Study In Historical Archaeology Research Articles

Storm in a Teacup: The Life of a Nineteenth-Century New Zealand Settler Told through Her Tea Ware

Tea ware has been the focus of numerous North American and Australian historical archaeology studies of female consumer behavior in colonial contexts. This article uses data from a 19th-century urban site in Whanganui, New Zealand, to examine how these previously explored experiences of self-expression and social pressure compare to those of a woman from another part of the colonial world. To do this, the ways in which three aspects of Mary Byrne’s tea-ware assemblage changed over time were examined and considered alongside events that occurred during her 40-year occupation of the site. The results highlight the varied and complex ways in which a first-generation settler in New Zealand used material culture to negotiate a place in her new community.

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN EASTERN AFRICA?

AbstractRecent years have seen growth in the number of historical archaeology studies in Eastern Africa. Combining critical analysis of material remains alongside the available documentary and oral sources, these offer new insights into the precolonial and colonial pasts of the region. However, the field is less well established than in either West or Southern Africa and the full potential of the subdiscipline has yet to be realised. This contribution reviews the main analytical and theoretical trends, drawing on a selection of examples. Several other research themes that might warrant investigation are also identified, and the general lack of engagement with material culture and the archaeology of the last few hundred years on the part of historians, is lamented.

Fox, Georgia L. The archaeology of smoking and tobacco. 169 pp., illus., bibliogr. Gainesville: Univ. Press of Florida, 2015. £64.95 (cloth)

This is, extraordinarily, the first study in historical archaeology that attempts an overview of tobacco and smoking‐related activities and what the archaeological record of this plant and its associated artefacts – particularly the tobacco pipe – tells us about society, economy, and consumption in the historical past. Using her own archaeological research on 21,575 white clay tobacco pipes recovered from Port Royal, Jamaica, as well as a wide variety of secondary sources, Fox takes us on what can become a somewhat giddying journey investigating the materials and meanings of tobacco and smoking across the Atlantic world. As someone trained as a social anthropologist and hence as an outsider to the precise and sometimes pernickety world of archaeological research, I found the collation of numerous research reports, theses, and edited volumes pertaining to the somewhat specialized field of tobacco pipes to be very helpful. Most of the time the focus is on North America and the Caribbean – this is, after all, a book in the ‘American Experience in Archaeological Perspective’ series – but we sometimes find ourselves exploring English pipe‐making kilns, looking at Dutch masters, or even, towards the end, in conversation with a businessman in Wenzhou, China. Fox's theoretical approach is to combine elements of world systems analysis and consumer theory in order to understand the crucial role that tobacco addiction played in both the formation of the early American republic and the development of what rapidly became a world system of colonization and trade.

The Practice and Theory of New Heritage for Historical Archaeology

New heritage refers to the intersection of new media technologies and traditional heritage studies. This includes the use of digital technologies to virtually reconstruct archaeological objects and contexts. This article presents readers with an overview of these approaches through two case studies drawn from African American archaeology. The first case study explores the reconstruction of Kingsley Plantation, near Jacksonville, Florida. This study uses SketchUp and Google Earth to create and share the site. The second case study examines a similar project in Rosewood, Florida, that combines a wider range of data, while exploring a mixed methods approach to sharing the virtual reconstruction. The authors also examine the ways such work intersects with historical archaeological studies of African American identity and landscape.

Toward a Historical Archaeology of West African Borderlands

The duo-field of historical archaeology is increasingly being recognized around the world for its contributions. However, most of the existing surveys have concentrated on the coastal and hinterland locations in West Africa. Whereas, the ethnographic cum archival study of West African borderlands abounds in the literature, there is the dearth of the comparative analysis of these sources in tandem with the archaeological findings of material culture. Thus, this paper seeks to open up a new dialogue on the importance of borderlands studies in historical archaeology and vice versa. It concludes that the historical archaeology of West African borderlands promises to yield new insights into the dynamics of the region’s modern history. Keywords : African History; Borderlands Studies; Historical Archaeology; Intercultural Encounter; Modern Era; West Africa.

The archaeology of smoking and tobacco

Smoking pipes are among the most commonly found artifacts at archaeological sites, affirming the prevalence and longevity of smoking as a cultural practice. Yet there is currently no other study in historical archaeology that interprets tobacco and smoking-related activities in such a wide spectrum and what clues they give about past societies. In The Archaeology of Smoking and Tobacco, Georgia Fox analyzes the archaeological record to survey the discovery, production, consumption, and trade of this once staple crop. She also examines how tobacco use has influenced the evolution of an American cultural identity, including perceptions of glamour, individuality, patriotism, class, gender, ethnicity, and worldliness, as well as notions of poor health, inadequate sanitation, and high-risk activities. Employing material culture found throughout North America and the Caribbean, Fox considers the ways in which Native Americans, enslaved Africans, the working class, the Irish, and women used tobacco. Her own research in Port Royal, Jamaica--an important New World hub in the British-colonial tobacco network--provides a fascinating case study to investigate the consumption of luxury goods in the pre-industrial era and the role tobacco played in an emerging capitalist world system and global economy.

Construction of Foothold and Expansion of Horizon : Trend of study in historical archaeology during 2012~2013

Construction of Foothold and Expansion of Horizon : Trend of study in historical archaeology during 2012~2013

‘This Islande is Inhabited with all Sortes’: The Archaeology of Creolisation in Speightstown, Barbados, and Beyond, AD 1650–1900

Studies of creole material cultures in historical archaeological frameworks in the Americas and Caribbean from the sixteenth century onwards emphasise the diversity and dynamism of cultural traits that are rooted in a range of different backgrounds: indigenous, African and European. Using a case study based upon recent historical and multidisciplinary archaeological research in north-western Barbados, this paper seeks to chart the development of a distinct vernacular Barbadian creole material culture over the period 1650–1900. It is argued here that the evolution of a strong and characteristic local cultural identity, as evidenced by recent archaeological research, counters the usual perception, common among historians of the period, that the plantocracy and its associated agents merely sought to reproduce English culture in the tropics. In fact the cultural picture as presented here is far more nuanced, and has implications for wider historical archaeological studies in the region.

Pueblo Potsherds to Silver Spoons: A Case Study in Historical Archaeology from New Mexico

The relationship between documentary and material sources continues to be a source for considerable debate within historical archaeology. Using a case study from northern New Mexico as an example, this article illuminates the material availability enjoyed by 18th- and early-19th-century Hispanos residing in the Santa Fe River valley. Testament inventories from colonial inhabitants are compared with archaeological assemblages from residential sites of the same area and period to expose two very different emphases in material culture. Relevant documents focus on tools and status items, often imported. The archaeological collections, however, consist mostly of utility ceramics obtained from Pueblo Indian communities. Why does such a contrast exist between the two sources of information? Self-identification represented by documents suggests deliberate and genuine, but uneven, Spanish cultural participation. Yet the archaeological record hints more at a type of “transculturation” occurring at least at the level of everyday material culture reflecting recent ethnogenetic models of multidirectional cultural exchanges in the Spanish Borderlands.

Re-emerging Frontiers: Postcolonial Theory and Historical Archaeology of the Borderlands

The article considers the importance of frontier studies in historical archaeology and discusses applicability of some of the concepts deriving from postcolonial theories for a better understanding of human relationships in the frontier zones. The conditions of frontiers and borderlands are compared with the characteristics of the “Third Space” described by Homi Bhabha as a realm of negotiation, translation and remaking. It is argued that concepts developed in postcolonial theories, such as “Third Space,” “in-betweeness” or hybridity, are useful not only to address cultural and social processes in borderlands that were created by colonial empires. They are also an apt way to conceptualize relationships in frontiers that lacked colonial stigma. To illustrate this point, two different historical examples of borderlands are scrutinized in this paper: the medieval frontier region that emerged between Denmark and the Northwestern Slavic area and the creation of the colonial frontier in Northeastern America through the establishment of the Praying Indian Towns.

Early medieval, medieval and historic periods - Rosemary Cramp with contributions by C. Roger Bristow, John Higgitt, R.C. Scrivener & Bernard C. Worssam. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture Volume VII, South-West England. xviii+446 pages. 29 figures, 565 plates, 3 tables. 2006. Oxford: Oxford University Press/British Academy; 0-19726334-8 hardback £65. - Richard Jones & Mark Page. Medieval Villages in an English

Early medieval, medieval and historic periods - Rosemary Cramp with contributions by C. Roger Bristow, John Higgitt, R.C. Scrivener & Bernard C. Worssam. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture Volume VII, South-West England. xviii+446 pages. 29 figures, 565 plates, 3 tables. 2006. Oxford: Oxford University Press/British Academy; 0-19726334-8 hardback £65. - Richard Jones & Mark Page. Medieval Villages in an English Landscape: Beginnings and Ends. xviii+270 pages, 78 illustrations. 2006. Bollington: Windgather; 978-1-905119-08-0 hardback; 978-1905119-09-7 paperback £19.99. - Sam Turner (ed.). Medieval Devon and Cornwall: Shaping an Ancient Countryside. xvi+176 pages, 67 illustrations. 2006. Bollington: Windgather; 978-1-905119-07-3 paperback £19.99. - Christopher Lowe. Excavations at Hoddom, Dumfriesshire: An Early Ecclesiastic Site in South-west Scotland. xviii+222 pages, 87 figures, 67 plates. 2006. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland; 9780-903903-39-4 hardback £35. - Clare Mccutcheon. Medieval Pottery from Wood Quay, Dublin: The 1974-6 Waterfront Excavations (National Museum of Ireland Medieval Dublin Excavations 1962-81, Ser. B, vol. 7). 2006. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy; 1-904890-12-1 hardback €35. - Barbara Yorke. The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain c. 600-800. xvi+334 pages, 2 maps, tables. 2006. Harlow: Pearson Education; 978-0-852-77292-2 paperback £18.99. - Veronica Ortenberg. In Search of the Holy Grail: The Quest for the Middle Ages. xvi+336 pages, 17 illustrations. 2006. London: hambledon continuum; 9781-85285-383-9 hardback £25. - Brian Marshall. Lancashire’s Medieval Monasteries. 156 pages, 68 illustrations. 2006. Blackpool: Landy; 978-1-872895-68-0 paperback £10. - C.M. Woolgar. The Senses in Late Medieval England. xii+372 pages, 86 b&w & colour illustrations. 2006. New Haven & London: Yale University Press; 978-0300-11871-1 hardback £25. - Martin Hansson. Aristocratic Landscape: The Spatial Ideology ofthe Medieval Aristocracy (Lund Studies in Historical Archaeology 2). 224 pages, 68 illustrations. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiskell International; 91-22-02154-X paperback SEK294. - Viccy Coltman. Fabricating the Antique: Neoclacissism in Britain, 1760-1800. xii+256 pages, 86 illustrations, 5 colour plates. 2006. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press; 0-226-11396-5 hardback $48 & £30.50. - Volume 81 Issue 311

Survival of Biological Evidence on Artifacts: Applying Forensic Techniques at the Boston Saloon, Virginia City, Nevada

The Boston Saloon was an African American-owned business that operated during the 1860s and the 1870s in the mining boomtown of Virginia City, Nevada. Most materials recovered from this establishment are similar to artifacts from other Virginia City saloons due to the widespread availability of mass-produced items. This challenges any attempt at investigating relationships between gender and ethnicity from saloon artifacts. Cooperative efforts between forensic sciences and historical archaeological studies provide a solid foundation for developing unequivocal interpretations of these topics by extracting DNA from common, mass-produced artifacts. Specifically, these efforts resulted in the retrieval of a DNA profile from a clay tobacco pipe stem. Choosing the pipe stem and other likely candidates that could have served as material hosts for ancient DNA (in this case, at least 125 years in age) was a learning process, the results of which may require archaeologists to modify standard recovery methods so as to maximize information retrieval. This process led to other techniques, such as the use of a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC/MS), to identify residues on artifacts.

A parallel history: the archaeology of Hanseatic urban culture in the Baltic c.1200–1600

The Hansa formed the principal agent of trade and cultural exchange in northern Europe and the Baltic during the late medieval to early modern periods. Hanseatic urban settlements in northern Europe shared many things in common. Their cultural ‘signature’ was articulated physically through a shared vocabulary of step-gabled brick architecture and domestic goods. Although the Hansa remains a monolith in the popular historical imagination, it is rapidly becoming a multidisciplinary field of study juxtaposing often-contradictory material and documentary sources. The redevelopment of towns on the Baltic littoral, particularly of those formerly behind the Iron Curtain, offers archaeological opportunities to create parallel biographies of medieval mercantile communities that avoid tautology but bring a new texturing to the reconstruction of cultural development in the region. The archaeology of the Hansa in the Baltic – as a case study in historical archaeology – offers the prospect of investigating some of the key attributes of pre-industrial European society on the macro-regional scale. Such attributes include the development of mercantile capitalism, Europeanization, colonialism, acculturation and resistance. Ceramic distributions are particularly sensitive to reflecting levels of adoption and resistance to Hanseatic cultural influences among diverse communities, notably in the spheres of dining practice and domestic comfort. The paper begins with a review of historical perceptions of Hansa culture in the region and how rescue excavation is now redefining a sense of identity among local communities in a changing geo-political environment.

Tudor Silver-Gilt Dress-hooks: A New Class of Treasure Find in England

This paper combines a study of the typological, technological and constructional attributes of a sample of fifteen dress-hooks and cap-hooks, reported between 1998 and 2000 under the terms of the Treasure Act (1996), with a survey of contemporary pictorial sources, probate inventories and associated wills along with a trawl of ‘small wares’ in the records of the Goldsmiths' Company in order to assess the role of these accessories in vernacular dress of sixteenth-century England.Of particular interest are questions of manufacture and design, followed by the questions of how these objects functioned in relation to the closure and decoration of dress, their noteworthiness in contemporary accounts, their social status, their ranking in the output of contemporary goldsmiths and whether there was a gender bias in terms of their ownership. This cross-examination of excavated finds with contemporary iconographie and documentary sources represents an interdisciplinary case study in historical archaeology.

Drought as a factor in the Jamestown colony, 1607–1612

Landscape reconstructions are now common in historical archaeology but climatic reconstructions are still infrequent. Period accounts of the Jamestown colony’s first decade indicate considerable stress that has begged satisfactory explanation. A baldcypress tree-ring study was initiated as an independent means of climatic reconstruction in the lower Chesapeake region. The findings clearly document severe drought during the first years of the Jamestown colony. The implications of these findings enrich and clarify the first-person accounts of stress due to famine, poor water quality, intercultural hostility, and extreme mortality. The results also demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary studies in historical archaeology and should encourage more routine consideration of climate as a significant factor in the historical events of the United States.

Historical Archaeology in the Next Millennium: A view from CRM

In the article "Historical Archaeology in the Next Millennium: A Forum," Donald L. Hardesty outlines his views on the future of his torical archaeological research and professional development. Upon reading the article, I discov ered much that I could agree with, several top ics that I had not previously thought about, and a few points on which my opinions differ signifi cantly. Also, I have my own observations about the future of historical archaeology that were not discussed in Hardesty's article. Most impor tantly, I was somewhat disappointed that he did not expand his article to include his views con cerning the role of public policy in shaping the future of historical archaeology. I agree that cultural resource management (CRM) will con tinue to play a pivotal role in the evolution of our discipline, especially in the United States, but also in other parts of the world, and because CRM is, by its nature, a product of public policy, I cannot divorce the role of policy from my own observations about professionalism and research in the archaeological community. I will try to limit my remarks, however, to the opin ions professed in Hardesty's article, and will only invoke comments about the role of policy in the future development of the profession when nec essary. I agree with Hardesty in his assessment that environmental studies in historical archaeology could and should be one of the foremost research topics of the new millennium. Prehistoric ar chaeologists have most often looked at the lim its placed on culture change by the environment, as well as ways that culture has adapted to en vironmental limits and/or changes. Historical archaeologists, on the other hand, have a poten tially rich source of research topics in the ways by which the environment has been affected by modern technology and culture. Hardesty has listed a few of these events (fires, floods, defor estation, etc.) and processes (climatic cycles) by which environmental change has been spurred by human intervention. I would add to this list the study of environmental change resulting from terraforming, consumerism, and, more basically, the environmental changes that have been associ ated with a rapidly increasing population during the modern period. As Hardesty so aptly points out, landscapes are a prime source of data about modern human interactions with the environment. Unfortunately, a potential problem affecting an increase in land scape studies within the historical archaeology of the next millennium lies in the way archaeology is now conducted. Especially in the United States and Canada, but increasingly in other ar eas of the world, field investigations of archaeo logical sites are conducted primarily within the confines of CRM, or its equivalents. By its na ture, the CRM currently being conducted in the United States as a response to the demands of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) is inherently particularistic. Only that portion of the landscape affected by a pro posed undertaking is generally available for study. Within that "area of potential effect," archaeological sites are identified, evaluated, and, if determined to be significant, more thoroughly i vestigated on the bases of their own merits than in their relationships with the larger whole, i.e., the landscape. Only in certain circum stances, when a project covers a large area, is it possible to use the relationships between the en vironment and the humans occupying it as a ba sis for a research agenda. In the 1994 "Save the Past for the Future II" Conference, held in Breckenridge, Colorado, a significant topic of discussion within the Inte grated Resource Management Workshop was the policy of "ecosystem management" within United States federal land-holding agencies (Nick els 1995:41-46). Traditionally, this approach has ignored the relationship between humans and the environment, or at most, has viewed humans as

A Chesapeake Family and Their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology.

A Chesapeake Family and Their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology.

A Chesapeake Family and Their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology.

Foreword Acknowledgements Permissions Preface Part I. Starting Points: Region, Town and Site: 1. Transforming space into place 2. Beginning the research Part II. Ruling the Province: 3. On behalf of his lordship 4. Governor Benedict Leonard Calvert Part II. Big Features and Topological Dimensions: 5. 'A house well built and with much strength' 6. Ordering nature: the Calvert orangery, garden and vista Part IV. Mosaics Built From Little Artifacts: 7. Touches of Chinese elegance: pottery and porcelain 8. Social distinctions in daily food Part V. Building Black Identities 9. The face of urban slavery 10. West African women, food and cultural values Part VI. Artifacts In Motion: 11. Putting meat on the bones 12. Hunting, fishing, and market trading Part VII. Time Markers and Social History: 13. Generations of change 14. Charisma and the symbolics of power Part VIII. The Vitality Of Cultural Context: 15. Archaeology as anthropological history 16. Archaeology, a topical discourse Bibliography Endnotes Appendix.

A Chesapeake Family and Their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology.

A Chesapeake Family and Their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology.

History and Archaeology on the Chesapeake Bay: A Chesapeake Family and Their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology . Anne Yentsch. ; Historical Archaeology of the Chesapeake . Paul Shackel, Barbara Little.

History and Archaeology on the Chesapeake Bay: A Chesapeake Family and Their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology. Anne Yentsch. History and Archaeology on the Chesapeake Bay: Historical Archaeology of the Chesapeake. Paul Shackel and Barbara Little, eds.