Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Transportation agencies are among the primary sponsors of resource management archaeology in the United States. Millions of public dollars are expended annually on the identification, evaluation and study of archaeological sites ahead of the design and implementation of highway infrastructure. The scope of these projects ranges from very small reconnaissance efforts to massive data recovery excavations, and have produced new and valuable information on an astonishing variety of site types of every prehistoric and historic period. In the over four decades of highway archaeology, CRM practitioners have pioneered and perfected a variety of methodologies and research foci adapted to the demands and opportunities of highway and bridge projects. This symposium will highlight some of the best examples of recent highway archaeology, and address some of the future challenges presented by changes and expansion of highway infrastructure as we strive to save the past for the future.

Other Keywords
Cultural Resources and Heritage Management • Cultural Resource Management • Landscape Archaeology • Ceramic Analysis • Pueblo • Lithic Analysis • Research Design • Migration • Historical Archaeology • Survey

Geographic Keywords
United States of America (Country) • North America (Continent) • USA (Country) • Arizona (State / Territory) • New Mexico (State / Territory) • Oklahoma (State / Territory) • Texas (State / Territory) • Sonora (State / Territory) • Chihuahua (State / Territory) • Baja California (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-12 of 12)

  • Documents (12)
Documents
  • Archaeology Field School Meets Transportation Data Recovery: An Alternative Mitigation at the James W. Hatch Site (36CE544), Centre County, Pennsylvania (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Burns.

    This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Data recovery investigations at the James W. Hatch Site in Centre County, Pennsylvania via a collaboration between PennDOT, the Federal Highway Administration, and Juniata College demonstrate the potential for transportation archaeology to provide insightful data on prehistoric lifeways. The project provides a glimpse of...

  • Building Bridges: Federal, State, and Tribal Collaboration on the US 101 Elwha River Bridge Replacement Project, Washington State (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Wilson. Sean Stcherbinine. Roger Kiers.

    This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dam removal is restoring the culturally significant ecosystem of the Elwha River on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, but the resulting increase in water flow at the US 101 Elwha River Bridge has accelerated erosion at pier foundations, necessitating replacement. Ethnographic and archaeological evidence indicate the area...

  • Digging the Tucson–Ajo Highway: Eight Years of Transportation-Funded Archaeology along Arizona State Route 86 and New Perspectives on Eastern Papaguerían Prehistory (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Deil Lundin. John Langan.

    This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The eastern Papaguería, a region of south-central Arizona, has historically not been the subject of intensive archaeological study due to its agricultural marginality, sparsity of large village sites, and lack of development that would prompt compliance-driven archaeology. Excavations sponsored by the Arizona Department of...

  • Discovering Buried Pasts: Illinois Transportation Archaeology and the Rediscovery of America's First Native City (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alleen Betzenhauser. Thomas E. Emerson. Brad H. Koldehoff. Tamira K. Brennan.

    This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeology and transportation share a 60-year partnership in Illinois during which large-scale approaches to data recovery have become standard practices. These practices were recently employed to expose 28.5 acres of a precolumbian mound complex that is an integral part of Greater Cahokia. Investigations at East St Louis...

  • Metamorphosis of the Unique Pueblo III–IV Hokona Site in the El Morro Valley of New Mexico (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Schwendler.

    This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2007, the New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) sponsored full excavation of a small prehistoric archaeological site located on NMDOT and State land adjacent to Highway 53 a few miles east of El Morro National Monument in Cibola County. Earlier documentation suggested that the site comprised three basalt field...

  • NDDOT’s Collaborative Approach to Tribal Involvement during Project Development and Delivery (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Stoermer. Jeani L. Borchert. Ben Rhodd.

    This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The North Dakota Department of Transportation (NDDOT) has been working with regional Tribal Nations since 1998. In 2004, NDDOT and five of these Nations began jointly writing a Section 106 Programmatic Agreement for Tribal Consultation in North Dakota (PA). The PA among NDDOT, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and...

  • Re-discovery of the Jackson Street "Dog’s Nest" in Waterbury, Connecticut: The First-Generation European Immigrant Experience in New England’s Brass City (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only C. Scott Speal. Jean Howson. Leonard Bianchi.

    This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Section 106-mandated review associated with two recent transportation projects—one a City-driven US Department of Transportation TIGER grant program designed to stimulate economic development through local road improvements, and the other a Connecticut State Department of Transportation (CTDOT) undertaking involving...

  • Recent Work at the Pueblo del Alamo: Ceramic Production and Exchange in the Lower Salt River Valley (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Erina Gruner.

    This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2015, WestLand Resources has excavated sites along the proposed South Mountain Freeway, Loop 202 extension in Phoenix, Arizona, for the Arizona Department of Transportation. The freeway corridor lies in the western, lower Salt River Valley near the confluence with the Gila River, within what is traditionally defined as...

  • Refining Archaeological Probability Models: Case Studies from Georgia DOT Systematic Wetland Surveys (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Kate Schnitzer. Susan Olin.

    This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The results of several recent wetland surveys for the Georgia Department of Transportation are raising new questions about traditional archaeological probability models for inundated areas. Wetlands are often left largely uninvestigated during archaeological surveys due to restricted access, logistics issues, and by...

  • Spiders and Mud Daubers at LA112420, an Early Developmental Pithouse in Sandoval County, NM (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Wells. Matthew Leister. Sandra Brantley. Kenneth Brown.

    This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mud dauber nests are uncommon in archaeological contexts, but when preserved, are usually present as a result of having been burned in structures or other sheltered features. Approximately 70 nests have been examined from sites in the Midwest, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, a few of which contained charred spiders and wasp...

  • The Stratton Mill Creek Site: Deciphering a Landscape Feature in the Upper Susquehanna River Valley (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nina Versaggi. Brian Grills.

    This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Public Archaeology Facility at Binghamton University has conducted CRM on transportation projects in New York State for over 50 years. Our archaeological investigations have discovered a full range of sites from the ubiquitous (lithic scatters, historic sheet middens) to the extraordinary (deeply stratified sites, ritual...

  • Transcending Transects: Research Contexts for a Landscape View of Highway Corridor Archaeology in California. (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Glenn Gmoser. Adie Whitaker.

    This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeology within highway corridors is too easily hampered by an inability to adequately address bigger research issues due to the narrow slices of landscapes crossed, access restrictions, project-specific limitations on funding and focus of attention on isolated or smaller pieces of larger archaeological resources. ...