Paved Paradise: Searching For Indigenous History Beneath The Parking Lots Using DEMs Of Difference.

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "What Is "Historical"?", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The removal of indigenous peoples from the American midwest in the 18th and 19th centuries contributed to the erasure of indigenous lifeways, languages, and sovereignty from public and historic discourse by obscuring indigenous spaces from the visible landscape. Northwestern University was founded on indigenous land in 1850 and has paved over important indigenous spaces through decades of campus expansion and urban development. Not until recently have university organizations such as CNAIR begun challenging this spatial erasure and publicizing the indigenous meanings and values of campus land. This research presents a theoretical framework and methodology for uncovering archaeological landscapes concealed by urban development through a microtopographic analysis of historical infill. Using USGS topographic maps from 1897 and 1928, this research employs digital elevation models of difference (DoDs) to map historical changes in elevation and identify areas where evidence of previous indigenous contexts might remain intact beneath subsequent construction phases.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• What Is "Historical"?

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow