APT Student Subcommittee – Society for Historical Archaeology

Christopher Matthews — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 17:11:21 +0000

We are happy to announce the next issue of Historical Archaeology will be arriving in your mailboxes soon! Here’s a preview of some of the content from the guest editor of the thematic collection on Historical Bioarchaeology, Shannon A. Novak.

Not only materials suffer the cuts and blows of the maker’s practice. For every strike or punch recoils, on impact, in the body that delivered it.

Tim Ingold and Elizabeth Hallam, Making and Growing (2014)

Given the tremendous growth and developments within the field of bioarchaeology, it is an opportune time to re/introduce the readers of this journal to some of the topics, concerns, and insights bioarchaeologists are contributing to the study of the “modern world.�?Of course, “modernity�?is a concept that has long been subject to debate and, while the articles in this series do not take on the topic directly, they do grapple with the many traces this process left in its wake, along with the scars and legacies that persist. Part of this legacy is the relative paucity of human skeletal remains in this journal, the reasons for which are historical and multiple. Despite this general invisibility, bodies are very much present. They work, produce, and consume; they wear, perform, and desire; they exploit, commodify, and resist. While these studies teem with life, the people “doing�?rarely acquire substance. Yet theirs are the bodies that made and were made by the so-called modern world. Such making, as Ingold and Hallam note above, is co-constituting; it takes a toll on materials and bodies alike. Bodily concerns and their material properties are, therefore, “vital data�?in studies of modernity and daily practice. Indeed, by reconstituting these tissues—their affordances and constraints—archaeological inquiries are vitalized in simple, but important, ways. In this series of articles, we explore the possibilities of bringing the materiality of archaeological bodies back into the conversation, into anthropological inquiries, and into the pages of this journal. The contributors weave together an impressive array of materials to consider the dynamic processes of “becoming�?at multiple scales. Ethics and care, nation building and citizenship, labor coerced and resisted, intersect with diverse material forms. Importantly, these studies start with a question or concern that does not necessarily privilege human tissues (bone or teeth), but rather position their findings in relation to other processes and things. Their inquiries involve “with,�?rather than “or,�?allowing us to move away from the old trope of testing the historical record with truths written in bone. Our hope is that readers of this special series will be exposed to the rich potential of “historical (bio)archaeology,�?and motivated to engage with the diversity of people and their traces—more broadly conceived.

Articles:

Vital Data: Re/Introducing Historical Bioarchaeology, by Shannon A. Novak and Alanna L. Warner-Smith

An Alter(ed)native Perspective on Historical Bioarchaeology, by Rachel J. Watkins

Caring Differently: Some Reflections, by Tony J. Chamoun

Building Nation, Become Object: The Biopolitics of the Samuel G. Morton Crania Collection, by Pamela L. Geller

Assembling Heads and Circulating Tales: The Doings and Undoings of Specimen 2032, by Shannon A. Novak and Alanna L. Warner-Smith

Working in the City: A Historical Bioarchaeology of Activity in Urban New Spain, by Julie K. Wesp

Restoring Identity to People and Place: Reanalysis of Human Skeletal Remains from a Cemetery at Catoctin Furnace, Maryland, by Karin S. Bruwelheide, Douglas W. Owsley, Kathryn G. Barca, Christine A.M. France, Nicole C. Little, and Elizabeth Anderson Comer

The Body Politic and the Citizen’s Mouth: Oral Health and Dental Care in Nineteenth Century Manhattan, by Lauren Hosek, Alanna L. Warner-Smith, and Cristina C. Watkins

“Against Shameless and Systematic Calumny�? Strategies of Domination and Resistance and their Impact on the Bodies of the Poor in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, by Jonny Geber and Barra O’Donnabhain

Still Life: A Bioarchaeological Portrait of Perinatal Remains Buried at the Spring Street Presbyterian Church, by Meredith A.B. Ellis

Reflecting on a More Inclusive Historical Bioarchaeology, by Jennifer L. Muller

Cover image: Engraving, “New York City Medical College for Women, East Twelfth Street and Second Avenue–Student Dissecting a Leg,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, New York, April 16, 1870

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APT Student Subcommittee – Society for Historical Archaeology

William White — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 09:00:56 +0000

The author’s son at archaeology field project in Boise, Idaho (2015)

By William White University of California, Berkeley Last winter, during ski week school closure in California, several anthropology undergraduate students brought their young children with them to class. I am a professor who never minds this. I completely understand how fragile childcare arrangements can be for archaeology college students. I started my PhD when my son was two-years-old and my daughter was about six-months-old. My PhD revolved around meeting academic and parental obligations. I tried to make graduate student cocktail mixers leaving early enough to help put kids to sleep. As a grad student with children, I found that I had more in common with some of my professors who also had childcare woes than other PhD students. Childcare is essential to being able to conduct fieldwork and research as parenting children, regardless of their age, and being out in the field does not always mix. I had my children after I had already completed my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree, so worrying about what I was going to do with my child while I took a field school wasn’t a concern. But, the presence of elementary school-aged faces in my college lecture got me thinking: What do students who are parents do when they need to go to archaeological field school? What would a single-parent professor or cultural resource management (CRM) archaeologists do when they needed to go into the field? Attending an archaeological field school is central to becoming a professional archaeologist. Many cultural resources companies refuse to hire archaeological field technicians who have not taken a field school. Most professional archaeologists get their start as field techs. Being flexible for those early career field projects is also important for launching an archaeologist’s career in cultural resources. Having kids adds another dynamic to the decision to take a field school or the ability to be flexible in your early career. Finding someone to take care of your kid for happy hour cocktails or a late seminar is much easier than locating someone who will watch your kid full-time while you are out of town for six weeks. Based on personal experience, I know how important both extracurricular student bonding activities and field projects are for an archaeologist’s career. I also know how I managed to meet some of those obligations without leaving my kids in a parked car at the field site (Hint: My wife watched the kids so I could do archaeological fieldwork). In fact, most of the archaeologists I know have spouses, friends, or family members who will watch their kids so they can go out into the field. I know of very few field projects where children are welcomed. Liability issues make them virtually prohibited from CRM fieldwork. In addition to figuring out how students navigate childcare and fieldwork, I also wanted to know if archaeology is conducive to parenting. Are we working in an industry that makes it easier or more difficult to be a parent?

Parenting from the Field

The expectations of a field-based career does influence an academician’s decision to become a parent. Unsurprisingly, it is women who report delaying pregnancy to pursue their career; however, having a child effects the careers of both parents in positions that require fieldwork. Lack of work-life balance is cited as a major source of stress for parents in the academy (Lynn, 2018). Academicians are frequently able to bring their children with them in the field. Fieldwork with a baby is not easy but it can be done. Collecting quality field data and taking care of a baby are not mutually exclusive (MacDonald and Sullivan 2008). Women in academia, including archaeologists, conduct substantial fieldwork while pregnant that makes significant contributions to their field (Carter 2017). As long as health risks are mitigated, pregnancy should not prevent women from conducting productive fieldwork (Sohn 2018). Accompanying parents to field projects can become an enlightening experience for children old enough to remember their experiences. While they recall being bored, tired, and hot, children of academicians recall traveling abroad on field projects with their parents had a positive impact on their lives (Barton 2014). Debates around being a mother and field researcher are an “evergreen�?topic for companies, universities, students, and scholars. The particulars of being a mother and doing fieldwork are the focus of an upcoming book from Rutgers University Press titled �?em>Mothering from the Field: The Impact of Motherhood on Site-Based Research�?(Muhammad and Neully, editors; 2019).

Archaeologists are already having intense conversations about parenting and fieldwork online. On Facebook archaeology groups and CRM Archaeology Podcast Episode 158 you can find lengthy discussions about how parents handled children for fieldwork. Episode 158 unearthed deeper revelations about how having kids can affect a parent’s career. Fieldwork oftentimes delays an archaeologist’s decision to start a family. The constant childcare dance prevents some from even entering the field and drives others out of it. Parenting only gets more complicated as older children have emotional and psychological needs younger kids do not. It is important to be present for an older child’s activities and be there to help them thorough the dilemmas of being a teenager. Advice and presence becomes more important as a child gets older.

While professors and academic researchers have the freedom to bring their children to the field, this is rarely possible for CRM archaeologists or students. Liability issues on CRM projects prevent children from being present on most CRM projects. Typically, only principal investigators and company owners have told me they brought their kids to the field. Students may not even know they can ask to bring their kids with them to the field. (FYI: Do not be afraid to ask if you can bring the child with you to a field school. The worst they can say is ‘no�? Also, the response of your supervisor and co-workers will give you an excellent idea of how conducive this workplace is going to be for parenting.) For an archaeologist, a strong network of family and friends are paramount to making fieldwork happen. Having a supportive spouse makes it easier for archaeology students to get their field training when a field school is not amenable to children. Supportive family or close friends can also fill the childcare void while also providing a nurturing environment for children while parent(s) are away. This is even more important for archaeologists who are single parents. The economics of childcare are also an ever-present consideration for any archaeologist who has to go into the field. Can you afford the kind of aftercare or preschool that will allow you to get back to town from the field? Can you compensate folks for taking care of your kid while you are in the field? Most archaeologists are not able to afford this kind of childcare, which is something companies and field school directors need to start taking into account as childcare problems undoubtedly drives away many talented archaeology parents.

What do I tell students?

Raising children is not easy. Doing archaeological fieldwork as a parent is even more difficult. But, archaeology is full of parents who have managed to get an education (including field school), forge a career, and raise their children. Without children, there would be no archaeology. However, we live in a world where archaeology is not conducive to being a parent. I feel more can be done to make it easier for students to bring their children with them to the field. I understand that not all projects will be able to accommodate children, but professors and anthropology departments can do a better job of creating local field opportunities where children can be present. I do not believe CRM will be able to provide opportunities for archaeologists to bring their children with them to the field as it would violate too many liability clauses and occupational hygiene ordinances. The companies I’ve worked for do a pretty good job of letting management bring their kids to the office, but I think they could do more to help up-and-coming field technicians who are parents. The best thing they could do is hire some of these folks as permanent employees, which would remove some of the precarity of having to be ready to do fieldwork at the drop of the hat. This means creating opportunities for field techs to do office work (i.e. activities normally handled by archaeologists with graduate degrees). It will not create opportunities for all field technician parents but it would help many. It may not always be possible, but a workplace’s willingness to allow children depends on the flexibility of management, especially those with children. Parents in management have the most power to make archaeological fieldwork more amenable to children. It is within the power of supervisors who are parents to make archaeology more realistic for co-workers who are parents.

Children are always welcome in my class, which means I need to keep doing what I can to create field schools where children are welcome. Safe, local, low-cost, public projects like public archaeology projects in Boise, Idaho through University of Idaho. On these public archaeology/field schools, children work alongside parents. Projects like these are too few, but I feel like there is space for there to be more of them in the future. We have a chance and an obligation to make sure parents can bring their children with them to field school.

A field archaeologist’s career success depends on the social networks. Archaeologists are not the only ones who travel for work. Archaeology families have to work together to help make fieldwork possible. The parents among us also need to remain mindful of the ways archaeology is not supporting parents and to remedy the mechanisms that keep parents out of the field. Those without children may not be aware that they are hindering an archaeology parent’s progress. It is also up to archaeology as a profession to do whatever it can to help make parenting and archaeological fieldwork possible. We can follow the lead of field scholars in academia to make it easier for parents to be with their children in the field.

References

Barton, Erin

2014 Innocents abroad: Fieldwork with family. Arizona State University (//research.asu./stories/read/innocents-abroad-fieldwork-family) Accessed August 28, 2019.

Carter, Imogene

2017 Pregnant in the field: have trowel, will travel. The Guardian, July 1. (//www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jul/01/pregnant-in-the-field-blog-photography-have-trowel-will-travel). Accessed August 28, 2019.

Lynn, Christopher D., Micaela E. Howells, and Max J. Stein

2018 Family and the field: Expectations of a field-based research career affect researcher family planning decisions. PLOS One, 13(9). (//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6128561/). Accessed August 28, 2019.

MacDonald, Joan Ramage and Maura E. Sullivan

2008 Mothers in the Field. Chronicle of Higher Education, October 24. (//www.chronicle.com/article/Mothers-in-the-Field/45801). Accessed August 28, 2019.

Muhammad, Bahiyyah M. and Melanie-Angela Nuelly, editors

2019 Mothering from the Field: The Impact of Motherhood on Site-Based Research. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick.

Sohn, Emily

2018 A guide to juggling fieldwork and pregnancy. Nature: International Journal of Science, February 14. (//www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01851-3). Accessed August 28, 2018.

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APT Student Subcommittee – Society for Historical Archaeology

Christopher Matthews — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 16:20:42 +0000

The upcoming Thematic Collection of Historical Archaeology (53:3) takes Western Massachusetts as an archaeological research subject, a source of poetic inspiration and ideological struggle, and a locale of critical investigation. In the 19th century, the region was aesthetically re-cast as a romantic “garden of the north�?by White Euro-American writers and visitors. The emotional color of that depiction remains to this day, even if the political-economy of the region has shifted away from agriculture and nascent industrialization towards cultural production in the form of educational institutions, museums, and tourist destinations. By focusing on the mechanisms of the deployment of social power, particularly along lines of race, class, gender, and state-formation, the articles in this issue locate this romanticism as a landscape with a much longer and more complicated social history.

The articles are also a testament to the University of Massachusetts Department of Anthropology’s long-standing research investment in locally-based Historical Archaeology. For over 30 years, UMass anthropology has been training graduate and undergraduate students, partnering with local historical societies and museums, and working alongside Algonkian, African-American, and allied partners to enrich, complicate and disseminate the story of the region. All of this work has contributed to Historical Archaeology’s projects of materially investigating the past, democratizing historical narratives, and linking the social relations of the past and the present, to build a better future.

This thematic collection was edited by Quentin Lewis, Linda Ziegenbein, and Robert Paynter. The authors contributing to his volume and the titles of their articles are as follows:

Robert Paynter (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Linda Ziegenbein (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), and Quentin Lewis (Yager Museum of Art & Culture, Hartwick College)

Excavating ‘The Garden of the North’: Five Centuries of Material and Social Change in Western Massachusetts: An Introduction

Siobhan Hart (Skidmore College) and Katherine Dillon (Binghamton University)

Entangled Things and Deposits in Early Colonial Native New England

Quentin Lewis

The Materiality of Fishing, Property, and Labor in Western Massachusetts

Anthony Martin (Worcester State University)

Haven to the East, Haven to the North: Great Barrington and Pittsfield, Massachusetts

Robert Paynter and Whitney Battle-Baptiste (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

“Contexts of Resistance in African American Western Massachusetts: A View from the W. E. B. Du Bois Homesite in Great Barrington, MA”

Linda Ziegenbein

The Sensory Landscape of the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Connecticut River Valley

Deborah Rotman (University of Notre Dame)

Domestic Ideals and Lived Realities: Gendered Social Relations at the Moors House, Deerfield, Massachusetts, 1848�?882

Alan Swedlund (University of Massachusetts) and Katie Kirakosian (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

“Glass Cabinets and Little Black Boxes: The Collections of H.H. Wilder and the Curious Case of his Human Hair Samples”

Elizabeth Harlow (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

Gendered Landscapes: Women, Materiality, and Historical Memory in Deerfield, Massachusetts

Stephen Silliman (University of Massachusetts, Boston)

A View from the East: Reflections on Historical Archaeology in Western Massachusetts

Image: The Oxbow, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm The Oxbow by Thomas Cole

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APT Student Subcommittee – Society for Historical Archaeology

Christopher Matthews — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 12:06:10 +0000

The forthcoming issue of Historical Archaeology includes a special thematic collection on “Intimate Archaeologies of WWII.” Dr. Jodi A. Barnes is the guest editor of this collection. She prepared the following comments to give you an overview of the collection.

This new thematic collection resulted from a symposium on the intimate archaeologies of World War II at the 2015 SHA meetings in Seattle, WA. The papers focused on prisoner of war and internment camps as spaces in which private and personal encounters among people from different cultures and backgrounds occurred and the ways intimate interactions were surveilled, controlled, and manipulated and the internees�?responses to it. Not all of the papers from that symposium are included and the collection took on a new twist by considering the intimate information that is revealed by working with communities in the practice of archaeology. In two case studies, survivors, people who once lived at the sites under study, and descendants speak for themselves making intimate connections that problematize and energize the archaeology of these sites and highlight the importance of researching the dark history of World War II. The essays focus on three sites in the United States �?Amache Internment Camp in Colorado, Kooskia Internment Camp in Idaho, and Camp Monticello in Arkansas. The commentaries by Stacey L. Camp and Harold Mytum bring the volume together.

For more than 60 years, many of the sites were largely, sometimes willfully, forgotten, but they are increasingly becoming “heritage sites,�?because preserving these places and telling their stories could, as National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis notes, “prevent our nation from forgetting or repeating a shameful episode in its past.”�?This reminder is necessary with ongoing confinement of immigrants in detention centers and discussions of wall building. These essays are a call to remember the places that remind us of the shame of imprisoning people because of their identity. Conversely, the authors, and the stories they tell about internment sites, remind us of the human potential to speak out, work together, and create change.

The collection includes the following essays:

Intimate Archaeologies of World War II: An Introduction �?Jodi A. Barnes
Artifacts, Contested Histories, and Other Archaeological Hotspots – Bonnie Clark
Former Japanese American Internees Assist Archaeological Research Team – Dennis K. Fujita
From Caffe�?Latte to Mass: An Intimate Archaeology of a World War II Italian Prisoner of War Camp – Jodi A. Barnes
Remembering Camp Monticello: Researching a documentary film about my father’s time at Camp Monticello – Sylvia Bizio
“Caring for Their Prisoner Compatriots�? Health and Dental Hygiene at the Kooskia Internment Camp – Kaitlyn Hosken and Kristen M Tiede
Commentary: Excavating the Intimate Archaeologies of World War II – Stacey L. Camp
Commentary: Intimate Memories and Coping with World War II Internment – Harold Mytum

Photos: Dennis K. Fujita revisits Amache, the Japanese American Internment site where he was interned as a child, and discusses his experience of working with archeologists in this volume.

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APT Student Subcommittee – Society for Historical Archaeology

Christopher Matthews — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 17:41:51 +0000

The next issue of Historical Archaeology will arrive in your mailbox in the new few days! Issue 52(1) is the first to combine a thematic collection with other content including research articles, technical briefs, memorials, and reviews. This opportunity to publish more content in each issue is a welcome benefit of our publishing relationship with Springer. It will cut down on our past delays in publishing accepted articles, allowing HA readers to keep up to date on current research. The following is a brief description of the thematic collection from guest editor Bradely D. Phillippi.

We are pleased to present a new thematic collection of articles in Historical Archaeology entitled “Labor and Plurality in the Northeast.�?The collection revisits the familiar topic of plural archaeological contexts but problematizes the concept by acknowledging the material vagaries they produce. Working with ambiguous assemblages devoid of the traditional markers of identity in shared spaces, writers collectively work to recover those muted by historical circumstances of plurality and conventional readings of their material lives. Accordingly, authors recover and render the past in ways that emphasize working class families, indigenous Americans, enslaved and free people of color, and descendants of mix-heritage households, each victimized by peculiar impositions privileging some and subordinating others. Analytically prioritizing labor systems and relations of production, rather than culture, binds this collection together. Although exploratory, case studies convincingly identify and read various aspects of labor in ways that parse out diversity from ambiguous and seemingly homogenous assemblages.

The collection includes case studies from the American Northeast. Organized by scale of analysis, settings gradually narrow from macro treatments of labor and plurality at the regional scale down to refined considerations of individual households. Following the introductory essay, “Introduction: Labor and the Challenge of Plurality in Historical Archaeology,�?by Bradley Phillippi, articles in the forthcoming issue include: * Markers of Difference or Makers of Difference?: Atypical Practices at Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Satellite Sites, ca. 1650-1700—Kurt A. Jordan * Created Communities: Segregation and the History of Plural Sites on Eastern Long Island, New York—Christopher N. Matthews and Allison Manfra McGovern * Survivance Strategies and the Materialities of Mashantucket Pequot Labor—Russell G. Handsman * Modernity and Community Change in Lattimer No. 2: The Archaeology of the American 20th Century through a Pennsylvania Anthracite Shanty Town—Michael P. Roller * The Plurality of Parting Ways: Landscapes of Dependence and Independence and the Making of a Free African-American Community in Massachusetts—Karen A. Hutchins-Keim * Homeplace is Also Workplace: Another Look at Lucy Foster in Andover, Massachusetts—Anthony Martin * Muffled, But Not Mute—Bradley D. Phillippi * Laboring Under an Illusion: Aligning Method and Theory in the Archaeology of Plantation Slavery—Anna Agbe-Davies

_{The image is of the monument at the site of Parting Ways commemorating the lives of Plato Turner, Cato Howe, Prince Goodwin, and Quamony Quash. Photo by Karen A. Hutchins-Keim, 2011.}

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APT Student Subcommittee – Society for Historical Archaeology

Christopher Matthews — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 13:43:15 +0000

During the summer of 2007, detailed mapping and archaeological excavations were conducted at the Mardi Gras Shipwreck, the remains of an unidentified, wooden-hulled sailing vessel. Located in 4,000 feet of water 40 miles off the Louisiana coast, the Mardi Gras Shipwreck Project was considered at that time to be the deepest archaeological excavation ever conducted. The shipwreck itself is an amazing site with an artifact assemblage dating to the first decades of the 19th century. In the latest thematic issue of Historical Archaeology, the story of this project from its genesis as a Federal regulatory enforcement action to the reinterpretation of the data is provided. SHA members can access these articles online here: //polegroove.com/secure/historical-archaeology/

Introductory articles describe the site’s discovery, and the field methods, tools, and technology needed for excavation in deep water, and provide an overview of the Gulf of Mexico’s unique and fascinating history at the time the ship slipped beneath the waves. Subsequent articles describe the material culture identified at this site including ceramics and bottles, a ship’s stove, firearms and cannon, navigational equipment, and the techniques employed to conserve recovered artifacts. Other articles describe the public outreach and documentary film production that took place in support of the project. Finally, the concluding article examines additional artifacts and site formation processes, and provides a new interpretation of the Mardi Gras Shipwreck. The paper titles include:

Introduction: The Mardi Gras Shipwreck Project: The Story of an Early Nineteenth-Century Wooden-Hulled Sailing Ship

Christopher E. Horrell, Amy A. Borgens Pages 323�?28

The Mardi Gras Shipwreck Project: Overview of Methods and Tools

Jack B. Irion Pages 329�?36

Mercantilism, Warfare, or Privateering? Providing the Historical Context for the Mardi Gras Shipwreck Site

Melanie Damour Pages 337�?50

Land, Ho! Maritime Navigation through the Early Nineteenth Century as Represented by the Mardi Gras Shipwreck

Dave Ball Pages 351�?58

Analysis of the Mardi Gras Shipwreck Ship’s Stove

Christopher E. Horrell Pages 359�?78

The Glass and Ceramic Assemblage of the Mardi Gras Shipwreck

Ben Ford Pages 379�?91

Artillery and Arms from the Mardi Gras Shipwreck

Amy A. Borgens Pages 392�?09

The Conservation Research Laboratory and Conservation of Artifacts from the Mardi Gras Shipwreck Project

Helen Dewolf Pages 410�?17

Lights, Camera … Shipwreck!?! Multimedia at Four Thousand Feet

Kimberly L. Faulk, Rick Allen Pages 418�?24

Deep Thoughts: A Look at Public Access to Deepwater Sites through the Mardi Gras Shipwreck

Della A. Scott-Ireton Pages 425�?32

The Mardi Gras Shipwreck Project: A Final Overview with New Perspectives

Christopher E. Horrell, Amy A. Borgens Pages 433�?50

Memorial: George Robert Fischer (1937�?016)

Russell K. Skowronek Pages 451�?61

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APT Student Subcommittee – Society for Historical Archaeology

Christopher Matthews — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 13:45:41 +0000

Landscapes surround and interact with us; they constrain and inspire our actions. Delving into the study of past landscapes provides one of the most exciting and dynamic avenues for archaeological research. The forthcoming thematic issue of Historical Archaeology, edited by Eric Proebsting and Jack Gary, includes a collection of 12 articles that are dedicated to exploring “Current Research into the Archaeology of American Landscapes.�?These contributions share a common desire to uncover how people, places, and environments have related with each other over time. In doing so, the authors carefully examine the historical and archaeological materials that have been left behind to build on previous scholarship and blaze new trails as they contribute to topics of lasting significance for our discipline.

The geographic scope of the collection ranges across urban and rural areas of North America. Articles touch on important research themes, including the African diaspora, the colonial encounters between Native Americans and Europeans, and the ecological changes associated with the growth of the modern world. Other areas of research include the landscapes of industrial labor; conflict and confinement; agricultural plantations; ornamental grounds; and historical myth and memory.

Following the introductory essay, “Contributing to the Archaeology of American Landscapes,�?by Eric Proebsting and Jack Gary, articles in the forthcoming issue of Historical Archaeology 50(1) include:

“What Towne Belong You To?�?Landscape, Colonialism, and Mobility in the Potomac River Valley—Julia A. King, Mary Kate Mansius, and Scott M. Strickland
Dynamic Landscapes: The Emergence of Formal Spaces in Colonial Virginia—Barbara J. Heath
“As It Was Originally Laid Out by the General�? George Washington and His Upper Garden—Esther C. White
The Multiple Landscapes of Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest—Jack Gary and Eric Proebsting
Urbanization and Landscape Change in Early-Eighteenth-Century Boston: The Environmental Archaeology of Town Dock—David Landon, Heather Trigg, Allison Bain, and Edward Morin
Meeting at Market: The Intersection of African American Culture, Craft, and Economy and the Landscape of Charleston, South Carolina—J. W. Joseph
Plowing Prairies and Raising Stock: Historical Ecology and Community Life on the Cotton Frontier of Southwest Arkansas—Eric Proebsting
Intersecting Landscapes: A Palynological Study of Pueblo, Spanish, and Anglo-American Land Use in New Mexico—Kyle W. Edwards and Heather B. Trigg
The Archaeology of Underground Mining Landscapes—Paul J. White
Landscapes of Japanese American Internment—Stacey Lynn Camp
The Practice and Theory of New Heritage for Historical Archaeology—Edward González-Tennant and Diana González-Tennant

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APT Student Subcommittee – Society for Historical Archaeology

Wed, 09 Mar 2016 19:17:14 +0000

by Megan Sirak, East Carolina University

In January 2016 Washington D.C. hosted the 49^th Annual Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology. I was encouraged by one of my professors to attend as he thought it would benefit me. He could not have been more correct.

While attending a professional conference as an undergraduate student may seem daunting, it is entirely worthwhile. As an undergraduate you are not always expected to present a paper or poster as most graduate students and professionals do in this forum. This allows younger students to sit back and observe conference proceedings. If you as a student are anticipating attending graduate school you will be expected to present your research one day. The best way to overcome the initial nerves and misgivings that come with professional presentations is to first observe them as a bystander. We have all had to do presentations in our undergraduate careers, but the types of presentations and talks given at the professional level, such as at the SHA’s annual meeting, is a completely different animal. Having the opportunity to observe numerous presentations not only gives undergraduate students an idea of what will be expected of them in the future, but it also opens their eyes to the broad spectrum of research being conducted in archaeology today. I personally began studying anthropology and archaeology late in my undergraduate career. Attending numerous symposiums on a number of topics at this conference educated me on how diverse archaeology is. Although observation is a luxury for many undergraduates, I do not believe younger conference attendees should be passive in their conference experience. Attending professional conferences is a fantastic way to network, ask questions, and practice professionalism. The workshops offered are an excellent way to expand your knowledge on a particular topic. Volunteering at the conference is also a great way to make introductions. By volunteering, you get the opportunity to meet other students in your field and you are given a ready-made excuse to interact with the professionals attending. There are also a number of other great events for students to attend and be involved in such as the Ethics Bowl, the Past Presidents Reception, and the Student Subcommittee to the Academic and Professional Training Committee. So yes, attending a professional conference with some of the biggest names in archaeology can be extremely daunting, but the benefits of attending should far outweigh any fears undergraduate students might have. I would encourage all students to attend a professional conference, such as the Society for Historical Archaeology’s annual meeting, while they are still undergraduates. Attending in 2016 was completely worth giving up a few days of my winter break to further my passion for historical archaeology and my career. There is nothing more rewarding than being in a room of people who share your passion. Having the opportunity to meet students of archaeology from across the country was equaling rewarding. The students of today will be the professionals of tomorrow. We should relish the opportunity to meet our future colleagues and interact with them. So the next time a professor or fellow student suggests you should attend a conference, jump on it. Conferences are occasions for learning, so as students we should seize every opportunity.

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APT Student Subcommittee – Society for Historical Archaeology

Sun, 06 Mar 2016 16:26:37 +0000

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