The Dualities of Endurance: A Collaborative Historical Archaeology of Ethnogenesis at Brothertown, 1780-1910

The Brothertown Indian community formed in the late 18th century when segments of several tribal groups from coastal northeastern North America broke away from their home settlements to move west together. What united the community was a shared belief in Christianity, a dedication to practices of agriculture, and hopes of escaping the land politics and corrupting influences of colonial culture on the East Coast. This dissertation investigates the ethnogenesis, evolution, and endurance of the Brothertown Indian community from the perspective of collaborative historical archaeology. In doing so, it aims to reassess theories of culture, identity, and discourse in the modern postcolonial world, and to incorporate archaeological data into the study of Brothertown history. In order to accomplish these goals, this dissertation analyzes historical documents, cemeteries, and settlement patterns using theories of practice and pragmatics. The results of these analyses reveal the ways in which several tribal groups joined together to form a new type of Native community and negotiate colonial politics, specifically the roles that linguistic, material culture, and spatial discourses played in these processes. Certain discourses challenged dominant schemes of social classification, obfuscating categories such as “Indian” and “White,” but also had pragmatic impacts within the Brothertown community that shaped memory processes, conceptions of personhood and identity, and overall communal structures. This study concludes that instances of ethnogenesis hinge upon insiders and outsiders continually negotiating social boundaries via words, things, and spaces. It rejects dichotomous frameworks of cultural change that classify materials and practices solely in terms of their origins for more complex considerations of the long-term, pragmatic results of such entanglements

Zooarchaeological Evidence for Animal Husbandry and Foodways at Sylvester Manor

Analysis of over 12,000 zooarchaeological specimens recovered from Sylvester Manor provides archaeological evidence to complement the limited historical information about stock raising and food consumption on the plantation. The analyzed collection derives from the south lawn midden deposit at the site, and contains primarily the remains of domestic sheep, cattle, and pigs. The domestic animal ages, based on tooth eruption and wear, suggest aspects of the animal husbandry system. The patterns of skeletal part representation suggest most of the bones from the midden are refuse from household consumption rather than waste from exported foodstuffs. The Sylvesters and their tenant farmers maintained a dietary emphasis on traditional European domesticates and this diet would have represented a major change for the plantation’s African and Native American occupants

Evaluation of Oil-Industry Stimulation Practices for Engineered Geothermal Systems

Geothermal energy extraction is typically achieved by use of long open-hole intervals in an attempt to connect the well with the greatest possible rock mass. This presents a problem for the development of Enhanced (Engineered) Geothermal Systems (EGS), owing to the challenge of obtaining uniform stimulation throughout the open-hole interval. Fluids are often injected in only a fraction of that interval, reducing heat transfer efficiency and increasing energy cost. Pinnacle Technologies, Inc. and GeothermEx, Inc. evaluated a variety of techniques and methods that are commonly used for hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells to increase and evaluate stimulation effectiveness in EGS wells. Headed by Leen Weijers, formerly Manager of Technical Development at Pinnacle Technologies, Inc., the project ran from August 1, 2004 to July 31, 2006 in two one-year periods to address the following tasks and milestones: 1) Analyze stimulation results from the closest oil-field equivalents for EGS applications in the United States (e.g., the Barnett Shale in North Texas) (section 3 on page 8). Pinnacle Technologies, Inc. has collected fracture growth data from thousands of stimulations (section 3.1 on page 12). This data was further evaluated in the context of: a) Identifying techniques best suited to developing a stimulated EGS fracture network (section 3.2 on page 29), and b) quantifying the growth of the network under various conditions to develop a calibrated model for fracture network growth (section 3.3 on page 30). The developed model can be used to design optimized EGS fracture networks that maximize contact with the heat source and minimize short-circuiting (section 3.4 on page 38). 2) Evaluate methods used in oil field applications to improve fluid diversion and penetration and determine their applicability to EGS (section 4 on page 50). These methods include, but are not limited to: a) Stimulation strategies (propped fracturing versus water fracturing versus injecting fluid below fracturing gradients) (section 4.1 on page 50); b) zonal isolation methods (by use of perforated casing or packers) (section 4.2 on page 57); c) fracture re-orientation and fracture network growth techniques (e.g., by use of alternating high- and low-rate injections) (section 4.4 on page 74); and d) fluid diversion methods (by use of the SurgiFrac technique, the StimGun perforation technique, or stress shadowing). This project task is to be completed in the first project year, enabling the most promising techniques to be field tested and evaluated in the second project year. 3) Study the applicability of the methods listed above by utilizing several techniques (section 5 on page 75) including, but not limited to: a) Hydraulic Impedance Testing (HIT) to determine the location of open hydraulic fractures along a open-hole interval; b) pressure transient testing to determine reservoir permeability, pore pressure, and closure stress; and c) treatment well tilt mapping or microseismic mapping to evaluate fracture coverage. These techniques were reviewed for their potential application for EGS in the first project year (section 5.1 on page 75). This study also includes further analysis of any field testing that will be conducted in the Desert Peak area in Nevada for ORMAT Nevada, Inc. (section 5.2 on page 86), with the aim to close the loop to provide reliable calibrated fracture model results. Developed through its hydraulic fracture consulting business, techniques of Pinnacle Technologies, Inc. for stimulating and analyzing fracture growth have helped the oil and gas industry to improve hydraulic fracturing from both a technical and economic perspective. In addition to more than 30 years of experience in the development of geothermal energy for commercial power generation throughout the world, GeothermEx, Inc. brings to the project: 1) Detailed information about specific developed and potential EGS reservoirs, 2) experience with geothermal well design, completion, and testing practices, and 3) a direct connection to the Desert Peak EGS project

Negotiating Boundaries of Colonialism: Nineteenth-Century Lifeways on the Eastern Pequot Reservation, North Stonington, Connecticut

The processes of colonialism involve the selective adoption of the foreign along with the recasting of the traditional. Native American participation in these processes is popularly downplayed in recounts of colonial pasts, portraying Native American peoples as docile and malleable - unable to resist assimilation into the “dominant” European colonist-culture. In 17th-century Connecticut, European colonists officially declared Pequot peoples extinct with the Treaty of Hartford after murdering and selling the majority of Pequots into slavery. Despite this, Pequot peoples persevered and returned to their homelands, forcing colonists to “give” them reservation lands in the mid- to late-17th century. The Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation reservation was officially established in North Stonington Connecticut in 1783. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Euroamerican encroachers began to call Eastern Pequot authenticity into question in attempts to appropriate tribal lands for pastureland and colonial development. The archaeological record from this time period speaks to Eastern Pequot identity and habitus and paints a picture of Eastern Pequot peoples as agents of change, constantly negotiating their places within colonial structures. This work adheres to a model of colonialism that is more complex than accultuationist perspectives that simplify colonialism as a mono-directional process with the “dominant culture” infusing into and over the “passive”, leaving no traces of the latter. Zooarchaeological analyses of two household assemblages on the Eastern Pequot reservation open windows into the everyday lives of Eastern Pequot peoples living on the reservation in the early 19th century. The faunal remains attest to the hardships of reservation life and the maintenance of an Eastern Pequot ethnic identity. Meat sources were processed intensively and shared between household groups. Furthermore, traditional practices such as non-metal tool use and bone smashing tied 19th-century Eastern Pequot peoples to their common pasts and, in turn, to each other. By adhering as a community and maintaining ties to their pasts while at the same time changing with the times, Eastern Pequot agents actively negotiated their places within the political and social climate of 19th-century Connecticut

Colonial Consumption and Community Preservation: From Trade Beads to Taffeta Skirts

From Introduction: Monday, April 30, 1917, was a fairly ordinary day for Belva Mosher (19171923:51). She began her diary entry with a short description of the cool, wet Wisconsin weather; an unfortunate spring rain kept her indoors for much of the day. She went on to mention several mundane events before concluding the day’s entry: in the morning she visited with her friend Ella and, later that afternoon, sent away to Sears & Roebuck for a silk taffeta skirt. For me, this “everyday” example of consumption is of particular interest because Belva was indigenous