April M. Beisaw – författare

Exploring the history of American protest movements through an archaeological perspective, connecting protests of the past with resistance todayIn this book, April Beisaw and Dania Jordan-Talley use historical and contemporary archaeology to explore the past 400 years of American protest history. The Archaeology of American Protests reveals how ideals such as equality, prosperity, and self-determination have been challenged and negotiated through protests, connecting today’s protest movements to those that came long before.Beisaw and Jordan-Talley examine materials excavated from the sites of protests as well as photographs, graffiti, banners, barriers, and weaponry used to suppress protestors. The book features case studies of movements for Indigenous rights, women’s rights, environmental activism, and other causes. The authors trace connections between historical protests such as Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and the Boston Tea Party of 1773 to recent protests including Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and the Standing Rock Dakota Access Pipeline resistance.Through the perspectives of activist archaeology, community-based archaeology, and social justice, this book shows how protests are integral to the American experience. It demonstrates how communal and public actions aimed at changing the status quo occur in moments of opportunity, while decades later these protests can take on new meanings and be seen in retrospect as moments of pride. Documenting protest sites and material culture can preserve the heritage of social activism, set realistic expectations for social change, and inspire actions for better futures.A volume in the series the American Experience in Archaeological Perspective, edited by Michael S. Nassaney and Krysta Ryzewski

Institutions pervade social life. They express community goals and values by defining the limits of socially acceptable behavior. Institutions are often vested with the resources, authority, and power to enforce the orthodoxy of their time. But institutions are also arenas in which both orthodoxies and authority can be contested. Between power and opposition lies the individual experience of the institutionalized. Whether in a boarding school, hospital, prison, almshouse, commune, or asylum, their experiences can reflect the positive impact of an institution or its greatest failings. This interplay of orthodoxy, authority, opposition, and individual experience are all expressed in the materiality of institutions and are eminently subject to archaeological investigation.A few archaeological and historical publications, in widely scattered venues, have examined individual institutional sites. Each work focused on the development of a specific establishment within its narrowly defined historical context; e.g., a fort and its role in a particular war, a schoolhouse viewed in terms of the educational history of its region, an asylum or prison seen as an expression of the prevailing attitudes toward the mentally ill and sociopaths. In contrast, this volume brings together twelve contributors whose research on a broad range of social institutions taken in tandem now illuminates the experience of these institutions. Rather than a culmination of research on institutions, it is a landmark work that will instigate vigorous and wide-ranging discussions on institutions in Western life, and the power of material culture to both enforce and negate cultural norms.

Offering a field-tested analytic method for identifying faunal remains, along with helpful references, images, and examples of the most commonly encountered North American species, Identifying and Interpreting Animal Bones: A Manual provides an important new reference for students, avocational archaeologists, and even naturalists and wildlife enthusiasts. Using the basic principles outlined here, the bones of any vertebrate animal, including humans, can be identified and their relevance to common research questions can be better understood. Because the interpretation of archaeological sites depends heavily on the analysis of surrounding materials—soils, artefacts, and floral and faunal remains—it is important that non-human remains be correctly distinguished from human bones, that distinctions between domesticated and wild or feral animals be made correctly, and that evidence of the reasons for faunal remains in the site be recognised. But the ability to identify and analyse animal bones is a skill that is not easy to learn from a traditional textbook. In Identifying and Interpreting Animal Bones, veteran archaeologist and educator April Beisaw guides readers through the stages of identification and analysis with sample images and data, also illustrating how specialists make analytical decisions that allow for the identification of the smallest fragments of bone. Extensive additional illustrative material, from the author’s own collected assemblages and from those in the Archaeological Analytical Research Facility at Binghamton University in New York, USA are also available in the book’s online supplement. There, readers can view and interact with images to further understanding of the principles explained in the text.

Tap water enables the development of cities in locations with insufficient natural resources to support such populations. For the last 200 years, New York City has obtained water through a network of nineteen reservoirs and controlled lakes, some as far as 125-miles away. Engineering this water system required the demolition of rural communities, removal of cemeteries, and rerouting of roadways and waterways. The ruination is ongoing. This archaeological examination of the New York City watershed reveals the cultural costs of urban water systems. Urban water systems do more than reroute water from one place to another. At best, they redefine communities. At worst, they erase them.