Compositional Analysis in Historical Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Compositional analyses are commonplace in prehistoric archaeology. For example, lithic and pottery analysts regularly use geochemical methods to acquire mineralogical and chemical data that allow them to source artifacts. The geographic patterning of sourced artifacts provides archaeologists with a rich dataset from which they infer seasonal procurement ranges, acquisition strategies, territorial boundaries, cultural resource preferences, and intergroup interaction, providing fundamental insights into landscape use and sociocultural organization. We contend that compositional analysis holds similar promise for the study of artifacts from historic sites. Here, we employ portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF) to acquire compositional data from pottery, glass bottles, and bricks recovered from Stoddartsville, a nineteenth-century milling village in northeast Pennsylvania. Our analysis of these data provides insight into the burgeoning regional economy, the development of local industries, and consumer agency.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39077.0