On the Centennial of his Passing: San Diego County Pioneer Nathan "Nate" Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend
Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2020
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "On the Centennial of his Passing: San Diego County Pioneer Nathan "Nate" Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend," at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.
Nathan “Nate” Harrison (1833-1920), San Diego County's first permanent African-American, is a local legend whose popular biography brims with enticing exaggerations and far-fetched fabrications. Harrison's actual life story included enslavement in the Antebellum South, boom-and-bust cycles in the California Gold Rush, and lawless adventures in the Old West. It was a microcosm of the diverse cultural heritages and volatile histories of the 19th-century United States. This session consists of a series of papers from participants in the Nathan “Nate” Harrison Historical Archaeology Project, highlighting insights from ongoing archaeological excavations at Harrison's original mountain homestead. It includes discussions of Harrison's daily life, cottage industries, landscape use, crafted identities, and continuing legacies. Since the existing documentary records concerning Harrison are rife with contradiction, invention, and revision, these analyses endeavor to contextualize the mythmaking and identity politics of the last two centuries with scientifically determined spatial, temporal, and formal realities in the ground.
Other Keywords
Identity •
Agency •
water •
Transportation •
Museum •
Photography •
Spatial Analysis •
Chemical Analysis •
Exchange •
Activity Areas
Temporal Keywords
1830-1920
Geographic Keywords
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) •
Delaware (State / Territory)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-9 of 9)
- Documents (9)
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Advances in Technology, Transportation, and Tourism: Archaeological Manifestations of the Late 19th-Century Emergence of Nathan Harrison as a Destination (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "On the Centennial of his Passing: San Diego County Pioneer Nathan "Nate" Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Advances in transportation during Nathan Harrison’s lifetime significantly impacted his activities and strategies on Palomar Mountain. The second industrial revolution, the arrival of the railroad in San Diego, and the county’s expansion of the road that...
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Chemical Analysis of Small Sealed Metal Containers from the Harrison Site (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "On the Centennial of his Passing: San Diego County Pioneer Nathan "Nate" Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Three of the more enigmatic finds from the Harrison site were small, flat, cylindrical sealed metal containers. The first was an unlabeled brass tin that appeared to contain a white cosmetic. In addition, excavators found two similarly shaped iron...
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Fired Rifle Cartridges as an Archaeological Tool for Dating Later Historical Sites: Harrington Histograms and Measures of Central Tendency (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "On the Centennial of his Passing: San Diego County Pioneer Nathan "Nate" Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The wealth of qualitative and quantitative analytical techniques that have been used in researching tobacco pipestems from 16th-19thcentury sites can be employed on fired cartridges from 19thand 20th-century sites. When Harrington-style occupation...
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An Historical Archaeology of Minstrelsy (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "On the Centennial of his Passing: San Diego County Pioneer Nathan "Nate" Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. For over a century, the accepted story of Nathan Harrison was that he was a charming yet anachronistic fool. Ironically, even though contradictory details of his pre-Palomar Mountain life were hotly debated, the narratives were in agreement when...
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How Wild Was Nathan Harrison’s Old West: Unsolved Murders and Mayhem in late 19th and early 20th Century San Diego County (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "On the Centennial of his Passing: San Diego County Pioneer Nathan "Nate" Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Harrison’s time in Southern California was bookended by two of the region’s most famous unsolved murders. In 1868, San Diego County pioneer and former sea captain Joseph Smith was killed at his Palomar Mountain home. In 1907, English storekeeper and...
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Photography, Performance, and Identity: Social Constructions of a Local Legend (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "On the Centennial of his Passing: San Diego County Pioneer Nathan "Nate" Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The numerous photographs taken of Nate Harrison in the early 20th century are an undeniable part of his continuing legacy. Photography and photographs have long been a cornerstone of substantiating historical existence and constructing knowledge about...
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Public Engagement, Archaeology Museology, and Sustainable Heritage Management in the Twenty-First Century Museum Experiences: A Case Study from the Harrison Site (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "On the Centennial of his Passing: San Diego County Pioneer Nathan "Nate" Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In an effort to provide the Nathan “Nate” Harrison Historical Archaeology Project with a long-term and sustainable plan for community outreach that will continue after excavation has finished, this paper discusses strategies in the current context of...
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Spatial Patterns and Activity Areas at the Harrison Site: A Case Study in Multiple Lines of Evidence and Differential Uses of Space (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "On the Centennial of his Passing: San Diego County Pioneer Nathan "Nate" Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Spatial archaeological investigations by participants in the Nathan “Nate” Harrison Historical Archaeology Project occurred on a variety of scales, from large landscapes to microscopic chemical analyses within the dirt itself. These spatial studies...
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"Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over": The Harrison Spring, Water Control, and Strategic Gift Exchange on Palomar Mountain (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "On the Centennial of his Passing: San Diego County Pioneer Nathan "Nate" Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Water was central to Nathan Harrison’s existence on Palomar Mountain; in fact, he filed a water claim for his spring two years before he homesteaded the property. The stakes were high for water control in the Old West and the emerging hydraulic American...