Browsing by Subject "Archaeology"
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Item A lost home in the birthplace of Texas: Unraveling the history of the McAdoo Plantation Home through archaeological, geographical, and historical investigations(2013-08) Fischer, Heather A; Walter, Tamra L.; Jordan, MichaelIn the mid-19th century, General John David McAdoo operated a plantation in Washington County, Texas. General McAdoo spent the early years of his professional and political life living on a plantation, and eventually became a successful lawyer and military figure. Notably, he was a General in the Texas State Troops and a member of the Texas Supreme Court. Today, little remains of the original plantation, and historical records are scarce. Archaeological excavations of the foundations of what may be the main plantation house during the 2012 Texas Tech Field School are providing information about the house's history and its relationship to the McAdoo Plantation. The investigations of 41WT69 resulted in an extensive collection of artifacts, spatial data and historic information. This thesis will use the archaeological, geographical, and historical data collected during the field school, to achieve three objectives. This first objective is to define the extant remains of the structure, and the second objective is to examine if the remains of the 41WT69 structure is the same structure depicted in visual and oral histories. The third objective is to determine if there is any connection between the structure and the McAdoo plantation. Through the comparison of the archaeological data and the historical records, the architecture and history of the 41WT69 structure and its connection to McAdoo plantation will be better understood.Item A microwear study of Clovis blades from the Gault site, Bell County, Texas(2009-06-02) Minchak, Scott AlanPrehistoric quarries in America are poorly understood and thus problematical to take into account when making inferences about past behavior. A microwear analysis of Clovis blades from the 2000 Texas A&M University excavations at the Gault site (41BL323), located in southern Bell County, Texas, provided a window into this problem. Texas A&M excavations on the site produced an extraordinarily large number of Clovis artifacts in two bounded geologic units, 3a and 3b. Included in the artifact types are blades, specialized elongate flakes associated with a core and blade technology. In conducting a microwear analysis of the Clovis blades from Gault, I proposed the following questions: (1) were the Clovis blades utilized at Gault?; (2) is there a difference in the use-wear patterns of Clovis blades from the geological units 3a and 3b?; and (3) is Gault, as a quarry/workshop site, a place to just obtain raw materials or did it also serve as a craft site? Observations from experiments, stereomicroscope analysis, compound microscope analysis, and SEM/EDS analysis led to answers for two research questions: (1) blades were used at Gault and (2) there is a difference between Clovis units 3a and 3b. Eight Clovis 3a blades, or 3.0% of the total Clovis 3a blade/blade fragment population (n=264), exhibit use-wear. Six Clovis 3b blades, 3.3% of the total Clovis 3b blade/blade fragment population (n=182), exhibit use-wear. In general, Clovis 3b blades were used on harder contact materials (wood to bone) than those in Clovis Unit 3a (softer contact materials similar to grass, sinew, and rawhide). The function(s) of quarries and quarry-related workshops were interpreted by William Henry Holmes as a place to obtain raw materials, while Kirk Bryan interpreted them as a place to bring other materials to work in craft activities. Following the microwear analysis of Clovis blades/blade fragments at Gault, I compared Gault to three other Paleoindian quarry-workshop sites (Wells Creek, Dutchess Quarry, and West Athens Hill). My intent is to provide supplemental data for the consideration when applying Holmes? and Bryan?s respective hypotheses.Item A re-assembly and reconstruction of the 9th-century AD vessel wrecked off the coast of Bozburun, Turkey(Texas A&M University, 2005-11-01) Harpster, Matthew BenjaminIn 1973, researchers from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) were led to the site of a wrecked ship by sponge diver Mehmet A??k??n, near his hometown of Bozburun, Turkey. During further monitoring over the following 21 years by INA, the site was identified as a merchant vessel dating from the 9th century AD. The excavation of the site by INA researchers and students from Texas A&M University occurred over four summer seasons, from 1995 to 1998, and yielded approximately 900 whole or nearly-whole amphorae, personal items, palynological material, and approximately 35 percent of the vessel??s wooden hull. This dissertation is a record of the curation, cataloging, analysis and re-assembly of the preserved elements of the Bozburun vessel??s hull, as well as a theoretical reconstruction of the entire vessel. The Bozburun vessel is unique as it is the only fully-excavated shipwreck from the 9th century AD, and is, indeed, a valuable source of examples of ship construction in the Mediterranean between the 7th and the 11th centuries AD. This dissertation, after discussing the methods of excavation and cataloging methods, posits the hypothesis that the techniques used to build this vessel represent a transitional stage in shipbuilding technology, combining distinctly old and new techniques. While the builders used embedded edge joinery in the ship??s planking, a very old method, they also appear to have used a conceptual framework and standards to design the vessel as well; methods evident in modified forms in Italian shipbuilding treatises from the Renaissance.Item A Study of Lead Ingot Cargoes from Ancient Mediterranean Shipwrecks(2011-10-21) Brown, Heather GailLead is often relegated to a footnote or sidebar in the study of ancient metals. However, the hundreds of lead ingots discovered in underwater sites over the past half-century have attested to the widespread production and trade of this utilitarian metal. Shipwreck sites allow independent dating evidence not available for many land find. They also provide information about shipment size as well as accompanying cargo which can offer clues about trade patterns and markets for lead in the ancient world. While lead was not particularly rare nor valuable, it represents small- to moderate-scale trade that bridges the gap between luxury trade and the circulation of staple agricultural products. It thus can be viewed as a proxy for the many other perishable materials that supported daily life, such as timber, cloth, cordage, leather and pigments. Due to the abundance of lead ingot finds, published in many different languages with great variation in the details provided, it is difficult to compare all of this material. This thesis, therefore, compiles and presents data on all published lead ingots from Mediterranean and Atlantic shipwrecks through the fourth century C.E., in order to provide a framework to analyze the ancient seaborne lead trade. Sixty-eight sites containing lead ingots, lead ore or lead minerals are included in the analysis, divided into six time periods: Bronze Age, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman Republic and Roman Empire. A typology of ingots has been developed to allow for comparison of ingots between wrecks. The uses of lead are reviewed, organized by type of use: domestic, professional, military and infrastructural. This allows insight into both the consumers in need of lead and the volume and regularity of consumption required for each use. An overview of lead production and its economic limitations further informs the discussion of the lead trade. The final analysis considers all of these factors in creating a picture of lead trade for each of the six periods, focusing on the regions of supply, the types of demand, and the dominant forces that drove the mining and production of lead.Item Analysis of chipped stone artifacts from the Sloan site (41 SS 51) in the San Saba region of Texas(Texas Tech University, 2003-05) Troell, Stephen WaldoThis study interprets the results of analysis conducted on chipped stone artifacts excavated at a prehistoric sti^tified terrace site in the northwest area of the Edwards Plateau of Central Texas, 41 SS 51, known as the Sloan Site. 41 SS51 is situated along the San Saba River in San Saba County, approximately 24 km west-southwest of the town of San Saba, Texas. A map of the state denoting San Saba County displays in Figure 1.Item Archaeological and historical investigations of Site 41AS95, a mid-nineteenth-century salt works on St. Charles Bay, Texas(2008-12) Hatchett, Jennifer C.; Walter, Tamra L.; Houk, Brett A.; Paine, Robert R.Historical and archaeological investigations at site 41AS95, a mid-nineteenth century salt works on the Texas coast, have revealed previously-unknown information about a facility that likely provided salt to the local community of Lamar as well as to the network of towns and villages surrounding Copano Bay. Captain James W. Byrne, an Irish land speculator, helped to found the town of Lamar and built the salt works, which was in operation from sometime after 1851 to around 1862. Archaeological evidence suggests that the St. Charles Bay salt works may have consisted of a number of elements widely separated on the landscape, and estimates are provided for the amount of salt that could have been produced at the site. Byrne anticipated a need for local salt production that did not become truly manifest until the Civil War, when such facilities became relatively common and were among the high-priority targets of Union raids. Small-scale salt production sites of the type Byrne built are relatively unknown archaeologically or historically, so this research helps to illuminate a poorly-documented site as well as an obscure industrial processItem Archaeological field research center and museum(1962-05) Hefley, Frank H.Item Archaeology and the community : constructing bridges for the knowledge of the past in Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala City(2014-05) Linares Palma, Adriana Maria; Guernsey, Julia, 1964-Based on archaeological excavations at Kaminaljuyu mound E-III-5 and educational workshops at the public school “Delia Luz Gutierrez de Castellanos”, this paper explores how children position themselves in relation to their surroundings and how knowledge of the ancient past and their relationship to it varies when they are exposed to archaeological excavations. I focus on the perception of the archaeological site of Kaminaljuyu and its relationship to the social and political-educational discourses that are associated with Guatemalan national archaeological projects. The hypothesis is that archaeological sites in Guatemala are used to promote a national identity that encourages tourism consumption of “exotic” ancient Mayas, which is totally disconnected from contemporary Mayan indigenous peoples’ movements and local communities’ interests. This represents the first systematic study and initial investigation of these issues in the Guatemalan highlands, and I hope that it will serve as a platform for an activist archaeology in Guatemala that looks to socialize the production of archaeological knowledge to those who do not have access to private education, and to continue discussions on challenges of academia for social justice and its impacts on the population.Item The archaeology of San Antonio's main plaza, investigations at 41BX1753(2010-12) Hanson, Casey Jeffrey; Wade, Maria de Fátima, 1948-; Creel, DarrellThis thesis documents the fieldwork component of the archaeological survey, testing, and data recovery efforts associated with 41BX1753, a historic-age site located in downtown San Antonio, Texas. This paper details the project’s activities and results and provides feature and artifact descriptions. Furthermore, this work provides a contextual analysis of 41BX1753 based on the artifacts recovered and the archival record. In the report, I explore the social, political and economic relationships in San Antonio’s past through the study of the material and archival records associated with a single property and its residents. Examined within a greater historical context, these records are indicative of choices made by some of San Antonio’s most influential residents indicating a sense of identity and status, as well as strategies of adaptation and accommodation to ensure stability in the face of constant change.Item Archaeoogical survey and testing in the Belen River Valley, Panama(Texas Tech University, 1995-08) Griggs, John CharlesThe scope of this thesis was originally intended to cover only the 1992 excavations at the Pozo VieJo, which were related to the search for the remains of the Spanish caravel La Gallega and Columbus' settlement of Santa Maria de Belen (1502). The recovery of aboriginal artifacts during the excavations, however, gave rise to a number of questions regarding the prehistoric occupants of the valley. As I was fortunate enough to be in a position to continue research under the convenio granted to Ships of Discovery and I had the support of Dr. Cooke at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, I made the decision to conduct an archeological survey of the Bel^ Valley. After the survey was completed, I conferred with Dr. Cooke about my findings. We decided that a report combining the data from both seasons of research would be of greater scientific value than two individual reports. The primary reason is that both operations produced different but complementary information. The remainder of this thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter II consists of a review of ethnohistorical and archaeological literature relevant to the Belrn Valley. Chapter III and IV contain summaries of the 1992 and 1993 field seasons, as well as artifact descriptions and the results of artifact analyses. The final chapter is a synthesis of material from each of the three preceding chapters. It includes a discussion of prehistoric settlement and subsistence patterns in the Bel6n Valley, an initial cultural chronology of the valley which includes both prehistoric and historic components, and an evaluation of applicability of models of prehistoric cultural development utiich have been proposed for Caribbean Panama relative to the data available for the valley.Item Architectural variability in the Caddo area of eastern Texas(2010-05) Schultz, Thomas Clay; Wilson, Samuel Meredith, 1957-; Creel, Darrell G.; Wade, Maria; Reilly, F. Kent; Denbow, JamesThis dissertation focuses on the nature of architectural space in the Caddo area of eastern Texas, in the southwestern portion of the Caddo archaeological area. The early European accounts and the archaeological record indicate there was a wide range in size, shape, form, and use of architectural space in the Caddo area. Buildings have a variety of structural attributes and may be found isolated or associated with plazas or earthen mounds. This dissertation is a detailed examination of this architectural diversity. The sites included in this study range from large multi-mound centers that have seen large-scale and long-term research, such as the George C. Davis site, to smaller hamlets and farmsteads. This study includes 265 structures from 31 sites located throughout the Pineywoods, Post Oak Savanna and Blackland Prairie of eastern Texas. This dissertation provides an examination of the structuring of architectural space by Caddo groups living in eastern Texas. Through a detailed examination of documentary, archaeological, and geophysical data, this research examines the nature of the Caddo built environment; how Caddo cultural space was created, maintained, and altered, and how this relates to broader Caddo society. The purpose of this dissertation is to provide descriptions and comparisons of Caddo architecture from eastern Texas to address three interrelated themes: cultural significance of architectural space to the Caddo, physical form of structures and construction attributes, and variation and change.Item The beads of Bosutswe, Botswana(2010-05) DuBroc, Beau Richard; Denbow, James R. (James Raymond), 1946-; Rodriguez-Alegria, Enrique R.The hilltop archaeological site, Bosutswe in Botswana had a nearly a thousand years of continuous occupation. Nearly every single strata in both precincts produced shell beads of various materials and origin. By using travelogue sources as well as more recent enthnographical sources, I focus on the possible uses and importance of beads to the people of Bosutswe and the wider southern African region. Using the excavated beads as evidence, I show how certain varieties of beads made their way to the site by way of trade routes with distant riverine areas. Also, I compare my findings with arguments claiming that different groups preferred different sizes beads; therefore, one can determine a site’s ethnic makeup by this measurement alone.Item Can there be an archaeology of religion? Two case studies in Roman Britannia(2012-05) Maloney, Ashley; Witmore, Christopher; Larmour, DavidThe primary aim of this thesis is to rethink archaeological approaches to religion and ritual as seen in Roman Britain. To this end I focus on regional examples in Chester, the Roman fort of Deva, one of the largest and lengthiest military settlements in Roman Britain. This assesses what has been deemed “religious” in such an area and how the evaluation of spirituality from particular examples of material culture is problematic in discussing the wider interpretation of belief-systems. Broad processual models like Romanization lack the intricacy of the individual and methodologies like historical archaeology allow modern constructs to define paradigms within cultures that are often absent, but assumed under previous systems of study. The introduction of recent interdisciplinary approaches and methodology, in so far as cognitive-processual archaeology, phenomenology, ‘spiritual entanglement’, post-colonial theory and the study of movement and interaction in Roman Britain changes the standard definitions of religion in a context of material culture. This thesis calls upon new approaches to archaeology to again question the interpretation of an archaeology of religion.Item Ceramic analysis and interpretation from Presidio San Saba (41MN1) Menard, Texas(2009-08) Whitman, Lauren Elizabeth; Walter, Tamra L.; Houk, Brett A.Excavations at Presidio San Sabá have been underway in Menard, Texas from 2000 to 2007 by Texas Tech University and the Texas Archaeological Society. These excavations have provided a wealth of details about the lives of the soldiers who lived at this far northern outpost of New Spain from 1757 to 1772. By describing and analyzing the ceramic artifacts recovered at this site, it is possible to understand the lifeways of the men and women who lived at the fort. Ceramic analysis provides details about the use of rooms throughout the site as well as contributes to knowledge of trade and supply, as well as the material wealth of the soldiers and their families stationed here. The ceramics recovered from San Sabá are also compared to the assemblages from other contemporary presidios to better understand the supply issues that affected the fort.Item Clovis Lithic Debitage from Excavation Area 8 at the Gault Site (41BL323), Texas: Form and Function(2010-07-14) Pevny, Charlotte D.This dissertation focuses on two portions of the Clovis lithic assemblage recovered from Excavation Area 8 at the Gault site (41BL323) located in central Texas. Gault is a quarry-camp visited by hunter-gatherer groups for at least 13,000 years, with Paleoindian, Archaic, and Late Prehistoric occupations. Freshwater seep springs, a diverse array of floral and faunal resources, and an abundant outcrop of high-quality toolstone at the site created an ideal location for people who lived a mobile hunting-andgathering way of life. The site is currently the only locale with two stratigraphically separate Clovis components-a lower geologic unit designated 3a and an upper unit designated 3b. Both are represented in Excavation Area 8 where, in the spring of 2000, Texas A&M University (TAMU) excavated 22 1-m2 contiguous units. For this research, 3375 complete flakes were analyzed individually to characterize Clovis debitage as represented at Excavation Area 8 and to establish if there are technological differences between the debitage assemblages recovered from Units 3a and 3b. The two Clovis components are quite similar from a technological standpoint. Minor differences appear to be related to site formation processes and intensity of site use. The second objective was to determine if Clovis debitage has diagnostic technological traits that allow confident assignment to the Clovis era. To test whether Clovis debitage is distinctive, it was compared to debitage recovered from later cultural components at the site. No evidence of a true blade technology was observed in the post- Clovis Paleoindian or Early Archaic debitage assemblages, although biface manufacture continued through time. Technologically, few differences were observed between the Clovis, post-Clovis Paleoindian, and Early Archaic debitage related to biface reduction. While overshot flakes may be diagnostic of Clovis biface technology, biface thinning flakes and other non-distinctive debitage showed few differences between components. During debitage analysis pieces were selected in an attempt to identify edgemodified tools. Low- and high-power usewear analysis was employed to make determinations concerning the cultural modification or use of flakes. This study concluded post-depositional damage affected most of the collection and there was minimal usewear-or minimal observable usewear-on flakes. Taphonomic processes interfered to a great extent with drawing firm inferences on tool use and possibly hindered the identification of tools. Of the 3375 pieces of Clovis debitage originally analyzed, 26 specimens were classified as tools based mainly on invasive, patterned flaking with less reliance on microscopic use indicators. Of these, inference of use was assigned to nine tools.Item Coffin hardware analysis and chronology of the Head Cemetery, Robertson County, Texas(2013-05) Basse, Karissa Anne; Franklin, MariaAtkins performed an archaeological relocation of a nineteenth century cemetery on behalf of Luminant Mining Company, within the Kosse Mine in Robertson County, Texas between the years of 2011 and 2012. The Head Cemetery offers unique opportunities to examine views of death and burial in rural, central Texas during the period of the early statehood until around 1900. The Head family and other members of the settlement were part of a pioneer community exhibiting clear expressions of family and community affiliations through spatiality and the material culture of burials. An analysis of coffin hardware and burial practices provides suggestions for dating and identifying unknown interments and exploring changing sentiments towards death by Anglo American settlers within the broader sociohistorical context of the nineteenth century.Item Development and evaluation of a digital tool for virtual reconstruction of historic Islamic geometric patterns(Texas A&M University, 2005-11-01) Al Ajlouni, Rima AhmadFor the purpose of cultural heritage preservation, the task of recording and reconstructing visually complicated architectural geometrical patterns is facing many practical challenges. Existing traditional technologies rely heavily on the subjective nature of our perceptual power in understanding its complexity and depicting its color differences. This study explores one possible solution, through utilizing digital techniques for reconstructing detailed historical Islamic geometric patterns. Its main hypothesis is that digital techniques offer many advantages over the human eye in terms of recognizing subtle differences in light and color. The objective of the study is to design, test and evaluate an automatic visual tool for identifying deteriorated or incomplete archaeological Islamic geometrical patterns captured in digital images, and then restoring them digitally, for the purpose of producing accurate 2D reconstructed metric models. An experimental approach is used to develop, test and evaluate the specialized software. The goal of the experiment is to analyze the output reconstructed patterns for the purpose of evaluating the digital tool in respect to reliability and structural accuracy, from the point of view of the researcher in the context of historic preservation. The research encapsulates two approaches within its methodology; Qualitative approach is evident in the process of program design, algorithm selection, and evaluation. Quantitative approach is manifested through using mathematical knowledge of pattern generation to interpret available data and to simulate the rest based on it. The reconstruction process involves induction, deduction and analogy. The proposed method was proven to be successful in capturing the accurate structural geometry of the deteriorated straight-lines patterns generated based on the octagon-square basic grid. This research also concluded that it is possible to apply the same conceptual method to reconstruct all two-dimensional Islamic geometric patterns. Moreover, the same methodology can be applied to reconstruct many other pattern systems. The conceptual framework proposed by this study can serve as a platform for developing professional softwares related to historic documentation. Future research should be directed more towards developing artificial intelligence and pattern recognition techniques that have the ability to suplement human power in accomplishing difficult tasks.Item Digging through time: psychogeographies of occupation(2015-12) Simblist, Noah Leon; Reynolds, Ann Morris; El-Ariss, Tarek; Mulder, Stephennie; Di-Capua, Yoav; Flaherty, GeorgeThis dissertation is about the relationship between contemporary art and politics in the case of Israel-Palestine and Lebanon. Specifically, I look at the ways that artists have dealt with the history of this region and its impact on the present, using four moments as the subject of the following chapters: ancient Palestine, the Holocaust, The nakba, and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The historiographical impulse has a particular resonance for artists making work about the Middle East, a political space where competing historical narratives are the basis for disagreements about sovereignty. I focus on works by Avi Mograbi, Gilad Efrat, Ayreen Anastas, Amir Yatziv, Yael Bartana, Omer Fast, Khaled Hourani, Dor Guez, Campus in Camps, and Akram Zaatari. A number of patterns emerge when we look at how these artists approach history. One is the tendency for artists to act like historians. As a subset of this tendency is the archival impulse, wherein artists use found photographs, film or documents to intervene in normative representations of history. Another is for artists to act like archaeologists, digging up repressed histories. Another is to commemorate a traumatic event in a way that rejects traditional forms of memorialization such as monuments. At the core of each chapter are examples of artistic practices that use conversation as a medium. I analyze these conversations about history as a dialogical practice and argue that this methodology offers a uniquely productive opportunity to work through the ideologies embedded within the psychogeographies of Israel-Palestine and Lebanon. Within these conversations and other aesthetic structures, I argue that these artists emphasize the all too common challenge in producing new forms of civic imagination – the tendency to address historical trauma though repetition compulsion and melancholia. They react to this challenge by engaging collective memory, producing counter-memories and, in some cases, produce counterpublics.Item Eating inequality : food, animals and people at Bosutswe(2014-05) Atwood, Kirsten Marie; Denbow, James R. (James Raymond), 1946-This study addresses the use of wild and domestic animals at the Iron Age site of Bosutswe, Botswana. I argue that that the Western (commoner) inhabitants consumed more wild game than Central (elite) inhabitants. The overall roll that wild animals played in the diet decreased radically over time, perhaps due to environmental degradation, a change in hunting practices, or due to a combination of both factors. The importance of domestic animals increased over time. Both commoners and elites had access to cattle and small stock, but elites consumed a greater amount of these species. During the Early and Middle Lose, Bosutswe elites were able to preferentially consume young and aged domestic animals rather than consuming mainly adult animals. This may have been a form of conspicuous consumption. Despite the differences in what was eaten, how meat was cooked appears to be similar amongst both commoners and elites. Meat appears to have largely been boiled, as much meat is in Botswana today. The elite inhabitants of Bosutswe retained much of the favored cuts of meat- upper limbs- for themselves. Less-favored cuts of meat, especially lower limbs and craniums, were distributed to the commoners of Bosutswe. This redistribution of resources may have provided the commoners of Bosutswe with tangible material benefits, but also served to emphasize their non-elite status and reinforce the social hierarchy. Likewise, herding cattle may have provided commoners with access to their labor and milk, but also served to codify and increase social hierarchy by enabling elites to maintain large cattle herds.Item Ethnopalynological appplications in land and water based archaeology(2009-05-15) Marshall, Dawn MarieEthnopalynology is a specialty within palynology that centers specifically on past and present palynological data related to humans. Palynological data may be a significant tool to archaeologists if the applications and limitations are clearly understood. The following is a compilation of historical references, information on the processing procedures used in pollen research, the types of samples that are appropriate for palynological analysis within the discipline of archaeology, and examples of how palynological data can answer some questions regarding diet, the environment, building materials and chronological data. An extensive literature review was performed and revealed incongruities and areas that could be improved upon. This dissertation is a result of that research. Experimentation with palynological processing procedures indicate that commonly used methodologies may be flawed and should be reviewed regularly. New methodologies in the dissolution of resins, or plant exudates, is a relatively new application for pollen research and an area where there is a potential for future growth. Palynological applications to archaeology are beginning to expand in previously unknown directions. The extrication of pollen from plant exudates or resin is only one new area of research. This and other avenues are still waiting to be explored.
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