Time-Geography in the Texas Frontier: Exploring The Topology of Difference at Fort Davis

Summary

Social life in the Fort Davis community was cleaved along ethnic, racial and gendered differences, which were reinforced in the forts architectural layout. The scale of interaction along these social fault lines has been studied in many ways, but the role of the topography in structuring interaction at the fort has not been fully explored. Rather than taking the spatial configuration at Fort Davis as a natural fact, we develop a deep particularism, to determine how entrained geology conditions possiblities for social interaction. Drawing from recent applications of Time-Geography in archaeological GIS, we use a high resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM) to model potential pathways at different time intervals in the landscape prior to the establishment of the fort. We then place Fort Davis within this potential-path field to explore how people may have exploited potential pathways and the built environment connect, create and maintain contested social relationships.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017   •
• Tales of the Texas Frontier: Research Conducted by the Fort Davis Archaeology Project (FODAAP) in Fort Davis, Texas

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 269