Chicanxperimental Archaeology: Inclusion and Inclusions in the Experimental Construction of Earthen Ovens

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper describes the pedagogical and scientific results of the construction and testing of several miniature scale Mexican-style adobe ovens (hornos) by faculty and students in Anthropology at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB). Findings are divided into three sections: Adobe as Teaching Technology, Adobe as Construction Technology, and Adobe and Thermal Mass. We explore the use of adobe as a valuable contemporary pedagogical technology in addressing the achievement gap in archaeological science courses between under-represented minority (URM) students, particularly those of Latinx and Chicanx backgrounds, and others and encouraging their retention and graduation. The paper also presents a blueprint for the construction of the same experimental ovens in order to encourage outside replication of CSUEB experiments, suggesting utilization of the template in college archaeology laboratories, in primary and secondary school lesson plans, and among descendant communities. Finally, the paper presents experimental results as to the relative thermal mass of those ovens in hopes of paving a path for development of a model archaeological signature for the colonial- and Mexican-era adobe ovens of the American West. The paper draws the results of horno and pedagogical experiments together in order to improve historical-archaeological practice in the field, laboratory, and classroom.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23571