Beneath the Field of Battle: A Summary of Previous Archaeological Investigations at Vicksburg National Military Park

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Vicksburg Is the Key: Recent Archaeological Investigations and New Perspectives from the Gibraltar of the South" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Vicksburg National Cemetery, established in 1866, and Vicksburg National Military Park, established in 1899, were created to commemorate the 1862–1863 siege, to honor those who had fought and died here and to preserve these significant places on the very grounds on which these actions occurred. While great efforts were made to create and perpetuate a contemplative landscape rich with monuments and interpretive signage, relatively little systematic archaeological investigations have been conducted over the past century. Nevertheless, and in spite of large-scale alterations to much of the park's landscape over the past century, archival research combined with recent and ongoing archaeological investigations point to the existence of potentially significant archaeological deposits indicative precontact, historic period Native American, and colonial Spanish occupations that in many ways are foundational to what happened at this Civil War–era battlefield.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Vicksburg Is the Key: Recent Archaeological Investigations and New Perspectives from the Gibraltar of the South   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41633.0