A Chip off the Old Brick: Investigating a Nineteenth-Century Brick Kiln in West Tennessee

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This paper examines a brick clamp, that is located on Ames Plantation, an 18,400-acre landbase that is located in both Fayette and Hardeman counties in Tennessee. This project utilizes portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) to analyze a variety of bricks sampled from standing buildings and historic sites located on the Ames property. Comparisons derived from the pXRF results determine which buildings were built from bricks produced in the kiln. Additional analysis comparing local clay sources to bricks from the kiln demonstrates where the clay for the bricks was sourced. This research helps us determine when bricks were manufactured in this kiln and how widely the bricks were used. Additionally, this gives us new insight into the architectural history of Ames Plantation, as it allows us to learn more about how people were exploiting the landscape around them to create a variety of different structures.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow