If a Picture is Worth a 1,000 words, How Much are GIS Coordinates Worth? The Use of Visual History, Oral History, and GIS Data to Define the McAdoo Plantation Home

Summary

In the mid- 19th century, General John David McAdoo operated a plantation in Washington County Texas. Dismantled in the 1960s, all that remains of the house are the stone pier foundations. During the summer of 2012, Texas Tech University excavated and mapped the stone piers using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The primary goal of these investigations was to document the layout and extent of the structure’s remains.  Information about the house comes from both an oral interview and visual images including a painting and a photograph taken sometime before the home was dismantled. The oral interview, conducted in 1993 with a gentleman who was born in the house, provided details about the layout and design of the structure. Through the combination of GIS, visual sources, and oral histories, this study demonstrates how modern and traditional data are combined to better define the archaeological record.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• A New Machine (Part 2): Scientific and Technological Applications in Historical Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 349