were forced to work on...

  • When the Conflict Ends: Building Reuse on the Wyoming Frontier (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Dana Lee Pertermann.

    Considering Conflict Event Theory as a paradigm for cuture change, we are then left to consider what happens to sites after the conflict ends, and what that change says about the nature of conflict and its temporal importance to the continuation of culture change. Several archaeological sites are examined within thisparadigm, including Ft Briger and Ft Fetterman. Parallels are also made between Wyoming sites and sites in Texas.