Farmstead Archaeology in North America

Summary

Farming was a prevalent way of life in North America between the 1600s and 1900s. Consequently, archaeologists conducting cultural resource management studies routinely encounter a large number of farm sites during fieldwork. Sometimes viewed as a redundant and insignificant archaeological site type, farmsteads offer a plethora of research opportunities, limited only by the questions that archaeologists address with these resources. Compelling social topics can be explored through farmstead archaeology, such as household dynamics, gender roles, quality of life, economic strategies, consumerism, race, ethnicity, and religious and political affiliation. Further, since farms were often maintained over several generations in the same family, these sites typically possess abundant historic documentation in combination with considerable time depth allowing diachronic investigation of material continuity and change. In this paper the research potential of farmstead archaeology is discussed through examples from different time periods and regions in North America.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The American Experience in Archaeological Perspective   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 155