Big Data Investigation of Persistence in Ethnically Homogenous and Heterogeneous Communities on the Late Nineteenth-Century Central Great Plains

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Big Ideas to Match Our Future: Big Data and Macroarchaeology" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The archaeological record captures the material fallout of social processes operating at multiple temporal and spatial scales. Here I explore generational and supra-generational social processes of colonizers inhabiting a foreign and dynamic landscape under complex social conditions. Patent and census records allow for a big data approach to investigating the relative persistence of families who settled Custer County, Nebraska, from 1875 through 1900. Historical sociologists and anthropologists have documented the powerful role played by "tradition" or culture as families, hailing from different parts of (principally) western Europe, decided how to inhabit and subsist, and how children participated in their new lifespace. Some communities were ethnically heterogeneous, others less so; some were large, others quite small. The differential persistence of families living in these different social contexts and meeting the challenges presented to them is traced. I relate the Custer County case to other colonized landscapes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Big Ideas to Match Our Future: Big Data and Macroarchaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38784.0