Heather Trigg

The Ties That Bind: Economic and Social Interactions in Early-Colonial New Mexico, A.D. 1598–1680

Regional economic transactions in early-colonial New Mexico (1598–1680) have frequently been overlooked as archaeologists and historians focused on large scale, long-distance trade in the imperial economy or smaller scale household production. The few discussions of the regional economy, transactions within the colony, have generally described it as “primitive” and “crude.” There was, however, an active regional economy during this period that resulted in movement of goods between colonists’ and native peoples’ households. The nature of these interactions depended largely on the social identity of the household. In addition, the movement of goods bound households socially as well as economically. Analyzing economic interactions on the regional scale provides a better understanding the colonization process in general because economic restructuring is one way in which empires integrate newly conquered territories. In early-colonial New Mexico, more specifically, economic interactions formed one bridge between the individual household economies and the imperial economy.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARASITES AS INDICATORS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN URBANIZING LANDSCAPES: IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL STATUS

Using archaeological data of two human intestinal parasites from seventeenth- to early twentieth-century contexts, we explore the intersection of biological and cultural variables that shaped the ecology of cities in northeastern North America during the modern period. These parasites are useful because they require a developmental period in the soil, thus providing a link between human activities and changing environments. Prior to the last decades of the eighteenth century, Trichuris eggs dominate the archaeoparasitological assemblage. Around 1800, there is a shift to increasing proportions of Ascaris eggs, which appears to be largely complete by 1850—a period of increasing urbanization in the northeast United States. Both environmental and behavioral factors play a role in this shift and include the relationship between parasite biology and changing microenvironments, attempts to deal with waste, and use of urban spaces. During this period, poorer households would likely have been at greater risk of parasites because of the ways they used yard spaces, their delayed access to sanitary technology, and the changing nature of urban vegetation in densely occupied neighborhoods. Utilizando datos arqueológicos sobre dos parásitos intestinales humanos recuperados en contextos que datan desde el siglo XVII hasta principios del siglo XX, exploramos la intersección entre las variables biológicas y culturales que dieron forma a la ecología de las ciudades en el noreste de América del Norte durante el período moderno. Estos parásitos son indicadores útiles porque requieren un período de desarrollo en el suelo, proporcionando así un vínculo entre las actividades humanas y su entorno cambiante. Antes de las últimas décadas del siglo XVIII, los huevos de Trichuris dominan el conjunto arqueo-parasitológico. Esto cambia alrededor de 1800 con un incremento en la proporción de huevos de Ascaris, aumento que parece concluir alrededor de 1850 —un período de urbanización creciente en el noreste de Estados Unidos—. Factores ambientales y comportamentales influyeron en este cambio. Estos incluyen la relación entre la biología de los parásitos y los microambientes cambiantes, las diferentes estrategias de manejos de desechos y el uso de los espacios urbanos. Durante este período es probable que los hogares más pobres estuvieran en mayor riesgo de tener parásitos debido a la forma en que se utilizaban los espacios abiertos, retrasos en el acceso a la tecnología sanitaria y la naturaleza cambiante de la vegetación urbana en los barrios densamente ocupados.

Labor and Agricultural Production at Sylvester Manor Plantation, Shelter Island, New York

Archaeological and historical research on Sylvester Manor, Shelter Island, New York, provides insight into the productive strategies and labor organization of a northern agricultural plantation. Between 1652 and 1693, Sylvester Manor produced and shipped food, animals, and other provisions to a sugar plantation on Barbados. This New York plantation was a commercial-scale operation, based on the labor of enslaved Africans and free Native Americans. Plant and animal remains recovered from the archaeological excavations at the site provide evidence of the plantation’s products and insights into the various daily agricultural tasks that comprised the work of the plantation. The choice of crops and animals, seasonal agricultural cycles, cultural and gendered conceptions of labor tasks, and the power dynamics inherent in multicultural plantation settings all structured the agricultural work of the plantation.

Intersecting Landscapes: A Palynological Study of Pueblo, Spanish, and Anglo-American Land Use in New Mexico

The southwestern United States provides an opportunity to study the environmental impacts of culturally diverse peoples within a single geographic region. Using palynological data from a 600-year period, we examine the effects of differing land-use strategies employed by Pueblos, Spanish colonists, and Anglo-Americans around the village of La Cienega, New Mexico. The data indicate that, prior to Spanish colonization, Puebloan peoples had successful agricultural practices that created a diverse anthropogenic landscape. Successive waves of Spanish colonists, beginning in the 16th century, and Anglo-American colonists, in the 19th century, brought new plants, animals, and agricultural technologies that interacted with existing indigenous strategies. This history of the landscape of the Southwest reveals the subtle reorganization of the anthropogenic landscape resulting from the interaction and persistence of these three cultural traditions.

Urbanization and Landscape Change in Early-Eighteenth-Century Boston: The Environmental Archaeology of Town Dock

The creation of the urban built landscape is perhaps one of the most dramatic examples of anthropogenic environmental change. This paper explores the creation of the urban landscape in downtown Boston during the early 18th century. Archaeological excavations next to Faneuil Hall, Boston’s iconic market building, recovered evidence for land-making processes and the filling of Town Dock. The macrobotanicals, pollen, faunal remains, and insects in the landfill reveal, at very different scales, the changing nature of the urban environment from the area immediately around the site to the broader region. A study of these data in the context of the filling of Town Dock thus provides a detailed view of human actions in the creation and structuring of the urban landscape.