Shifting Borders: Early-19th Century Archeology in the Trans-Mississippi South

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Shifting Borders: Early-19th Century Archeology in the Trans-Mississippi South," at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Trans-Mississippi South was a place of rapid change in the first decades of the 19th Century. The Louisiana Purchase hastened American immigration into the region, creating a complex mix of people, both indigenous and settler, and swiftly implicating the region in systems of capitalist production that would fundamentally alter the region, its people, and its environment. These papers explore sites in the region (Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas) dating to the 1800-1840 period. All are encouraged to assess our understanding of the region, its connection to the social, economic, and cultural spheres (indigenous and settler) of the area, and how archeologists have studied this context.