Masters Theses

Date of Award

5-1994

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Anthropology

Major Professor

Gerald F. Schroedl

Committee Members

Charles H. Faulkner, Walter E. Klippel

Abstract

This study was an attempt to document the usefulness of chemical analysis for activity detection and soil identification on late nineteenth and early twentieth century historic farmstead sites in the Upland South. Five historic house sites in Knox County, Tennessee were selected for study. These included the Mabry site (40KN86) in West Knoxville, and four sites in Tooele Bend; the Oliver site (40KN103), the Bart Toole House site (no number), the Horace Jones House site (40KN105), and the John Jones House site (no number).

Research concentrated on defining building dimensions and function, locating and assessing areas of past activities through the identification of soil chemical signatures, and testing a yard proxemics model developed by Moir (1987).Total carbon, pH, and twenty chemical elements, assayed by anInductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometer,were used in the analysis. Through ethnographic and ethnohistorical research of activities common to historic farms in the Upland South nine analytical "categories" were constructed. These categories represented the specific chemical portions of the possible activities. Using the background off-site soil as a control standard, the magnitude of soil chemical anomalies within these categories were mapped at each site sampling location. It was the spatially distinct co-occurrence of soil chemical anomalies in the different categories that pointed to the detection and identification of soil activities. chemical signatures of past

The confirmation of the dimensions of the houses or cabins that were no longer standing at the Mabry, Oliver, and the John Jones House sites was adequate. However, the less specific identification of the interior versus the exterior was more satisfactory. Functionally, the standing outbuildings at the Horace Jones House site were speculated as industrial storage or multi-use structures.

Soil chemical anomalies were found on all the sites and were often spatially distinct. Soil chemical signatures could be determined and were directly related to specific areas of past activities. Possible smokehouses were identified on the Mabry and Oliver sites. In addition, one or many agricultural/industrial buildings were postulated on the Mabry site. Areas of generalized sheet midden deposition were found at many of the sites.

The yard proxemics model derived from Moir's (1987) work on free tenant farmers in the Upland South holds up fairly well on these sites, including Mabry, a slave plantation site. On all sites except Oliver, the Immediate Active Yard (within 6 m of the domicile) was fairly "clean" of soil chemical anomalies--at least in the front yard. Confirmation of the proxemics model in the back yard was more mixed. For Example, soil chemical anomalies were found in the Immediate Active Yard on the Bart Toole and John Jones House sites.

Despite the less than complete confirmation of Moir's (1987) proxemics model, it appears that the spatial arrangement of activities was similar around these house sites. This arrangement was fairly consistent across farmsteads in the Upland South during this time.

The results of this study showed that, though still in its infancy, the application of soil chemical research can be a valid, consistent complement to traditional object- orientated methods of activity area analysis.

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