Archaeology Terms 2

Jamestown Virginia 1607

First permanent English settlement in America

Original Colony Settlment

Organized Communist or Socialist

Workers were expected to…

turn in everything they produced to warehouses

No matter how hard you worked you got the same share.

So why work hard at all.

How many colonists died within a year of arrival?

Average of 50%

Just 1/5 of the men did most of the work, yet they received the same share as everyone else. What was the effect?

Created class resentment and incentivized laziness.

What was the winter of 1609-1610 called?

“The Starving time”

How many people of the 500 that were alive in winter were left in the spring?

60 people

The colony changed to a system of free markets, private property, and personal responsibility. What were the results of this?

• Encouraged work by allowing profits.

• Established private property.

• Personal responsibility.

• It worked amazingly, and they thrived.

Who was the secretary that explained why incentives worked in 1614

Secretary Ralph Hamor

Plymouth Colony

Puritan Pilgrims who settled in New England who envisioned themselves as a utopian communist society.

What did the Mayflower compact decree?

All profits were community property.

The puritans intended on removing what to create a better society?

Profit, greed, and inequality. It was thought to bring them closer to God.

In the winter of 1622-1623, the colony began to fear…

that they would not survive another year.

Which governor was explicit that the share and share alike system was to blame?

Governor William Bradford

A system imposed to foster justice and goodwill through equality and sharing had what kind of effect?

The opposite.

In the Spring of 1623, pilgrims would incentivize people to work by allowing them to keep what they produced. What did they adopt?

Adopting individualism, free market, and private property.

What has been left out of the Thanksgiving story?

A full 3 years after the 1620 Plymouth colony founding, they were actually celebrating the fact that dumping communalism saved their lives.

The Pioneer Principle

Whatever forms become widely established earliest, typically set the pattern for all that come later.

What ideas were spread far and wide that became the bedrock for American social, mental, and economical fabric, forming the core of the nascent American socialization that began to take root?

• Private Property: What you own or create is yours alone.

• Free Market: Creating and selling things freely without outside regulations.

• Incentivises people to work hard and produce.

Why is America so wealthy and succsessful?

• Private Property

• Rewarding profits

• Personal responsibility

• Frontier freedom: Freedom from government interference fosters market creativity and technological innovation.

Frontier Development

• New land settled by often poorer or younger people who take cheap land, build subsistence farmstead.

• Over time these areas became more established infrastructure and specialized labor.

• the culture of the former frontier setting persist. (pioneer principle)

Frontier areas are characterized by…

• Utilitarian (simple) Material culture

• Highly self-sufficient.

• oriented towards practical or useful things.

• Lack of lessening of government.

• Few or no taxes.

• Free trade/little regulation.

1. Utilitarian material culture

Simple, quickly built housing (log cabin), small farms, diverse production (food, clothes, medical herbs), cheap redwares, small houses, simple utilitarian items.

2. Highly self sufficient

Produce most/all of their food. learn to fix tools, inventive and creative. Problem solving fix things and social conflicts is part of the culture.

3. Oriented towards practical and useful things.

Values hard work, skills, inventiveness, and practical proficiencies. Respect makers not talkers.

4. Lack or lessening of government.

People got used to governing themselves. Accustomed to little interference. Handled problems on their own.

5. Few or no taxes

Highly efficient system that facilitates wealth accumulation by the people over time since they get to keep what they produce. Promotes growth of the middle class.

6. Free Trade/little regulation

Fosters competition thus profits and efficiency over time. See demand for X, you can supply for X and make money. (key driver for innovation and technology development.

Established areas

1. larger more permanent housing (stone or brick)

2. Diverse economy specialization

3. more complex w/ more luxury items

4. social structures are more diversified. (Elite class develops)

5. Social climbing begins. (Style and fashion) diminishes cultural value on practical skills. Respect for hard work shifts from improving land to improving business.

After the revolutionary war the frontier…

moved across the contintent.

from 1607-1900 the frontier

had an effect on technological innovation, natural tinkerers and inventors, plenty of capital available to fund businesses. people are free to innovate without interference or regulation. This created powerful incentives for people to innovate. As well as to create newer, better technologies, machines or products.

Over the next 200 years, Americans created more inventions and new technology than…

any civilization in any period in human history.

Joshua Greene of Harvard's moral cognition lab suggests an interesting experiment to understand human development.

Imagine you were an alien monitoring the progress of homosapiens on backwater earth visiting every 10,000 years. 28 visits no change. 29th visit (Note new development) 30th visit population goes from 15 mil- 8.8 bilion.

All human progress was flat for over a quarter million years then suddenly-

95% of modern progress was within the last 30 years.

First Iron chain suspension bridge: 1801 Jacobs Creek bridge, Mount Pleasent PA.

Designed by James Finley (a local judge and inventor) lived in Unitown PA

Robert Fulton born and raised on a farm in southern Lancaster county.

First commercially successful steamboat 1807. developed mechanical torpedo for submarines as well.

Robert Stevens

1831: developed Flanged T rail: every railroad in the world uses this.

What is the most effective way to make a society richer, even the poor people?

You make every ordinary things for cheaper.

1833 lock stitch sowing machine:

made clothes cheaper, faster, and higher quality.

1834 combine harvester:

double harvesting efficiency.

Joseph Henry inventions:

Multiple coil magnet in 1831 as well as the electric relay switch in 1835.

Elijah McCoy’s automatic lubricating system in 1872.

was put in use on the transcontinetal railway. Engineeers refused to drive trains not equipped with this device. “The Real McCoy”

Nikola Tesla

Induction Motor

The Wright Brothers

Powered human flight in 1903 in Ohio.

Charley Kline and Bill Duvall in room 3420 on October 29th 1969

The internet was invented.

More tech progress made from 1700-1900 (200 years) than in…

2000 years combined

This context of change innovation, and tremendous wealth creation is the backdrop for our…

sites, artifacts and history.

What does CRM stand for?

Cultural resource management

Contract Companies:

Private engineering firms whose job it is to search for undiscovered archaeological sites.

US federal law dictates that no public (taxpayer) money can be used to

destroy an arch site if it is significant enough to preserve.

The process for a CRM project today…

1. a federal or state agency gets money for a project.

2. they put out a contract for the archaeological survey.

3. Private CRM companies bid on the contract.

Some things to note for CRM

1. The lowest bid doesn’t always win

2. Under the freedom of Information Act, you can request a copy of the winning bid and see what people are charging.

3. large multidisciplinary firms are becoming the norm.

Basic Rule of CRM

(1 to 5) For every 1 day out in the field, 5 days in the lab for analysis.

You must have what kind of permit from the state, and who gives it out? CRM

Antique permit given by the Historic Preservation office.

Who is issued an antique permit

Principle investigator (must have a masters or PHD by law)

Phases of CRM

1. Survey (Inventory)

2. Testing (assessment)

Survey phase

• Purpose is to locate the site or sites.

• Make an inventory of all archaeological resources that might adversely be impacted.

• walk over survey

• shovel testing (looking for presence or absence of artifacts.

Testing phase

• Many sites are found but few are chosen.

• Criteria for eligibility is NR criteriation D. (potential to yield info significant to our understanding of history or prehistory.

• The secretary of Interior’s standards are applied.

Mennonite Pequea settlement

In 1710, a dozen German/swiss mennonite families settled on a 5,000-acre tract of land between modern-day strasburg and Willow Street. Swiss Mennonite

Migration Patterns

Diffusion of culture in early America

3 distinct culture hearths

1. North (New England)

2. Middle (Lancaster PA)

3. South

in 1740 onward people whos values, culture, ideas, and beliefs were shaped where became early pioneers in an astounding number of areas?

Lancaster

How many american citizens can trace at least 1 ancestor back to Lancaster county?

1 in 5

Mennonite Historic Society

1. Lancaster County was an unusually influential contributor to historical and cultural development in the US.

2. The pioneer principle suggests that to understand these developments we must look to the pioneer era in Lancaster County.

3. Documents provide little help to help us understand or even describe early life and pioneering life ways. The era is still largely mysterious to us.

The Hans Herr House, the oldest standing building in Lancaster county.

Built by Christian Herr, his son, in 1719.

Weaver/Weber farmstead

built house around 1725-1733

Hans Graff site

Contains many artifacts from different time periods. Back wall is a log cabin wall. Earliest historic site ever excavated in Lancaster county.