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This paper maps and spatializes the Almshouse Ledger records for the children of unmarried parents in New York City in the 1820 and 1830s. Mapping the distribution of poverty and the provision of forms of welfare in the city, this paper illustrates specific areas of the city which were attracting the very poor as early as the second decade of the nineteenth century. This paper argues that migrants from countries with similar welfare systems to those established in New York may be overrepresented in the record due to familiarity with the system. This interdisciplinary paper combines archaeological approaches to GIS with archival research to illustrate the distribution of welfare provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the example of an industrial site in Edmonton, Alberta, this paper argues that industrial ruins represent instantiations of abstract abandonment, a kind of real abstraction that directly articulates to the logic of capital. Drawing from excavations of the industrial ruins of Mill Creek Ravine, one of the first industrial areas in Edmonton, this paper reveals how sites of abstract abandonment congeal critical histories of both abandonment and its afterlives. The history of these ruins, and the communities that emerged after they were abandoned materialize the failures of capitalist fantasies, as well as the sprouts that grow in its cracks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, the territory of western Somaliland was integrated into a series of Muslim states which controlled large areas of the southeastern Horn of Africa. One of the ways this control manifested itself was in the emergence of a network of permanent settlements on the westernmost side of Somaliland and the neighboring Ethiopian region. Although 20 of these sites have been identified so far, our information about most of them is fragmentary at best. This paper presents a comprehensive study of the material, architectural and territorial context of three of these medieval sites: Abasa (Darbiyah Kola), Hasadinle, and Iskudarka. This paper analyzes the information they provide us for understanding some of the key themes of the history of the region, such as the strategies of state control, the process of Islamization, the relationships between nomads and urban dwellers, and the material expressions of hierarchization and social inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last 500 years is characterized by immense socioeconomic and environmental transformations on a global scale. Animals were significantly affected by these processes but were also central to many of the transformations that shaped the modern world. While there has been a growing number of researchers investigating animal bones from archaeological sites from this period, the "Zooarchaeology of the Modern Era" working group provides the first dedicated forum for these scholars to meet. This paper introduces a special collection of studies which resulted from the first meeting of this research group and explores how these investigations help us understand our modern world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papers in this special issue arise from the Status and Identity in the Imperial Andes session held at the 2017 meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver, Canada. That session focused on the role of status and power in shaping colonial interactions and identities throughout the Andes during the fifteenth to seventeenth century CE. The papers in this issue examine how Inka and colonial period individuals (indigenous, African, Iberian, mestizo, etc.) selectively incorporated or rejected Imperial goods, and how differing levels of access to these goods may have influenced social status, health, and relationships with imperial actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an archaeology of Fort La Cloche, a nineteenth-century Hudson's Bay Company post in Georgian Bay (Lake Huron, Canada), this paper explores parallels between historical archaeology and posthumanism. The posthumanities identify and critique three key problems familiar to historical archaeologists: (1) the arbitrary prioritization of certain types of historical actors (usually White, male, settler colonial) as the apex and standard for all humanity; (2) dichotomous modes of thought that cleave the world into discrete (opposed) categories like "nature" versus "culture"; and (3) human exceptionalism, which frames human beings as fundamentally different—and separate—from all other living and nonliving things surrounding them. An archaeology of La Cloche offers insights into how these broader philosophical goals compare with the work of historical archaeologists. The intersection of the archival record with the archaeological collection, a large and varied assemblage of patent medicine bottles, porcelain doll parts, buttons, shotgun casings, and much more, provides new perspectives on the fur trade; it offers insights into the broader community at La Cloche, peopled not just by powerful company men but by children, woman, workers of various kinds and, of course, Ojibwe and other Indigenous peoples. Historical archaeology also focuses on the material conditions of the fort, documenting complicated and sticky relationships of dependence between people of all sorts and humble, nonhuman things. The paper concludes that historical archaeology and posthumanism stand to benefit from further engagement with one another, making recommendations for further growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The NoMA Business Improvement District (BID) is one of Washington DC's fastest developing areas and has one of the city's largest concentrations of unhoused tent camps, many of which are located in underpasses that provide bits of protection and privacy. These underpasses were created during DC's City Beautiful Movement and have been the site of neoliberal antihomeless strategies. In this paper I explore the production of space in the NoMA area and how property owners, business associations, and government actors sanitized public space for wealthy newcomers while excluding poor and unhoused residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the archaeology and history of labor is based on organized labor, unions, and strikes, and the common rhetoric emphasizes the success or failure of union strike activities. This frames labor activism with clear winners and losers and inadvertently adopts the vantage point of capital. Given the modern world where union membership is plummeting, "success" seems even more unlikely. In this paper, I use the case of the Coalwood lumber camp to argue that labor's "success" was much more complicated than simply winning strikes. Recognizing the difference between concrete and abstract labor provides a way to think about worker's decisions to structure their lives based more on concrete than alienated labor that gives them more autonomy over their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we learn to share? As contemporary Western folks, what do we share, under what conditions, and with whom? Through two personal "material stories," our paper explores how archaeologists can think beyond capitalism when interpreting material worlds. We consider the dynamics (and limits) of sharing economies as an emerging form of collective production. Starting from the blunt force "consolidation" of a leading British archaeology department, we trace the subsequent fissures and spaces of opportunity created by this disruptive moment of neoliberal closure. We tell stories about the collective production of a replica lithic assemblage, and the construction of a community chicken hutch, to explore the intricacies of everyday sharing as an intentional means of resource creation. Through these two disparate case studies, we aim to not only demonstrate the complex social networks and object meanings generated by sharing (versus capitalist) economies, but also consider wider implications (both benefits and conflicts) generated through collective resource production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines traces of Sámi habitation in southern and central Scandinavia, particularly Sweden, addressing the late medieval period to the end of the nineteenth century. It begins with Swedish judicial policy against Sámi nomadism in central Sweden, followed by a discussion of medieval Sámi material culture in southern Scandinavia. Further analysis addresses so-called Parish-Lapp indenture, which allowed nomadic Sámi to escape eviction to the far north (as decreed in 1671) by serving the parish. Yet, Sámi groups maintained and developed ritual practices, foodways, and language in a society parallel to the majority society and in resistance to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the special issue, "Community Archaeology of the African Diaspora." This collection of papers grew out of a session at the 2020 Society for Historical Archaeology conference in Boston, Massachusetts, with additional authors invited to add further geographical and methodological diversity. The papers in this issue address a single question—how are archaeologists currently involved with community archaeology projects related to the African Diaspora?—and reflects the wide array of approaches currently being implemented across the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The time is here for archaeologists to step up to the role of enabling communities to have a meaningful collaboration with our research. The papers in this volume exemplify this ability for archeologists to full engage with descendant communities to create projects that are applicable to the people whose identity is impacted by our work This paper takes the opportunity to comb through the methods presented in these case studies and develop a set of criteria by which the goal of community engagement can be had. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within this wide range of approaches to understanding healthcare have emerged issues of race, class, sex and gender, yet seldom has disability theorizing entered into archaeological discourse - with bioarchaeology only recently thinking about impairment and disability rather than paleopathology (see Byrnes and Muller [9]; but especially Kincopf [29]) and archaeological works discussing disability not necessarily engaging with disability theory (e.g., Psota [47]; Spence et al. [63]; cf. Instead, we see a space where the systematic debilitation of Black bodies was the norm. Scott's paper, which examines the Weimar Joint Public Sanitarium of Northern California, embraces a broad disability theorizing approach to her subject, playing back and forth between the social and medical models of disability, while also engaging with crip theorizing that attempts to understand how social understandings of disability become normalized. It is no coincidence, argue disability theorists, that disability imagery and language is often evoked as a means of dehumanizing or rendering as "less than" groups of people - women who are "hysterical", the pathologizing of queer people, the reduction of an enslaved man to the scars on his back, the equating of political opponents as "idiots" or "blind" (e.g., Chen [11]; Knadler [31]; McRuer [39]; Oliver [44]; Quayson [49]; Seibers [55], [54]; Sontag [62]; Summers [65]). Disability theory, therefore, has a crucial contradiction within it that disability is simultaneously a political and activist shared identity, but disability itself is experienced in a range of diverse lived and embodied ways. [Extracted from the article]

This paper describes the on-going research at Cliff Head, Garden Island (Indigenous name Meeandip) in Western Australia, the first British settlement on the west coast of Australia dating to 1829. The research has recorded features of local limestone and introduced materials such as low-fired brick, a well, and other artifacts brought from Britain. Early results suggest that areas at the camp existed for domestic purposes, storage of equipment and food supplies, the running of stock, and intra and inter-island communication, but other hypotheses are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on two manors, Kumo in Finland and Duvnäs in Sweden, through early sixteenth-century written sources and material remains. Both were, one after the other, in the custody of Olof Svart (obiit 1547), who was one of Gustav I's earliest administrators. Through a combination of historical and archaeological methods, including map studies, a successful career in the service of Sweden's first Early Modern king is traced and placed in the cultural landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reverend Thomas Bridges' Yagan-English dictionary (1879) has hitherto been little explored outside of linguistics but is highly valuable as a complementary source to archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic records in Tierra del Fuego (Argentina and Chile). The dictionary contains 22,800 entries and yields rich information concerning the marine lifeways of the Yagan and their and intimate knowledge about Fuegian seascapes. The idea behind this paper is that environments have strong bearings on linguistic vocabularies. Treating words as archaeological objects that map onto landscapes, we identify important landforms for Yagan marine foragers and Norwegian fisher-farmers in a comparative study of word frequencies in Bridges' dictionary and Ivar Aasen's Norwegian dictionary (1850). Moreover, we explore in detail how marine lifestyles and Fuegian seascapes emerge in Bridges' dictionary and discuss the dictionary's relevance for historical archaeology in Tierra del Fuego. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this guest editor's introduction to this thematic volume on the historical archaeology of Queensland, Australia, I briefly discuss some of the history and archaeology of Queensland in light of some of the major themes currently being investigated. The papers presented in this volume are also introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how agents inscribed their persona in buildings during the Renaissance in Scania in present-day Sweden. Through an analysis of stone tablets and timber beams with inscriptions, images, and dates, questions of identity and individuality are highlighted. The objects were often placed above doors in noble country residences or in buildings belonging to the urban elite. The paper discusses who was able to see and understand the messages communicated by the buildings, and when, how, and why the tradition of putting up this type of object on buildings emerged in a Scandinavian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the Australian boab tree and its potential for research as living historical archaeology. Boab trees play an important role in the economy, culture, and cosmology of Indigenous people in northwest Australia and continue to hold a powerful presence in the Kimberley region today. Working with Nyikina and Mangala Traditional Owners we have undertaken to document examples of this iconic tree and its cultural and historical associations, particularly in the form of carvings and inscriptions embedded in the bark. Focusing on four individual trees located in the Kimberley region of northwest Australia, we propose that the modification of boab trees, as a practice undertaken by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, offers important insights into the everyday lives and historic events that shaped this cultural landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge of the terrain and its use are essential for successful combat. This paper highlights the importance of these facts through the deeds of general Miklós VII Zrínyi (1620—64). His efforts to strengthen the defense of Međimurje resulted in a complex defense system that actively used the terrain to its advantage, established primarily for the protection of the Kakonya Crossing. The selection of the location of Novi Zrin, its strengthening, and the construction of the Zrínyi Ditch all prove that he was thinking of a complex system, and actively used the terrain to his advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narratives embedded in studies of modern Spanish colonialism have conspired against a deep understanding of colonialism as a global and current issue and have influenced or limited the directions for research. By focusing on particular narratives that separate and disconnect the realities of the colonies from those of the Iberian Peninsula, this article discusses the conceptual divide between the study of colonial and early modern realms, and the tenuous connections between the archaeology of Spanish colonialism developed in America and in the Iberian Peninsula. This paper attempts to counter those insular narratives by offering a view on how even remote settlements in Ibero-America show connections that tell stories of sixteenth-century Spain and pose questions that often cannot be answered due to the lack of shared perspectives between the study of modern Spanish colonialism in America and the Iberian Peninsula. To illustrate this view, a case study focused on Ciudad del Nombre de Jesús settled during the failed Spanish plan for the fortification of the Strait of Magellan at the end of the sixteenth century is provided. The interpretation of the results of archaeological and historical lines of research allows the establishment of material connections among individuals, stories and places of the Iberian Peninsula and America. The implication of this case contributes to considering the role that archaeology can play in questioning the enduring effects of modern Spanish colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of historical archaeology in the Iberian Peninsula has opened new and stimulating avenues of research into its most recent times. One of these has been the archaeology of the Carlist Wars, a series of nineteenth-century conflicts related to the overarching process of the emergence of liberal governments in Europe and, contemporarily, of counter-revolutionary movements. This paper will describe recent excavations at Carlist sites in the southern part of the Basque Country in order to tackle two interrelated questions: the limits and possibilities of a Carlist archaeology and the close connection of the specific materialities of these events and the politics of memory surrounding them. It is argued that the Carlist War materiality has not been considered in the process of the construction of the Basque heritage because these conflicts are not introduced into the legitimating narratives of the failed-state formation project of the Basque identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about Death Valley – a site of mass killings orchestrated by Nazi Germany that took place on the outskirts of Chojnice during the Second World War. I begin by referring to some examples of conflict archaeology that persuasively demonstrate how what has so far been the domain of history is transforming into archaeology. I then present historical information concerning Death Valley. Following this, the paper presents the results of archaeological investigations into material traces of mass killings in Death Valley. Finally, I present an ethnography of Death Valley, scrutinizing the contemporary role of the site among local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is an introduction to the special issue entitled "Beyond (within, through) the Grid: Mapping and Historical Archaeology." The papers in this issue emerge from a 2017 Society for American Archaeology session, in which archaeologists considered the intersections of mapping and historical archaeology. In this volume, the papers expand upon these discussions and explore the ways in which mapping can generate new archaeological data and contribute to methodological and theoretical problems in historical archaeology. Together, they consider the interplay between visibility and invisibility, the visualization of embodied experience, mapping power and resistance, and the use of mapping in heritage practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike other social sciences, the archaeological discipline has been lacking a theoretical framework to discuss the mechanism of migration. Traditionally, patterns of population movements were denoted from material culture and interpreted within the context of ethnicity and the diffusion of ideas without considering underlying processes and incentives, despite active consideration of these issues by geographers and sociologists. It was not until the 1990s that a more integrated archaeological discussion on the various stimuli, influences, and mechanisms of why people choose to migrate was beginning to evolve. Since then, the debate on migration in archaeology has not only reflected on patterns of cultural and technological change but also increasingly on aspects of identity and self-realization; both in terms of how migrants themselves adapt and adjust to their new home environment, and how the host-communities themselves respond and interact with newcomers. Using four case studies, the current paper proposes a new theoretical model for how to assess patterns of group migrations. This new model considers the respective mode of agency related to both the intention and size of the group. "Very High and High Group Agency" represent situations where the migrant group is at a technological and quantitative advantage to the host community, while "Medium and Low Group Agency" represent situations where the newcomers are forced to respond to their new environment through adaptation and adjustment to their local host community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper takes its starting point in the Danish city of Elsinore, a city that housed a thriving migrant community in the Early Modern period. The presence of a large community of resourceful and skillful migrants in the city, many of whom were refugees from the Dutch wars of independence, called for flexibility and diplomacy on behalf of migrants as well as Danes. The paper aims to shed light on how the migrants succeeded in living relatively freely and peacefully among the Danes in the city through careful negotiations of public and personal identities. These negotiations are visible through the careful balancing of public and private languages and prudent adjustment of the legal system that were undertaken to avoid social tension, as well as in settlement patterns in the town and the use of material culture. The many sources from Elsinore thus demonstrate the success of the migrants in a time of social and religious tension, where religious conformity was demanded in public, and personal beliefs thus had to be expressed in the privacy of the home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papers in this issue come out of the Archaeology of Reform/Archaeology as Reform session at the 2013 meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology in Leicester, England. Focusing on many different institutions and programs, this volume was brought together to explore the idea of social reform as it manifests in different ways in different places. At its very basic level, reform is about change - change that carries with it the implication of an improvement ranging from the personal to the social and institutional. As a noun, reform is the 'amendment of what is defective, vicious, corrupt, or depraved;' as a verb, reform is to 'put into a new and improved form or condition; to restore to a former good state, or bring from bad to good; to change from worse to better; to amend; to correct' (Webster and Porter 1913). Unlike revolution, which has connotations of rapid, wholesale change, reform is generally understood to be a gradual process that improves, rather than overthrows, the status quo. While the papers in this volume touch on all of these, the emphasis is on social and institutional reform affecting categories of people, rather than specific individuals. Although each paper examines a different geographic location, they share several common threads: the goals and ideologies of reform; the reformers and the reformed; material implementations of reform; and the unobtainable ideal. In addition to discussing historical reform using archaeological methods, authors were also asked to think about how archaeology itself can be reformative (archaeology as reform). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many nineteenth-century Chinese migrants to Pacific Rim countries died far from their home villages. Diverse approaches were adopted to mark graves, possibly anticipating the subsequent, culturally important, repatriation of their bones. This paper evaluates the morphology of grave markers from eight northeast Australian sites and considers reasons for the variations. Physical appraisal of each site was undertaken and, where they exist, cemetery records and allied documentation examined. In an unusual departure from the norm the inscriptions on most identified grave markers rarely indicate date of death. The seemingly meticulous attention to grave identification in some areas contrasts with others where markers are absent. This study indicates divergent approaches to identification and recording of individual graves over time and place. Rather than indicating full-fledged ethnogenesis, wherein Australian Chinese developed new cultural practices, these behaviors suggest that ca.1870–1930 was a transitional period, during which extant cultural processes were adapted to meet immediate needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early nineteenth century, the Western Caribbean, particularly the Archipelago of San Andres, Old Providence, and Santa Catalina, became the focal point of ambitious hydrographic surveys. Despite the region's rich maritime heritage, challenges posed by complex geomorphology, frequent hurricanes, and cold fronts led to historical charting inadequacies, turning the Archipelago into a perilous ship trap. This study delves into the Spanish Armada (1804–05) and the Royal Navy (1833–36) hydrographic surveys to interpret the Maritime Cultural Landscape (MCL) of the archipelago. The importance of the archipelago as a link between South America, the Isthmus of Panama, Havana (Cuba), and Europe highlights the significance of these surveys. A comparative analysis of the Spanish and British methods offers insights into their strategies amid the perilous survey environment. While integration of Spanish nautical information into the British survey is evident, it culminated in the wreck of HMS Jackdaw, illustrating mapping expedition complexities. This paper also evaluates the accuracy of British cartography using Geographic Information System (GIS) methodologies. By overlaying the 1835 Old Providence Island chart onto contemporary 2021 cartography, we showcase the standards and precision of British surveys through an analysis of coastline and hydrographic soundings. Personal memoirs, official records, and descriptive accounts weave the narrative of the rich MCL, emphasizing its historical importance, the region's maritime identity, and the intertwining of environmental factors and cultural heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boston's "Big Dig" construction project resulted in the excavation of multiple archaeological sites dating from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, including the Great House/Three Cranes Tavern in Charlestown, Massachusetts (USA). An otherwise unremarkable pit below the tavern foundation contained bones originally identified as a cat skeleton, which has subsequently been reidentified as a dog. This paper discusses site context, osteological evidence for the dog's reclassification, and the shifts in cultural meaning this may indicate. Employing an osteobiographical approach, it draws together points of connection between the modern skeletal assessment, a series of 1980s excavations, and the motivations of eighteenth-century tavern inhabitants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the first investigation of animal remains unearthed from the Late Ottoman occupation at Mardin fortress, a military stronghold in Anatolian–Syrian frontier under Ottoman rule. The analysis produced 4234 specimens and carried out taxonomic identification, species diversity, kill-off patterns, and nature of bone modification, including those of taphonomic and cultural marks. Being the first zooarchaeological study of an Ottoman occupation in southeastern Anatolia, the results add vital information to the paucity of archaeological knowledge of life and dietary habits of regional Ottoman elite soldiers, and offer a glimpse into the local pastoralism and wildlife of that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary is organized into three parts. The first discusses the papers presented in this volume, notably divided into two themes: those that looked at past struggles and those that look at struggling in the present. The second part deals more critically with the unifying analytical theme of the papers: a dialectical approach to historical archaeology and how it can be implemented through the theory of internal relations. The final section of this commentary takes this idea and applies it to the archaeology of landscape and the production of social space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeology of the Japanese diaspora has reached "critical mass" in its disciplinary development, and there is a need to document the current state of this burgeoning subfield of historical archaeology. In this introduction we present a summary of the history of the Japanese diaspora and an overview of scholarly literature in related disciplines. The papers in this special issue reflect both current trends in archaeological scholarship and point in new methodological and theoretical directions. A concluding forum by three historians of the Japanese diaspora offers a critical reflection on the assembled papers and places them within a wider academic context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The comparative analysis of artifact assemblages is simultaneously enticing and daunting. New research questions can potentially be addressed but a number of limiting factors can hinder the process. The first section of this paper will examine these limitations; the remainder of the paper proposes a model for conducting comparative research via archaeological biography, data mining, and tracing material and quality-of-life trajectories. The model was developed for the Gold Rush Lives project, which seeks to trace how everyday people faired in gold-rush era cities in Victoria, Australia. Drawing from the comparison of two households in Little Lon, Melbourne, the paper will make the case for comparing material trajectories rather than data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the results of terrestrial laser scanning combined with close range photogrammetry of the common beeches (Fagus sylvatica) covered in carvings (arborglyphs) dated to 1944 around Chycina, Poland. First, the archaeological research concerning heritage in the woodlands is shortly outlined using Polish archaeology as a case study. Then, the limitations of such research are pointed out. The last two parts of this paper present the beeches as a unique example of living monuments of the recent past. It is argued that archaeologies of the recent past in the woodlands will be gaining an increasing relevance in Polish as well as European archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversification of standards of living in modern societies is one of the main research topics for economists and sociologists. Usually, economic inequalities are considered to be a natural phenomenon which trigger further progress and, in moderate amounts, are socially acceptable. However, deep inequalities are unjust and destructive and lead to conflicts. The research of contemporary inequalities in living standards mainly focuses on defining their source and their social and economic implications. The issue of social inequalities in pre-industrial societies is researched in a similar way, but requires different methods and data sources. The purpose of this paper is to determine the usefulness of archaeology in the research of diversification of living standards in Central-European cities at the end of Middle Ages and in the Early Modern era. As a case study we discuss the consumption strategies of Late Medieval and Early Modern dress accessories from different burgher plots in Prague (modern Czech Republic) and Wrocław (modern Poland) as an introduction for broader research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the kind of data used, to the creativity of approaches aimed at exploring social networks in the past, applications of social network analysis (SNA) in archaeology are characterized by exceptional diversity. In recent years, applications of SNA by historians and history-adjacent scholars have also increased dramatically, partly as a product of the growing field of digital humanities. In the North American sense of the term, the utility of social network analysis has yet to be substantively realized by historical archaeologists. In this paper, we use two case studies from the southeastern United States to illustrate the potential that social network analyses could offer historical archaeologists. In particular, we highlight how social network analysis can be employed as a framework for the integrated consideration of both archaeological and documentary evidence to explore the distribution, accumulation, control, and production of social capital in the past. In our first case study we leverage archaeological networks as a proxy for social capital to explore the contradictions and complementarity of archaeological data and the ethnohistorical record on the Indigenous politics of sixteenth-century Southern Appalachia. In our second example we examine networks of tasks and spaces across a nineteenth-century enslaved community on the Georgia Coast to understand how social capital can be differentially accumulated and accessed within particular spaces and practices. Through these examples, we demonstrate the potential for social network analysis to enrich the research programs and support the goals of North American historical archaeologists and to link such research into broader themes across the social and humanistic sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of Métis ethnic identity has been of interest to archaeologists for over half a century, but explorations of this topic have remained limited. In this paper, we present a new approach to Métis ethnic identity in archaeology that is based on the concept of foodways, using the example of late nineteenth-century Métis wintering (or hivernant) sites in Western Canada. This approach differs considerably from earlier studies by its use of a relational approach to key elements of Métis ethnic identity, namely kinship and the land, to discuss the role of foodways and food-related practices in the definition and enactment of that identity. We also argue that women stand out as key players in the relation between Métis community identity and foodways. While our conclusions remain theoretical at this stage, we demonstrate that archaeologists working on Métis archaeological materials are ready to move beyond hybridity frameworks and offer a few starting points for the application of the ideas presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying why newly introduced cultivars fail to make inroads with local populations is notoriously difficult, as these “rejected” crops often leave little or no physical evidence. Taking advantage of unusually ample historical documentation, this paper studies wheat’s introduction, dispersal, and sporadic cultivation in the Philippine archipelago, with an emphasis on the period between 1640 and 1670 CE when sustained wheat cultivation began near Manila. Using documents and comparisons to other cultivars imported during the Pacific Columbian Exchange, the paper identifies several independent barriers to wheat’s cultivation, all of which aligned to ensure wheat was never widely farmed by local populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The archaeology of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) has experienced an important development over the last two decades. Several field projects have studied aspects such as mass graves, forced labor camps, and battlefields. In this paper, we present a case study from the so-called "Northern Front" (Frente Norte). The impressive mountain of Monte Bernorio, situated at the foothills of the Cantabrian Mountains, controls one of the main communication routes between the central Spanish plateau (Meseta) and the Cantabrian Sea. Due to this strategic position, the site has played an important military role during two episodes of war separated by nearly 2,000 years: the Roman conquest of northern Iberia under Emperor Augustus in the 20s BCE, and the Spanish Civil War in the years 1936-37. The ongoing archaeological excavations and surveys are uncovering abundant remains of trenches, battering positions, barracks, and munitions belonging to the Civil War period, when Bernorio was a highly disputed position in the confrontation between "Republicans" and "Nationalists." Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this paper combines archaeological evidence, oral history, and written documents that shed light on one of the main episodes of Franco's conquest of northern Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper serves as an introduction to the special edition of the International Journal of Historical Archaeology on the theme of Scottish historical archaeology in its international context. The introduction aims to provide a context for the individual papers in the collection by briefly outlining some of the main characteristics of Scottish historical archaeology—as it has developed in the past, as it is at present and as it might develop in the future. The paper also discusses the ambiguous relationship between Scottish historical archaeology and wider historical archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four Bibles were recovered from the spontaneous shrines at the site of the bonfire tragedy that claimed the lives of 12 students at Texas A&M University. Having been exposed to rain and wind for several weeks, these books were severely deteriorated. Inscriptions, photographs, and poems included with the Bibles, however, are an important part of the material culture assemblage that folklorists and anthropologists need to preserve and study. As part of an emergency recovery effort, the Bibles were collected and preserved using inexpensive and innovative techniques, using Lysol-treated absorbent paper and freeze-drying techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent work in Melbourne, including the papers in this volume, has shed new light on the archaeology of this major nineteenth-century urban center. But how does Melbourne compare to other important contemporary cities, particularly those outside the British Empire? This paper compares “Marvellous Melbourne” against the “Paris of South America,” Buenos Aires, with a focus on exploring consumer behavior and transnational trade. Two case studies are considered, Casselden Place (Melbourne) and La Casa Peña (Buenos Aires) and while some differences are encountered, the overall similarity in results points to the interconnectedness of the world during the period under study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the nineteenth century, New York State established poorhouses in each county. By the next century, most had been converted to elder care institutions or hospitals. Patients who died without family or means for burial elsewhere were interred on-site in graves marked with small numbered grave stones or wooden markers. After the institutions closed, markers were lost and cemeteries were destroyed by development. This paper describes an exception, the Brier Hill cemetery of the Dutchess County Poorhouse. Approximately 300 original concrete markers are present and remote sensing suggests an additional 500 individuals are in now unmarked graves. Efforts to document, preserve, and protect the Brier Hill cemetery, without disturbing the dead, have revealed how social relationships shaped the cemetery population. While most archaeological studies of poorhouses cemeteries focus on biology of poverty, our work suggests that having friends, literally or figuratively, may have made all the difference in how and where the poor were laid to rest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marronage was an extreme form of anti-slavery resistance in the Americas, however, we should not isolate Maroons from others fighting to maintain autonomy in the colonial Americas. This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of three Florida sites – Bulow Plantation, an urban plantation in St. Augustine, and the Maroon settlement of Pilaklikaha – through the dual frameworks of resistance and ethnogenesis, with the purpose of placing Maroons within a regional context. Ultimately, the archaeological materials examined highlight the common experiences shared by Maroons and their enslaved peers, and emphasize the significant role played by opportunity in shaping African diasporic cultural transformations in the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the British colony of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania, Australia) the period 1839-53 witnessed an irrevocable change in the way in which prisoners (convicts) were managed. Known as the "probation system", its introduction saw convicts newly transported from the corners of the Empire sequestered in government-run stations across the colony's length and breadth. At these places, rigorous and uncompromising discipline, classificatory regimes, religious inculcation and trades-training would see the convict molded into working stock for the colony. In reality, such ideologies were to be undone by reactive planning, miscommunication and chronic under-resourcing, as well as helplessly undermined by unforeseen economic and political circumstances. Condemned as a failure, probation has nonetheless left an indelible mark on Tasmania's landscape. A system only implemented in Van Diemen's Land and Norfolk Island, it can rightfully claim a significance that extends well beyond these islands' shores, playing a critical role in Britain's globe-spanning penological enterprise. In this paper, we chart the course of probation, simultaneously outlining a framework for engaging with these landscapes where penology and labor was so closely intertwined. It will be illustrated with two examples drawn from the Tasman Peninsula: the Port Arthur penal station (1830-77) and Cascades probation station (1842-55). Using archeological and historical enquiry, the different impacts that probation had upon the penological and labor management of these places are examined, providing examples of how the significant landscapes of the probation-era can be examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I propose a method to improve the intercomparability of different artifact groups by narrowing the error caused by the differences in material densities. The products, especially of mixed materials, have not been previously analyzed as regards whether or not they have statistically significant differences in material densities or whether the densities affect comparative studies. The results showed that in addition to the obvious material groups like different metals and stones, there is also a significant difference in material densities when comparing redware and clay pipes by their weight. Therefore, the method presented here eliminates the effect of material density, but in a way that it is still intuitive and can be compared with values that have not been density corrected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological excavations conducted in Lisbon and nearby cities have yielded a significant amount of a type of pottery from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century contexts not made in Europe. These bear characteristics allowing them to be associated with African or Brazilian productions and probably used by African populations. Although generally absent from the archaeological record, accounts from the mid-fifteenth century onwards note the presence of African people in Portugal, most as slaves. Materially speaking, however, it has always been assumed that they adapted to using local material culture, hence the lack of archaeological evidence marking them as distinct groups. However, the non-European pots discussed here reveal extensive wear marks and are found associated with domestic contexts. Most slaves worked in such contexts, as borne out by the historical evidence. The purpose of this paper is to start a discussion on the ways which these objects could have been used by non-Europeans in Portugal and how they reflect the presence of African populations with a specific identity and distinct social practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]