Nancy O'Malley

The Pursuit of Freedom

With the abolition of slavery and the close of the Civil War, African Americans throughout the South faced many challenges as they struggled to adjust to a new social order. Kinkeadtown was an outcome of a housing strategy that was devised to accommodate a growing urban black population. The establishment of black neighborhoods in rural and urban settings represented a significant change in local cultural geography and embodied the struggle for social and legal equality within the dominant white culture.

THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY EVOLUTION OF LOCAL-SCALE ROADS IN KENTUCKY'S BLUEGRASS

In the nineteenth century, local‐scale roads in central Kentucky were built subject to local knowledge and cultural tradition but within the context of legal authority and folk‐ or science‐based engineering precepts. This study demonstrates how legal and engineering standards‐though conceived as transcendent and objective‐were in fact contingent on the regions physical attributes as well as its cultural traditions and character. Thus local road alignment and construction have been influenced by and contingent on local knowledge, dialogue, and debate since frontier times.

Petrographic Analysis of Late Woodland Ceramics From the Sperry Site, Jackson County, Missouri

A sample of 11 sherds from the Late Woodland component of the Sperry Site in Jackson County, Missouri was selected for petrographic analysis. The findings indicate that sherds as well as granite particles, and possibly limestone and sand served as tempering agents. It is suggested that prehistoric potters may have been utilizing till clays (available locally) which contain naturally occurring granitic particles and further tempering the clay with sherds, limestone, or sand. Sperry is a multicomponent, prehistoric, archaeological site located along the Little Blue River in Jackson County, Missouri. During the summer of 1977, excavations were undertaken in the Late Woodland component for which dates of 1166 ? 69 years B.P. (A.D. 84) and 1293 ? 83 years B.P. (A.D. 687) were determined. From the 616 ceramic artifacts collected from excavated areas (672.5 square meters), a sample of 113 sherds was selected for analysis. The sample included all sherds from features and sherds from midden areas surrounding the features. The goal of the analysis was to investigate the nature of the temper and clay matrix of the ceramics. To this end, 11 sherds were selected for petrographic analysis. PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS The 113 sherds were examined both with the naked eye and under a binocular microscope as a preliminary to selecting sherds for the petrographic analysis. A variety of observations were recorded, including the identification of aplastic additions or inclu sions and their estimated densities, color of slip (if recognizable), exterior paste color, interior paste and core colors, treatment of the exterior and interior surfaces and maxi mum thickness. The identified aplastics included granite and other unidentified rock, sand, indurated clay, sherd, limestone, and hematite. A few sherds appeared to have no aplastic inclu sions. Several sherds contained a combina tion of two or more types. The density of aplastic inclusions was estimated by compar ing the sherds with prepared briquettes of limestone-tempered clay having differing proportions and particle sizes of temper. Color was determined using Munsell soil color charts. A range of color chips represent ing the most common colors found in Plains ceramic assemblages was prepared (Table 1). The color with the closest correspondence to the predominant color of the sherds was selected for the slip, exterior and interior paste, and core. Surface treatment was determined by visual inspection and included such variables as the presence of a slip, cordmarking and smoothing on the surface of the sherds. Table 1. Munsell Colors Used in Analysis 1. 7.5YR7/4 (pink) 2. 7.5YR6/4 (light brown) 3. 7.5YR5/0 (gray) 4. 7.5YR4/0 (dark gray) 5. 7.5YR 3/0 (very dark gray) 6. 7.5YR2/0 (black) 7. 10YR8/6 (yellow) 8. 10YR 7/4 (very pale brown) 9. 10YR6/3 (pale brown) 10. 10YR 5/2 (grayish brown) 11. 10YR4/1 (dark gray) 12. 10YR3/1 (very dark gray) 13. 10YR2/1 (black)