Culture Contact and Change in the Industrial American West: Examples from the 19th Century Samuel Adams Lime Kiln Complex, Santa Cruz, California

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeological investigations of historic industrial sites in the American West have long been dominated by questions surrounding power, resistance, and the emergence of class structures and ideologies. While these questions are still relevant, these sites offer the potential for a much wider range of anthropologically situated research that extends beyond this relatively narrow scope of research foci. In this paper, I position early western industrial sites as dynamic pluralistic communities. From this perspective, work at these sites offers great potential to contribute to conversations surrounding culture contact, change, and hybridity. As an example of this potential, I will present findings from archaeological investigations at the Samuel Adams Lime Kiln complex, a 19th century company town located outside Santa Cruz, California. Situated at the social and geographic nexus of dramatic technological and demographic change, findings suggest this industrial operation was the site of emergent practices that continually contested and transformed notions of labor and community, with lasting social implications. It is hoped that this conversation both compliments and contributes to more traditional investigations of power, resistance, and class, highlighting the tremendous potential for historic industrial sites to serve as ideal test areas for a wide range of anthropologically situated archaeological investigations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24355