Mining the Land, Mining the Sea: Informal Economy and Drinking Spaces in the Resource Extraction Communities of Highland City, Montana and the Isles of Shoals, Maine.

Summary

Frontiers spaces are zones of meeting, interaction, dynamism, and change. Current research has sought to fight the image of frontier spaces as locations needing westward-moving civilization. Instead, examining frontier locales comparatively has proved to be a more effective approach. My doctoral research intends to contribute to the comparative approach in frontier archaeology by examining the way that the actions of frontier inhabitants (including negotiation, conflict, and cohesion) combined with geographic and ecological factors within two specific locations: Smuttynose Island, Maine, and Highland City, Montana. To make the comparison across space and time between these two locations, I will analyze them through the framework of informal economy, trade and exchange networks and the negotiation of social capital through commensal politics in drinking spaces. I will address excavation data from the 2013 and 2014 field seasons at Highland City, Montana along with earlier excavation data from the Isles of Shoals, Maine.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Miners, Loggers, Farmers, and Hunters: Investigating Labor in North American History   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 161