Historical Archaeology: Contents & Abstracts, Vol. 37, 2003

Historical Archaeology: Contents & Abstracts, Vol. 37, 2003

Vol. 37, No. 1 – Spring: Contents; Abstracts

Vol. 37, No. 2 – Summer: Contents; Abstracts

Vol. 37, No. 3 – Fall: Contents; Abstracts

Vol. 37, No. 4 – Winter: Contents; Abstracts

VOL. 37, No. 1 – Contents

  • ARTICLES

    • Historical Archaeology in the Antipodes
      Susan Lawrence and Grace Karskens
    • “In-Sites,” Historical Archaeology in Australasia: Some Comparisons with the American Colonial Experience
      Neville A. Ritchie
    • Exporting Culture: Archaeology and the Nineteenth-Century British Empire
      Susan Lawrence
    • Revisiting the Worldview: The Archaeology of Convict Households in Sydney’s Rocks Neighborhood
      Grace Karskens
    • “The Absence of Ghosts”: Landscape and Identity in the Archaeology of Australia’s Settler Culture
      Tracey Ireland
    • The Ethos of Return: Erasure and Reinstatement of Aboriginal Visibility in the Australian Historical Landscape
      Denis Byrne
    • (Re) Constructing a Lost Community: “Little Lon,” Melbourne, Australia
      Tim Murray and Alan Mayne
    • Annales-Informed Approaches to the Archaeology of Colonial Australia
      Mark Staniforth
    • Showdown in the Pacifi c: A Remote Response to European Power Struggles in the Pacifi c, Dawes Point Battery, Sydney, 1791-1925
      A. Wayne Johnson
    • The Archaeology of Crisis: Shipwreck Survivor Camps in Australasia
      Martin Gibbs
    • Problem Orientation in Australian Historical Archaeology
      Graham Connah

Back to Top

VOL. 37, No. 1 – Article Abstracts

Neville A. Ritchie

“In-Sites,” Historical Archaeology in Australasia: Some Comparisons with the American Colonial Experience

Abstract: The first contacts between the United States and Australasia (Australia and New Zealand) were made by the wide-ranging American sealers in the 1790s, followed by the whalers in the fi rst decades of the 19th century. This occurred only a few years after the fi rst permanent European settlement in Australia was established in Sydney Cove in 1788 but some 50 years before New Zealand was formally annexed by Britain in 1840. Since then, both nations have gradually developed their own identities, but, up until World War II, they maintained strong ties with Britain, despite the growing industrial might of the United States and its increasing presence in the Pacifi c region. This paper, based on part of an invited keynote address presented to the plenary session at the Society for Historical Archaeology’s 1999 conference at Salt Lake City, Utah, examines the colonial experiences of the three nations. Through comparison of some key artifact types, this paper highlights both differences and links among the societies that have developed in the British colonies Australasia and the older, more divergent Anglo-American culture.

Susan Lawrence

Exporting Culture: Archaeology and the Nineteenth-Century British Empire

Abstract: Comparison of Australia with other postcolonial nations provides a means for analyzing the material culture of 19th-century British colonization. Developments in Australia paralleled those in Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand. As a result of changes in politics, industry, knowledge, culture, and society, migrants at this time differed signifi cantly from those of earlier periods of British colonization. Comparison between colonial outposts provides a means for better understanding this emerging culture of British imperialism. Rather than refl ecting the adoption of archaic physical forms, this pattern drew on the many complex strands of class, industrialization, urbanization, and mass consumption that informed contemporary British society. A globally aware perspective on British culture raises new questions for archaeologists in the United States, Britain, and the countries of the former British Empire.

Grace Karskens

Revisiting the Worldview: The Archaeology of Convict Households in Sydney’s Rocks Neighborhood

Abstract: The excavation of the Cumberland/Gloucester Streets Site in Sydney’s historic Rocks area in 1994 was marked by the successful application of an innovative, integrated approach to urban archaeology in Australia. This approach allowed fresh explorations of many aspects of Sydney’s social and cultural development, including the material world of the first generation of convict settlers. This paper examines that world within the wider context of standard and more recent interpretations of the convict colony, as well as drawing on and evaluating scholarship in the history of material life over the last 20-odd years. It offers some refl ections on the idea of the worldview, the importance of local context, and the ways in which we approach the archaeology of settler societies.

Tracey Ireland

“The Absence of Ghosts”: Landscape and Identity in the Archaeology of Australia’s Settler Culture

Abstract: This article is a case study investigating archaeology as a practice embedded in a complex web of culturally constructed codes of meaning or discourses. A distinctive form of discourse concerning the landscape and its role in determining national identity characterizes Australian culture. This discourse has been central to the construction of the idea of the nation and its past: in particular, concepts of the land as hostile and empty, of the bush as the essence of Australia, and of the landscape as feminine. The paper considers the ways in which this landscape discourse has operated within historical archaeological research and heritage management and discusses the implications of these discursive relationships for past and future research.

Denis Byrne

The Ethos of Return: Erasure and Reinstatement of Aboriginal Visibility in the Australian Historical Landscape

Abstract: Aboriginal efforts to secure the repatriation and reburial of their ancestors’ remains represent an undoing of the colonial project of collection. It is but one element of an ethos of “return” that challenges white-settler society’s turning of a blind eye to the continued presence of Aboriginal people in the post-1788 landscape. Archaeologists in Australia, along with heritage professionals generally, have for the most part not deployed their skills and knowledge in the interests of revealing the historical coexistence and entanglement of settler and Aboriginal cultures. Rather, archaeologists have practiced a form of segregation that fi nds no room for Aboriginal people and their story in the historical landscape as archaeology constructs it. The case is put for archaeologists themselves to embrace an ethos of return that reverses this erasure.

Tim Murray and Alan Mayne

(Re) Constructing a Lost Community: “Little Lon,” Melbourne, Australia

Abstract: The reanalysis of archaeological and documentary evidence of a vanished community (that of Casselden Place in the heart of the area known as “Little Lon” in central Melbourne) has fostered a more thoroughgoing exploration of the nature of the urban slum in Australia. There are signifi cant questions raised by the interpretation of Casselden Place (and Little Lon) as a community during the 19th century (some of the most important of which center on the nature of assemblage composition among poor households of the period). This paper also touches on the means by which new and more complex histories of such vanished communities can be written. As such, the discussion builds on earlier methodological statements and more detailed discussions of the life histories of individuals who lived in Casselden Place (Mayne and Lawrence 1998; Mayne and Murray 1999; Mayne et al. 2000; Murray and Mayne 2002) to provide a more specifi c discussion of the archaeological elements of the project. The analysis of the assemblage reported here is very much a work in progress. Analysis of assemblages drawn from Casselden Place and those from the rest of Little Lon continues, reaching beyond the level of establishing artifact frequencies and exploring the meaning of the counter-intuitive patterns that are discussed in the paper.

Mark Stanisforth

Annales-Informed Approaches to the Archaeology of Colonial Australia

Abstract: Archaeologists have generally been slow to recognize the value of Annales approaches to their discipline, and maritime archaeologists, in particular, have been even slower. The analytical framework used in this paper draws on applications of Annales approaches to archaeology in what is termed the “archaeology of the event.” The resulting holistic approach places the specifi city of the event within the wider cultural context. Furthermore, terrestrial historical archaeology has largely ignored the potential that cargo material, derived from maritime archaeological excavations, has to contribute to understandings of colonial settlement. This paper moves beyond the usual functional approaches to the analysis of the meanings of material culture. A major part of the archaeological data used here is drawn from the cargo assemblages of four postsettlement shipwrecks excavated in Australian waters during the past 30 years: Sydney Cove, James Matthews, William Salthouse, and Eglinton. This paper provides a theoretical and methodological model for the systematic analysis of consumer goods that can be used to better understand cultural aspects of colonial settlement.

A. Wayne Johnson

Showdown in the Pacifi c: A Remote Response to European Power Struggles in the Pacifi c, Dawes Point Battery, Sydney, 1791-1925

Abstract: The 1995 excavation of Dawes Point Battery, constructed to guard the approach to Sydney in 1791, has evoked a number of questions about the strategic importance of the British settlement of Sydney in the 18th century. Construction of the fort commenced three years after the foundation of the colony in response to the potential threat of attack from Spain, intent on pressing its own territorial claims in the Pacific as defi ned by the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. The confrontation between Britain and Spain, known as the Nootka Sound Incident, was eventually settled diplomatically but not before Britain had fl exed its colonial muscle and formulated plans to launch an attack from Sydney on Spain’s base on the west coast of Canada. Spain surrendered to Britain many of its trade and possession claims both in the Pacifi c and on its rim ending a 200-year monopoly on Asia-Pacific trade.

Martin Gibbs

The Archaeology of Crisis: Shipwreck Survivor Camps in Australasia

Abstract: Shipwreck survivor camps are a neglected terrestrial component of maritime archaeology, usually being investigated purely as an adjunct to work on the associated wreck site. Most studies have considered these sites as individual and unique, molded by the particulars of the historic events that created them. However, by considering the history, anthropology, and archaeology of a series of Australasian survivor incidents and sites, this paper highlights common elements and themes, which allow examination of these sites within a comparative framework. These include the development of authority structures, social organization, salvage and subsistence strategies, material culture, short- and long-term rescue strategies, and the possible infl uences of crisis-related stress upon the decisions made by individuals and groups. Survivor camp studies are linked into the wider concerns of maritime archaeology and anthropology by placing them within the context of wreck formation models.

Graham Connah

Problem Orientation in Australian Historical Archaeology

Abstract: Australian historical archaeologists still have to convince many academics in other disciplines and the public at large that archaeological research concerned with the material record of the last two centuries is a legitimate intellectual pursuit in its own right. In the academic arena, their subject has gained comparatively little attention from departments usually dominated by prehistoric archaeologists and social anthropologists. In the heritage management fi eld, they can fi nd themselves competing with historians, architects, and engineers. An examination of a selection of the published research literature in Australian historical archaeology from the last 30 years suggests that this lack of legitimacy exists because of the sorts of questions that are being asked. Often these have been historical rather than archaeological, but the results have seemed inconsequential to historians. Yet archaeology can offer something that history cannot: it can extract unique information from physical evidence, providing it asks archaeological questions rather than historical ones and uses appropriate processes of archaeological analysis.

Back to Top

VOL. 37, No. 2 – Contents

  • JOHN L. COTTER AWARD 2002: ELIZABETH J. KELLAR
  • ARTICLES

    • A Conversation with Kathleen Kirk Gilmore
      Curtis D. Tunnell
    • Clay Faces in an Abolitionist Church: The Wesleyan Methodist Church in Syracuse, New York
      Douglas V. Armstrong and LouAnn Wurst
    • Dating Historical Sites: The Importance of Understanding Time Lag in the Acquisition, Curation, Use, and Disposal of Artifacts
      William Hampton Adams
    • The Ties That Bind: Economic and Social Interactions in Early-Colonial New Mexico, A.D. 1598-1680
      Heather B. Trigg
    • To Feed a Tree in Zion: Osteological Analysis of the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre
      Shannon A. Novak and Derinna Kopp
  • REVIEWS
    Edited by Annalies Corbin

    • Brooks, Groover, and Smith: Living on the Edge: The Archaeology of Cattle Raisers in the South Carolina Backcountry
      Michael A. Harmon
    • Pauketat: The Archaeology of Traditions: Agency and History before and after Columbus
      Amy Gazin-Schwartz
    • Mansberger and Stratton: Canal Boats along the Illinois and Michigan Canal: A Study in Archaeological Variability
      Troy J. Novak
    • Farnsworth: Island Lives: Historical Archaeologies of the Caribbean
      Kenneth G. Kelly
    • Neumann and Sanford: Cultural Resources Archaeology: An Introduction
      Patrick H. Garrow
    • Blake and Cutler: Plants from the Past
      Michael A. Pfeiffer
    • Starbuck: Massacre at Fort William Henry
      Lawrence E. Babits
    • Snead: Ruins and Rivals: The Making of Southwest Archaeology
      Paul A. Shakel
    • Shorter, Jr.: Privies in Case of Siege: Expeditions 21 and 22 at the Fort Morgan Citadel
      Lawrence E. Babits
    • Noël Hume: A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America
      Charles C. Kolb
    • Nelson: Denver: An Archaeological History
      Barbara J. Little
    • Wilkie and Shorter, Jr.: Lucrecia’s Well: An Archaeological Glimpse of an African-American Midwife’s Household
      Anna S. Agbe-Davies
    • Wilkie: Creating Freedom: Material Culture and African American Identity at Oakley Plantation, 1840-1950
      Lu Ann de Cunzo

Back to Top

VOL. 37, No. 2 – Article Abstracts

Douglas V. Armstrong and LouAnn Wurst

Clay Faces in an Abolitionist Church: The Wesleyan Methodist Church in Syracuse, New York

Abstract: For many years, a group of sculpted clay faces, in desperate and immediate need of conservation, tenuously clung to the walls of the dug-out space called a “tunnel” beneath the former Wesleyan Methodist Church, the home of a noted abolitionist and social-reform oriented congregation in downtown Syracuse, New York. Archaeological and historical research indicates a 19th-century origin for the faces. The church openly participated in abolition and the Underground Railroad, and housed a national abolitionist press. However, even in a pro-emancipation community such as Syracuse, the dangers for refugees fleeing bondage were real, and the consequences of capture were life threatening. This was particularly true after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. This study presents evidence that the clay faces may have been created by African American refugees from slavery. Moreover, it describes a community’s efforts to conserve and protect this resource.

William Hampton Adams

Dating Historical Sites: The Importance of Understanding Time Lag in the Acquisition, Curation, Use, and Disposal of Artifacts

Abstract: Each object has a lifespan in which it is made, transported, marketed, used, and discarded. Although the manufacturing date range for artifacts may be known, we should not equate the manufacturing range for an object type with the use range for a particular object. Studies from several locations indicate ceramic artifacts have lifespans of as much as 15 years and more in a household before being discarded. Ceramics can be poor sources for dating sites if used without considering the cultural contexts in which they are used, yet ceramics are the artifact class used most often in dating sites.

Heather B. Trigg

The Ties That Bind: Economic and Social Interactions in Early-Colonial New Mexico, A.D. 1598-1680

Abstract: Regional economic transactions in early-colonial New Mexico (1598-1680) have frequently been overlooked as archaeologists and historians focused on large scale, long-distance trade in the imperial economy or smaller scale household production. The few discussions of the regional economy, transactions within the colony, have generally described it as “primitive” and “crude.” There was, however, an active regional economy during this period that resulted in movement of goods between colonists’ and native peoples’ households. The nature of these interactions depended largely on the social identity of the household. In addition, the movement of goods bound households socially as well as economically. Analyzing economic interactions on the regional scale provides a better understanding the colonization process in general because economic restructuring is one way in which empires integrate newly conquered territories. In early-colonial New Mexico, more specifically, economic interactions formed one bridge between the individual household economies and the imperial economy.

Shannon A. Novak and Derinna Kopp

To Feed a Tree in Zion: Osteological Analysis of the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre

Abstract: In September 1857, some 120 men, women, and children on a wagon train bound for California were massacred in southwestern Utah. Who was responsible for the Mountain Meadows Massacre is a question that still sparks considerable debate. According to traditional historical accounts, the adult males of the company were shot by local Mormon militiamen, while the women and children were killed by Paiutes or other Native Americans. An unexpected opportunity to assess the skeletal evidence in the case arose in summer 1999, when a mass grave containing 28 of the victims was accidentally unearthed. Bullet wounds were found to affect primarily young men, although one subadult and possibly a female also exhibited gunshot trauma. The crania of three children, two subadult males, and one adult female were fractured by blunt force trauma. No wounds were identified that would corroborate historical accounts of the victims being scalped, having their throats cut, or being shot by arrows.

Back to Top

VOL. 37, No. 3 – Contents

  • ARTICLES

    • Preface: Landscapes of Conflict
      David G. Orr
    • Introduction: Archaeology, Memory, and Landscapes of Conflict
      Paul A. Shackel
  • MEMORY, ARMED CONFLICT, AND LANDSCAPES

    • GPS, GIS and the Civil War Battlefield Landscape: A South Carolina Low Country Example
      Steven D. Smith, Christopher Ohm Clement and Stephen R. Wise
    • Confederate Fortification and Troop Deployment in a Mountain Landscape: Fort Edward Johnson and Camp Shenandoah, April 1862
      Clarence R. Geier
    • European Military Sites As Ideological Landscapes
      Brooke S. Blades
    • Oral Tradition and Archaeology: Conflict and Concordance Examples from Two Indian War Sites
      Douglas D. Scott
    • The Ludlow Massacre: Class, Warfare, and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado
      Mark Walker
  • MEMORY, RACE CONFLICT, AND LANDSCAPES

    • Conflict and the Interpretation of Palmares, a Brazilian Runaway Polity
      Pedro Paulo A. FUnari
    • The Hector Backbone: A Quiescent Landscape of Conflict
      James A. Delle and Patrick Heaton
    • Integrating Segregated Urban Landscapes of the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Centuries
      Eric L. Larsen
    • Reinterpreting Manassas: The Nineteenth-Century African American Community at Manassas National Battlefield Park
      Matthew B. Reeves
    • Heyward Shepherd: The Faithful Slave Memorial
      Paul A. Shackel

Back to Top

VOL. 37, No. 3 – Article Abstracts

Paul A. Shackel

Archaeology, Memory, and Landscapes of Conflict

Abstract: The authors in this volume show how various communities can use archaeology to remember a particular historical event and how groups use symbols and landscapes to reinforce particular meanings. Examples are provided of landscapes that were historically contested, such as places where battles were fought, where strikes occurred, or where racism existed. They were landscapes of conflict in the past, and they survive today as places where memories of a particular event vary between groups. The examples in this volume demonstrate that meanings associated with landscapes of conflict are not necessarily static. Understanding how and why some groups tend to remember a particular past, while others forget or ignore a past, is an important issue for critically evaluating and knowing how people understand landscapes.

Steven D. Smith, Christopher Ohm Clement, Stephen R. Wise

GPS, GIS and the Civil War Battlefield Landscape: A South Carolina Low Country Example

Abstract: The results of Global Positioning System (GPS) mapping and Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis of Civil War earthworks in Beaufort and Jasper counties, South Carolina, are presented. Most earthworks were part of a defensive system built by Confederate forces over the course of the war to protect the Charleston to Savannah railroad, which itself was part of a vital supply line allowing rapid transport of men and materiel throughout the Confederacy. For most of the war, Union forces were deployed at Port Royal Sound less than 40 km from the railroad. The Confederates met this threat through fixed defenses at strategic locations combined with rapid movement of troops by rail. This strategy and these tactics are understandable within the geographic context provided by GPS/GIS technology and a military context provided by a detailed campaign history.

Clarence R. Geier

Confederate Fortification and Troop Deployment in a Mountain Landscape: Fort Edward Johnson and Camp Shenandoah, April 1862

Abstract: By April 1862 Union forces had established control of the headwater streams of the Potomac drainage in what was to become West Virginia and were beginning to move south into the Shenandoah Valley of western Virginia. Threatened by the possible flanking of his Confederate Army at the mountain stronghold of Camp Allegheny, which blocked Union access into the central Shenandoah Valley, General Robert E. Lee ordered the camp commander, General Edward Johnson, to identify and then move to a more defensible position to the east. On 5 April, Johnson’s 4,000-man army began the process of converting the apex of Shenandoah Mountain, 40 mi. to the east of Camp Allegheny, into a complex fortification designed to again prevent Union access into the valley and the important military depot at Staunton, Virginia. For 14 days, the troops worked to fortify the mountain and prepare the encampments needed for their support. Then, in the absence of Johnson and in an environment of rumor and believed Union threat, the military complex was ordered abandoned. In 1998 and 1999 researchers from James Madison University, with support from George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, surveyed, tested, and mapped the earthwork and encampment features of the Fort Edward Johnson-Camp Shenandoah Military Complex. While never actually used in the engagement of the enemy, the archaeological remains provide an invaluable, glimpse into the manner in which the Confederacy adapted fortification and encampment strategies to a mountain landscape.

Brooke S. Blades

European Military Sites As Ideological Landscapes

Abstract: The American tradition of devoting substantial quantities of public resources to the acquisition and preservation of battle sites is generally foreign to European nations. Many battlefields in Europe are unmarked or have few monuments. Preservation efforts at most of the remaining sites have concentrated upon relatively small portions such as isolated structures or natural vistas. Cemeteries are at times integral elements of these landscapes. Selected battlefields in Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Czech Republic provide varied examples of European landscape preservation and commemoration. It is argued that the often minimal preservation efforts in Europe reflect an ideological landscape of modern political and social concerns.

Douglas D. Scott

Oral Tradition and Archaeology: Conflict and Concordance Examples from Two Indian War Sites

Abstract: The Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the 1877 Nez Perce War, Battle of the Big Hole, abound in oral tradition and historical sources. Archaeological investigations at both sites have yielded substantial numbers of battle-related artifacts. The physical evidence supports and modifies the historical record in both cases. The Big Hole battle’s oral traditions were substantiated by the archaeological work as well. However, the Sand Creek Massacre’s oral tradition of the site location is in direct conflict with reanalysis of the historic documents and the archaeological findings. The two cases are contrasted to vividly point out how groups accept or reject evidence gathered using the scientific method when it either agrees or disagrees with their preconceived notions of cultural truth.

Mark Walker

The Ludlow Massacre: Class, Warfare, and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado

Abstract: Because battlefields can be potent symbols in the construction of historical memory, they can remain sites of struggle for as long as that memory is important. History professionals, such as archaeologists, participate fully in these struggles. The commemoration of the Ludlow Massacre Site, a battlefield in the industrial wars of the early-20th century is discussed. The commemoration of Ludlow highlights the role of class interest in the construction of historical memory. Doing archaeology at Ludlow entails acknowledging these interests, both ours, as archaeologists, and those of the working class people who guard the memory of Ludlow.

Pedro Paulo A. Funari

Conflict and the Interpretation of Palmares, a Brazilian Runaway Polity

Abstract: In recent years, historical archaeologists have become increasingly interested in exploring how to use material culture to study conflict and how the interpretation of their sites is affected by modern perception. Grounded in a dialectical epistemology, the experience of past peoples is considered part of an ongoing social confrontation between social actors. Archaeologists tend to consider cultures as neatly bounded homogeneous entities. The holistic, monolithic nature of cultures has been put into question by several empirical and theoretical studies. In northeastern Brazil, a large maroon kingdom called Palmares developed in the 17th century, and people have often interpreted it in two ways. Some prefer to stress the African character of the polity, while others emphasize the diversity within the community. Archaeological research at Palmares produced evidence of a heterogeneous society, an interpretive model that does not follow dominant epistemological schemes and prejudices.

James A. Delle, Patrick Heaton

With Contributions from James Boyle, Thomas Cuddy, Karen Holmberg, Janet Six, Mark Smith, Noah Thomas, and Karen Wehner

The Hector Backbone: A Quiescent Landscape of Conflict

Abstract: The Hector Backbone, a ridge running north-south between New York’s Seneca and Cayuga Lakes, appears at first glance to be a peaceful stretch of woodland and pasture protected as part of the Finger Lakes National Forest. Upon closer inspection, the Backbone can be seen as a microcosm of American conflict. The area was settled only after the indigenous Iroquoian people were violently removed. This ethnic cleansing was followed by the imposition of an orderly grid. The landscape was carved into farmsteads that, following a brief period of prosperity, fell victim to conflict inherent in the capitalist system. Unable to compete with factory farming techniques and the increased commodification of agrarian products, local producers fell into ruin. This paper analyzes how these conflicts can be read in this seemingly pastoral landscape.

Eric L. Larsen

Integrating Segregated Urban Landscapes of the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Centuries

Abstract: The period of legal segregation in the United States is characterized in modern thought as a system of racial separation prevalent in the South around the first half of the 20th century. Separation implies a spatiality that seems to lend itself to a landscape study. In problematizing such a study, it becomes clear that the spatial signs of segregation are markers in a complex system of identity building and maintenance relationships. The association of identity politics with cultural landscape analysis provides a picture of segregation that pushes beyond the bounds of African American neighborhood or residential sites. Examining three turn-of-the-20th-century sites in Annapolis, Maryland, provides an example of how archaeology, in examining urban contexts, has a role in how this period of segregation is perceived.

Matthew B. Reeves

Reinterpreting Manassas: The Nineteenth-Century African American Community at Manassas National Battlefield Park

Abstract: The American Civil War is a watershed in United States history. One of the most important events that came from this conflict was the end of legalized enslavement of African Americans. Manassas National Battlefield Park is an excellent venue to present this history as it contains sites ranging from the period of enslavement through the Jim Crow era. These sites record the struggle of African Americans and place the battle-related events of the Civil War in historical context. The transformations that occurred within the African American community at Manassas are discussed in this paper. In addition to the battle events that transpired during the war’s five-year history, these transformations, a type of alternative history, should be presented at Manassas National Battlefield Park as well as at other Civil War battlefields across the South.

Paul A. Shackel

Heyward Shepherd: The Faithful Slave Memorial

Abstract: During the 1920s and 1930s the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) received considerable publicity with their cosponsorship of a “faithful slave” monument in Harpers Ferry. Sitting in Lower Town Harpers Ferry in the midst of an urban landscape, the Heyward Shepherd Monument has different meanings to Southern heritage groups, the National Park Service, and the NAACP. Its tumultuous history shows the dynamic nature of commemorative landscapes, and it demonstrates how different interest groups interpret this landscape feature. The Heyward Shepherd Monument still stands in the national park and the National Park Service sees itself as the custodian of this cultural resource. While the UDC and the SCV see the monument as an important symbol of Southern heritage, the NAACP has lobbied to have it removed from the landscape.

Back to Top

VOL. 37, No. 4 – Contents

  • ARTICLES

    • Colonial Origins: The Archaeology of Colonialism in the Americas
      Bonnie G. McEwan and Gregory A. Waselkov
    • Colonial Origins and Colonial Transformations in Spanish America
      Kathleen Deagan
    • Russian Colonization: The Implications of Mercantile Colonial Practices in the North Pacific
      Kent G. Lightfoot
    • An Encounter in the Baroque Age: French and Amerindians in North America
      Marcel Moussette
    • Spanish Botijas or Olive Jars from the Santo Domingo Monastery, La Antigua Guatemala
      Clive Carruthers
    • Map and Database Construction for an Historic Cemetery: Methods and Applications
      Johan Liebens
    • Class and Gender in Nineteenth-Century Rural Michigan: The Merriman-Sharp Hillside Farm
      Carol A. Nickolai
    • The Geochemistry of Worcester Porcelain from Dr. Wall to Royal Worcester: 150 Years of Innovation
      J. Victor Owen
    • Perspectives on the Early-Nineteenth-Century Frontier Occupations of the Missouri Ozarks
      James R. Wettstaed
  • REVIEWS
    Edited by Annalies Corbin

    • Richards and Robinson: Digital Archives from Excavation and Fieldwork
      THomas P. Maloney
    • Orser: Encyclopedia of Historical Archaeology
      Alison Bell
    • Arnold and Wicker: Gender and the Archaeology of Death
      Harold Mytum
    • Shackel: Myth, Memory, and the Making of the American Landscape
      Donald W. Linebaugh
    • South: Method and Theory in Historical Archaeology
      Lawrence E. Babits
    • Dietler and Hayden: Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics, and Power
      Sarah E. Cowie
    • Mills: Hawaii’s Russian Adventure: A New Look at History
      Roger E. Kelly
    • Arqueologia Mexicana, VI (31) [1998] and VIII (43) [2000].
      Samuel Blake
    • King, Jacobson, Burns, and Spading: Amelia Earhart’s Shoes: Is the Mystery Solved?
      Sheli O. Smith
    • Erreguerena and Roffiel: Memorias del Congreso Científico de Arqueología Subaquàtica ICOMOS
      Filipe Castro
    • Cochrane and Tolson: A Good Boat Speaks for Itself: Isle Royale Fishermen and Their Boats
      Troy J. Nowak
    • Deetz and Deetz: The Time of Their Lives: Life, Love, and Death in Plymouth Colony
      Lawrence E. babits
    • Fabel: Colonial Challenges: Britons, Native Americans, and Caribs, 1759-1775
      Christopher Ohm Clement
    • Kapitzke: Religion, Power, and Politics in Colonial St. Augustine
      Marianne Franklin
    • Landers: Colonial Plantations and Economy in Florida
      Carl E. Swanson
    • Cordell: Continuity and Change in Apalachee Pottery Manufacture
      Sara E. Palmer
    • Gums: Made of Alabama Clay: Historic Potteries on Mobile Bay
      Jamie C. Brandon
    • Barclay: Scientific Analysis of Archaeological Ceramics: A Handbook of Resources
      Susan A. Lebo
    • Green: John Dwight’s Fulham Pottery: Excavation 1971-1979
      William Liebeknecht
    • Joseph and Zierden: Another’s Country: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on Cultural Interactions in the Southern Colonies
      Timothy K. Perttula
    • Hughes and Hughes: Quiet Places: The Burial Sites of Civil War Generals in Tennessee
      Joshua B. Howard
    • Baker and Harrison: Adobe Walls: The History and Archeology of the 1874 Trading Post
      Stephen W. Stillman
    • Mayne and Murray: The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland
      John Schofield
    • Bischoff: The Desert Training Center/California-Arizona Maneuver Area 1942-1944: Historical and Archaeological Contexts
      Carl Barna
    • Cooper: A Century at the Moore/Kirmse House: Archaeological Investigations in Skagway, Alaska, Vol. 8
      Robin O. Mills

Back to Top

VOL. 37, No. 4 – Article Abstracts

Kathleen Deagan

Colonial Origins and Colonial Transformations in Spanish America

Abstract:Archaeological data have been critical in articulating the manner by which system-wide structuring elements of Europe’s colonial projects in America were adjusted or transformed in local settings. This paper explores the ways in which certain of these structuring elements in Spanish colonial America were played out in a variety of households and communities, with the ultimate goal of approaching an archaeologically informed, comparative study of American colonialism. Several parameters are offered as examples of potentially fruitful points of comparison among colonial systems through which researchers might assess local agency at both intra- and inter-colonial scales. These include varieties of economic and governmental centrality, forms of labor organization, varieties of religious experience, gender relations, idealized social identities, and frontier-urban dichotomies.

Kent G. Lightfoot

Russian Colonization: The Implications of Mercantile Colonial Practices in the North Pacific

Abstract:The maritime fur trade propelled Russian expansion into the North Pacific in the 18th and 19th centuries. The mercantile legacy of Russian colonization is evident in the rapid founding of settlements across an immense region, the corporate hierarchy of the colonial administration, and the policies and practices for the treatment of indigenous peoples. Russian fur merchants transported to North America colonial practices that originated in Siberia. In contrast to American and British merchants on the Northwest Coast who relied on commodity exchange with autonomous native hunters for furs, Russians forced native hunters to work directly for their companies, initially by military force and the taking of hostages to insure tribute payments and later by mandatory conscription. While relatively few Europeans immigrated toRussian America, colonial administrators relocated scores of native and “mixed blood” workers to new colonies. What emerged was a different twist to the colonial encounters that unfolded among indigenous populations and “colonists.” Rather than confronting successive waves of European immigrants, local peoples interacted primarily with other natives from homelands dispersed across the North Pacific. Historical archaeology has much to contribute to understanding the longterm impacts of “native-to-native” interactions in pluralistic colonial communities.

Marcel Moussette

An Encounter in the Baroque Age: French and Amerindians in North America

Abstract:European colonization of North America had its origins in the expansion of European capitalism. But, on the ground, what occurred during the 16th and 17th centuries was the encountering of certain European nations by certain native peoples. Our present field of interest is the particular nature of the encounter between Amerindians and the French, expressed in cultural métissage (mixture or hybridity) and political alliances, since this interaction contains all the ingredients that would lend distinctive colors to the new colonial societies. Exploration of European-Amerindian contacts on the part of archaeologists has already resulted in numerous studies focused on the economy, particularly with respect to the fur trade, or on the newcomers’ adaptations to a different environment. For the past few years, however, the author has attempted to approach the issue from another angle, that of representations. It is hoped that this approach will lead to a better understanding of the encounter and shed light on the elusive perceptions of that encounter deep in the minds of the actors involved. The thesis presented here is that a true compatibility existed between representations of the world by the French and by the Amerindians, that this compatibility explains the special nature of the relation between the two groups, and, finally, that the archaeological remains left behind by the two groups lend support to the argument for compatibility, enabling the author to make an original contribution to the comprehension of this encounter. The problem of colonial origins in New France may be approached within a dynamic framework whose main stages are linked one to another in time and space, from Europe to North America: the departure, the passage, the encounter, the contact, the exchange, and the métissage.

Clive Carruthers

Spanish Botijas or Olive Jars from the Santo Domingo Monastery, La Antigua Guatemala

Abstract:The Santo Domingo monastery in La Antigua Guatemala was occupied from 1543 until 1773. Recent construction and site excavation uncovered more than 350,000 imported and local ceramic sherds, among which were 585 botija or olive jar mouth rims, including 13 complete vessels. Rim marks found on 113 of the mouth rims include impressed, embossed, incised, and engraved designs. Impressed marks predominate, with 39 different marks found on 91 rims. Some previously reported marks, identical to those from Santo Domingo, help in postulating product distribution routes and in dating previously unreported marks. Rim marks and marking methods evolved concurrently with changing rim forms. As rim forms became more rounded, the incidence of incising, smaller rim marks, and horizontal application of stamped marks became more prevalent. Four rare impressed shoulder marks were found on John Goggin’s Late style vessel forms. These date prior to the monastery’s 1773 abandonment and thus suggest a revision of Goggin’s 1780 transition date from Middle to Late style botijas.

Johan Liebens

Map and Database Construction for an Historic Cemetery: Methods and Applications

Abstract:Accurate maps and databases can be beneficial for research and management of cemeteries, but such documents have rarely been linked for historic cemeteries. This paper focuses on the mapping and inventorying of historic St. Michael’s Cemetery in Pensacola, Florida, and on potential applications of the results to other cemeteries. The mapping involved a global positioning system receiver to establish reference points and a total station survey of individual marked graves, borders, and fences. Grave inscriptions and marker attributes were recorded on a microcassette recorder and transcribed into a spreadsheet. All data were imported into a geographic information system to produce an accurate digital map and database. The map and database are suited to examine architectural trends and influences, historical social issues, evolving funerary customs, demographic trends, and cemetery management matters. The fully interactive map and database are available on the Web and can potentially serve archaeologists, historians, geographers, genealogists, geologists, forensic scientists, and anthropologists.

Carol A. Nickolai

Class and Gender in Nineteenth-Century Rural Michigan: The Merriman-Sharp Hillside Farm

Abstract:The social and material expression of class and gender is an active process; the meanings and symbols in social contexts are constantly being negotiated and renegotiated. These meanings can be approached through a wide variety of sources, including material culture, landscape, architecture, and documents. In 1912 Ella Wing (Merriman) Sharp willed much of the farm and home she had inherited from her mother, Mary Merriman, and her personal property to the City of Jackson, Michigan, with specific provisions that her farm be turned into a park and her home into a museum. During their residence and even after their deaths, these two women manipulated the environment, both material and natural, in and around their farm and house to communicate very specific messages about their class and gender status.

J. Victor Owen

The Geochemistry of Worcester Porcelain from Dr. Wall to Royal Worcester: 150 Years of Innovation

Abstract:The compositions of 54 sherds (ca. 1751 to the early 1900s) from three Worcester porcelain factory sites were determined by electron microprobe. The data show that the early proprietors of the first (Warmstry House) factory initially (1751) produced a mildly phosphatic frit (lead-bearing) ware. Soapstone was added to this paste (and flint glass frit virtually eliminated) after Worcester acquired the Lund’s Bristol works early in 1752. It is not known when in the early or mid-1750s they abandoned this transitional paste in favor of their long used soapstone-frit paste. One transitional phosphatic sherd has an unusually high magnesium content (16.5 wt.% MgO), indicating the use of ~48 wt.% soapstone, probably added to improve the paste’s plasticity. A nonphosphatic, experimental ware is unusually lead-rich (17.1 wt.% PbO), apparently reflecting an attempt to achieve a more vitrified ware than the earlier phosphatic porcelain. After about the mid-1750s, relatively minor variations were made to the Mg-Pb paste, but some wares produced during the Flight and Barr period (1792-1804) have compositions intermediate between true (Si+Al-rich) porcelain and lead-free soapstone wares. True porcelain sherds were recovered from Robert Chamberlain’s Diglis factory (1783-1840), which later became Chamberlain & Co. and, subsequently, was operated by Kerr and Binns who produced bone china. At the St. Martins Gate works, the Graingers manufactured true porcelain and bone china. Both Grainger wares used a novel, variably lead-bearing, barium-rich glaze. In 1862, the above-mentioned factories amalgamated under the auspices of Royal Worcester, which, like Grainger, produced true porcelain and bone china but, instead, used barium-free, alkali-lime, and lead-bearing glazes on these two types of ware, respectively. The geochemical data indicate that the history of porcelain manufacture in Worcester is one of both continuity and innovation.

James R. Wettstaed

Perspectives on the Early-Nineteenth-Century Frontier Occupations of the Missouri Ozarks

Abstract:American settlers began moving into the Missouri Ozarks in the early-19th century. Despite extensive historical research, however, very few early-19th-century farmsteads have been investigated archaeologically in the region. Using the data generated by limited excavations at seven sites, combined with a study of store records from the1840s and travelers’ accounts, this paper provides an archaeological perspective of life on the Missouri Ozarks frontier. In particular, as in other frontier settings, status differences do not appear to be visible in the archaeological record. In this case, the explanation may be related to the Scotch-Irish cultural traditions of the inhabitants.

Back to Top