There’s gold in them thar— documents? The demographic evolution of Nevada’s Comstock, 1860 through 1910, and the intersection of census demography and historical archaeology

Abstract

The premise of this work is that the interpretation of historic communities is most effective when it is derived from both the physical evidence and the written record. As an introduction to the use of manuscript censuses by archaeologists, the purpose of this paper is threefold. First, it will explain the uses of manuscript censuses in historical archaeology as well as their limitations. Second, it will provide an example of the uses of these data sources. Third, it will offer a simple model for historical archaeology based on these data. To this end, the demographic evolution of Nevada’s Comstock from 1860 though 1910 is examined in order to both explain potential uses of census materials and to provide a baseline for understanding population processes on the Comstock in particular, and mining communities in the Inter-Mountain West during this time period. The paper concludes that census data are integral to understand demographic processes at a particular point in time, examining trends through time, and portraying an historical community.