Historical Archaeology of Race and Class in the Antebellum South

该奖项是作为NSF的社会，行为和经济科学（SBE）博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界，工业或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF的奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。NSF致力于促进来自科学界各部门的科学家，包括来自代表性不足的群体的科学家参与其研究计划和活动;博士后期间被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的重要水平。每个博士后研究员必须解决推进各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在密苏里州研究反应堆（穆尔）的布兰迪麦克唐纳博士的赞助下，这个博士后奖学金支持研究历史种族认同的早期职业科学家。虽然以前的研究没有系统地评估如何塑造种族身份，这个项目旨在通过分析弗吉尼亚州雪兰多山谷雪松溪流域的八个考古遗址，提供一个更细致入微的了解内战前南部的种族身份。考古学家长期以来一直认为，人们使用消费品和食物来表现各种身份。因此，本项目将侧重于这些遗址的消费品和食品残留物。为了更广泛地了解消费品在当地身份中的作用，该项目还将研究当地商店的分类账，以比较不同阶层客户的购买情况。资助的研究将提供新的见解种族和阶级的交叉点在战前南部。更广泛地说，它将为19世纪不同人群声称种族身份的方式提供新的见解，这些方式可以为未来的考古学，历史学和社会学研究提供信息。研究结果将通过讲座和建立博物馆展览与公众分享，旨在扩大过去对种族身份的理解。该项目使用理论见解来处理种族身份，使其能够探索过去的身份意味着什么，以及通过消费实践和饮食方式体验和执行种族身份的多种方式。具体而言，通过评估种族身份和阶级之间的联系，该项目提供了对社会经济地位塑造种族身份的各种意义，经验和表现的方式的见解。该项目将挖掘四个考古遗址，并对另外四个遗址的藏品进行重新分析。对食物通道的分析将包括对4 000个动物碎片的评估，以及对330个陶瓷容器吸收残留物的气相色谱-质谱研究。消费习惯将使用考古恢复陶瓷进行评估。这将包括最低限度的器皿分析，以了解这些家庭对购买哪种进口陶瓷茶具和餐具的选择，以及使用磨损分析，以确定这些家庭成员如何使用陶瓷器皿。为了找出这些陶瓷的购买地点，以及这些种族身份在当地商店中的延伸，还将使用激光烧蚀-电感耦合等离子体质谱法，中子活化分析，岩相学和拉曼光谱法评估280件当地制造的实用器皿的来源。为了进一步评估消费做法，将使用10个商家的分类账为该项目创建一个档案数据库，消费者与人口普查和税收记录相互参照，以确定其社会经济地位。该项目使用的出处和残留物分析使其成为第一个使用考古学分析技术的种族身份研究，其成功完成将显示这些如何提供新的证据，增强考古学家用于研究种族身份的方法。该项目的数据将用于创建一个研讨会和随后的课程大纲沿着培训数据集，用于教授学生如何使用考古科学来回答研究问题。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Brandi MacDonald at the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR), this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist studying historical racial identification. While prior research has not systematically assessed how class shaped racial identity, this project seeks to provide a more nuanced understanding of racial identity in the Antebellum South by analyzing eight archaeological sites in the Cedar Creek drainage of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Archaeologists have long argued that people used consumer goods and food to perform various identities. Therefore, this project will focus on the consumer goods and food remains from these sites. To gain a broader view of the role consumer goods played in local identities, this project will also look at ledgers from local stores to compare purchases across customers from different classes. The funded research will provide new insights into the intersections of race and class in the Antebellum South. More broadly, it will provide new insights into the way different groups of people laid claim to racial identity in the 19th-century that can inform future archaeological, historical, and sociological research. The results will be shared with the public through lectures and the creation of a museum exhibit aimed at broadening the way racial identities are understood in the past. This project approaches racial identity using theoretical insights, allowing it to explore what identity meant in the past and the diverse ways racial identity was experienced and performed through consumption practices and foodways. Specifically, by assessing the connection between racial identities and class, the project provides insights into the ways socioeconomic status shaped the various meanings, experiences, and performances of racial identity. Four archaeological sites will be excavated for this project and collections from four more reanalyzed. The analysis of foodways will include an assessment of 4,000 faunal fragments and a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry study of absorbed residues from 330 ceramic vessels. Consumption practices will be assessed using archaeologically recovered ceramics. This will include a minimum vessel analysis to look at the choices these households made about what types of imported ceramic tea and tablewares to purchase and a use-wear analysis to determine how members of these households used ceramic vessels. To map out where these ceramic purchases took place, and by extension where these racial identities were being performed in local stores, the provenance of 280 locally-made utilitarian wares will also be assessed using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, neutron activation analysis, petrography, and Raman spectroscopy. To further assess consumption practices, an archival database will be created for the project using 10 merchants' ledgers, with consumers cross-referenced with census and tax records to determine their socioeconomic status. This project’s use of provenance and residue analyses make it the first study of racial identity to use analytical techniques from archaeological science and its successful completion will show how these provide new lines of evidence that enhance the methods archaeologists use to study racial identities. Data from the project will be used to create a workshop and a subsequent course syllabus along with training datasets for teachings students how to use archaeological science to answer research questions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.