On Both Sides of the Atlantic: Historical Archaeology of Rural Modernization from the American and European Traditions

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "On Both Sides of the Atlantic: Historical Archaeology of Rural Modernization from the American and European Traditions" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

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This session aims to bring together different archaeological perspectives on the effects, direction and meaning of the modernization process in rural areas on both sides of the Atlantic (16<sup>Th</sup>-20<sup>Th</sup> centuries). This collaboration is a direct consequence of the historical nature of this process, inserted in global capitalist dynamics of "back and forth" throughout the Atlantic Ocean, which have shaped the contemporary rural areas on both sides. To this end, we propose a journey through a relevant selection of case studies of different scales and chronological ranges that contribute to the exchange of ideas and experiences on the archaeology of these spaces.

The so-called modernization has diverse translations in rural areas, which very often have been elusive from the historical and archaeological narratives defining Modern and Contemporary History. Archaeology can help qualify this variability and rescue aspects largely ignored by the great historical narratives while examining the effects on current local communities. Rural areas are also particularly productive spaces for recovering the material memory of social and economic transformations of cultural landscapes. From the intense processes of abandonment, to alternative uses of natural resources or social and political experimentation, the rural areas preserves the traces of changes and its possible responses.

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Other Keywords
Historical Archaeology • Landscape Archaeology • Ethnohistory/History • Multi-regional/Comparative

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-9 of 9)

  • Documents (9)
Documents
  • Approaching the Big History from an upland valley in the Cantabrian Mountains (NW Spain): Transhumance systems and global processes during the last 500 years (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David González-Álvarez.

    This is an abstract from the "On Both Sides of the Atlantic: Historical Archaeology of Rural Modernization from the American and European Traditions" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Cantabrian Mountains in northwestern Spain have been exploited by pastoralist groups since Late Prehistory (ca. 6000 BP), thereby shaping these landscapes in the longue durée. The anthropogenic pressure on the environment resulted in the transformation of upland...

  • Dynamic Landscapes on the Margins: Changes in Settlement and Resource Management Practices in the Mountains of Southwestern Europe (16th-20th Centuries) (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrés Menéndez-Blanco.

    This is an abstract from the "On Both Sides of the Atlantic: Historical Archaeology of Rural Modernization from the American and European Traditions" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In Europe, numerous rural regions are frequently interpreted as "marginal" or "peripheral" in relation to the significant transformations that occurred during the 16th-21st centuries. This idea is largely due to the fact that the material evidence of “modernization” is...

  • One square mile of rural ruin (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Witmore.

    This is an abstract from the "On Both Sides of the Atlantic: Historical Archaeology of Rural Modernization from the American and European Traditions" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. What becomes of rural countryside in the aftermath of common agrarianism varies greatly across the southeastern United States. The new cities that take shape in those economically favored zones of urban development bear little resemblance to the contemporary rural that...

  • Place-marking as world-making. Basque pastoralism and the landscape of diasporic identity in the American Southwest. (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ana Gonzalez San Martin.

    This is an abstract from the "On Both Sides of the Atlantic: Historical Archaeology of Rural Modernization from the American and European Traditions" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> Between the 19<sup>th</sup> and 20<sup>th</sup> centuries, an intensified flow of Basque immigrants streamed towards the Southwest of the United States. In the European mainland, Basques across the Pyrenees have practiced different types of seasonal transhumance...

  • Roudnice; Archaeological Methods and Historical Narratives in the Bohemian Forest (Czech Republic) (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jadranka Verdonkschot.

    This is an abstract from the "On Both Sides of the Atlantic: Historical Archaeology of Rural Modernization from the American and European Traditions" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> This presentation offers a multi-temporal exploration of the layered processes of modernization through a case study in the Bohemian Forest, Czech Republic. The application of archaeological method in a small and detailed case study contributes to the weaving of...

  • Rural Abandonment in the American North: Archaeology at Frost Town, New York (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexander Smith.

    This is an abstract from the "On Both Sides of the Atlantic: Historical Archaeology of Rural Modernization from the American and European Traditions" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Frost Town is located in the Fingers Lakes Region of New York and was once home to an industrial logging site that harvested old-growth timber in the 19th century by Euro-American settler colonialists. Frost Town eventually became a rural town after the timber was...

  • Rural transformations and community-based archaeology in the Pisgah National Forest (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Gates-Foster.

    This is an abstract from the "On Both Sides of the Atlantic: Historical Archaeology of Rural Modernization from the American and European Traditions" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last six years, the mountain town of Old Fort, NC has been at the center of a scenario that would be familiar to many residents of rural communities in desirable landscapes. The construction of a new trail system in the Pisgah National Forest on the slopes...

  • Things of Modernity: changes and continuities in Terra de Montes (NW Spain) through rural domestic materiality. (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Cristina Incio-DelRio.

    This is an abstract from the "On Both Sides of the Atlantic: Historical Archaeology of Rural Modernization from the American and European Traditions" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although peasant communities seem to have changed little from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century according to the prevailing historical narratives, the analysis of their materiality indicates the opposite. Thus, this presentation brings the case of Terra de...

  • Unravelling the American Hegemony: A Historical Archaeology of the Temporalities of Rural Modernization under the Francoist Dictatorship (1950-1970) (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rafael Millán-Pascual.

    This is an abstract from the "On Both Sides of the Atlantic: Historical Archaeology of Rural Modernization from the American and European Traditions" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1953 Franco signed an economic-military agreement with the U.S. administration that accelerated the international recognition of the Dictatorship. Contrary to the political premises of the World War II allies, the Cold War opened (again) the recognizion of...