Memory In Black And White: Race, Commemoration, And The Post-Bellum Landscape

Interview with Dr. Paul A. Shackel by Leah Wood Jewett Paul A. Shackel is a professor and Director of the Center for Heritage Resource Studies, Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland. He is the author of Personal Discipline and Material Culture, Culture Chan...

CULTURAL LANDSCAPES AND HISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE RILEY TRACT, ROCK CREEK PARK, WASHINGTON DC

Rock Creek Park is an urban forest within the District of Columbia and is administered by the National Park Service. Before it was established in 1890, much of the area was farmed by a diverse group of landowners and tenants, including William Riley owned 100 acres in what is now the northern section of the park. Today this area is used regularly by hikers, runners, dog-walkers, and horseback riders and is informally referred to as the "wilderness" area of the park. Many believe it is a natural forest, unaware of the land's history. Left relatively undisturbed for years, this heavily wooded parkland contains intact historical archaeology resources and cultural landscapes. Survey of the Riley tract located several cultural landscape features including a stone wall, a dam, two terraced.fields, and a vineyard. Two previously recorded 19th-century sites were also revisited and further characterized. The research located the site of an earlier tenancy, likely late 18th-century, as well as evidence of three 19th -century structures. Many of the newly discovered structures and landscapes features are associated with the late 19th-century Riley farmstead. The research demonstrates that the Riley tract contains extensive evidence of 18th and 19th-century workplaces, and parkland should be interpreted not just as a natural area but recognized for the extensive human component evident in its intact cultural landscapes and archaeological sites

Text Mining Oral Histories in Historical Archaeology

Advances in text mining and natural language processing methodologies have the potential to productively inform historical archaeology and oral history research. However, text mining methods are largely developed in the context of contemporary big data and publicly available texts, limiting the applicability of these tools in the context of historical and archaeological interpretation. Given the ability of text analysis to efficiently process and analyze large volumes of data, the potential for such tools to meaningfully inform historical archaeological research is significant, particularly for working with digitized data repositories or lengthy texts. Using oral histories recorded about a half-century ago from the anthracite coal mining region of Pennsylvania, USA, we discuss recent methodological developments in text analysis methodologies. We suggest future pathways to bridge the gap between generalized text mining methods and the particular needs of working with historical and place-based texts

Excavations at 178 Prince George's Street, the Back Area of the Brice House, 18AP38, Annapolis, Maryland

During the spring of 1986, two weeks of archaeological excavations were performed behind 178 Prince George Street, Annapolis, Maryland. This area is considered to be the back area of the Brice House, 18AP38. A brick and stone foundations was recovered. Data from its builder's trench dates this feature to the early first half of the 18th-century, predating by several decades the construction of the Brice House. The structure was probably a stable that may have been incorporated, and rebuilt by Brice

Introduction: The Past Made Public

Industrial sites archaeology has, for a long time, memorialized the benefits of industrial capitalism at the expense of those workers who toiled in the factories and mines. Research has often emphasized the great engineering feats of the past, while the history of labour has often been subordinated. By understanding and making the heritage of the working class prominent at industrial sites illuminates the differences between labour and capital in the past. This work can also provide new avenues to understanding inequalities in our contemporary world. The call for labour justice that developed as a result of the Lattimer miners’ strike in northeastern Pennsylvania, USA in 1897 is compared to the recent Marikana miners’ strike in South Africa. Many of the injustices in the mining industry that occurred in the USA and other western nations over a century ago now seem to be exported to developing countries

Continuity and Change on an Urban Houselot: Archaeological Excavation at the 22 West Street Backlot (18AP51) of the Annapolis National Historic District, Anne Arundel County, Maryland

Intensive archaeological investigation was undertaken on an urban backlot in Annapolis, Maryland. Fieldwork was conducted on behalf of Historic Annapolis Foundation for the property's owners, King and Cornwall, Inc. Supplemental documentary research, an evaluation of existing conditions on the property, and below-ground excavation of a 35 X 70 ft. urban backlot were conducted. While the project was not a Section 106 compliance effort, the field methods and rationale for the site's investigation are comparable to those of standard Phase II site evaluations. Historical documentation attested to the fact that the 22 West Street Backlot, located along the western most edge of the Historic District of Annapolis, Maryland, had seen development and occupation since the first quarter of the eighteenth century. A substantial brick structure was known to have occupied the property in a series of altered forms for much of that period. This structure served a variety of purposes over time: a private residence in the eighteenth century, a boarding house in the nineteenth century (known as the National Hotel), a duplex in the early twentieth century, half of which remained in use until the structure was entirely razed in the 1970s after destruction by fire. Recovery and analysis of site formation processes (i.e., both cultural and natural transformations of the buried remains) indicated that sections of the site were disturbed to a depth of six feet. In contrast to what initially seemed a poor prognosis for site integrity, other areas of the backlot revealed numerous intact historical features and deposits. Structural remains from the dwelling and its associated outbuildings, additions, and attendant trash deposits were recovered. What was initiated as a program of limited testing evolved into a larger-scale undertaking that made use of largely hand-excavated units in conjunction with machine-assisted stripping of areas demonstrated to contain from four to six-foot deep sterile layers of fill. The current investigations provided a window into a portion of the city and period in its history not documented archaeologically. Moreover, this project provided valuable insight into the archaeology of the homelot within a lightly industrialized, urban context. Evidence was recovered of shifts in the layout and arrangement of the houselot as well as changing relations between individuals and the workplace--all within an urban context--an issue defined elsewhere in the archaeological literature as a significant one. No further investigations are recommended for the site, however, further analysis and interpretation of materials recovered are ongoing. In the event that the site were to undergo development, monitoring of any construction activity is recommended