What Trash Tells Us: A Look at Fort Davis's 20th-Century Population

Summary

Following closure of the military post in 1891, the racially and socially diverse community that had grown around Fort Davis lost one of its main economic resources. In the decades after, the civilian population saw a shift of resources from predominately military issued goods to items brought in by rail through the neighboring communities of Alpine and Marfa. This paper analyzes a select assemblage of metal, ceramic, and faunal materials excavated from an early twentieth-century domestic trash midden located directly adjacent to the abandoned fort. I aim to show how the change in supply line from government to civilian acquired goods affected the materials used in daily life. Moreover, I will address how these daily activities reflected a change in social demographics relating to race, ethnicity, nationality, and class.

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): 325