C E Orser
Biographic Data
| ID | 52026 |
|---|---|
| NAME | C E Orser |
| GIVEN NAMES | C E |
| FAMILY NAME | Orser |
| SIGNATURE | ORSER C E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Illinois State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6276-9670 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 135 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 954 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 135 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
What Is Historical Archaeology?
This chapter introduces historical archaeology by concentrating on its definition as developed by the beginning of the twenty-first century. It highlights the most important elements of the field and details the goals of contemporary historical archaeology. A site visit, focusing on one archaeological site, appears at the end of the chapter.
Fieldwork and Laboratory Analysis in Historical Archaeology
This chapter recounts the basic excavation techniques used by historical archaeologists and explains the archaeological research process extending from devising the research design to publishing the results. It also explains the important role played by post-excavation laboratory analysis and presents information on how historical archaeologists divide artifacts into categories for analysis. A site visit, focusing on one archaeological site, appe…
The Historical Archaeology of Groups
A Brief History of Historical Archaeology
Finding and Surveying Sites in Historical Archaeology
Interpreting Artifacts in Historical Archaeology
This chapter defines artifacts and material culture. It also explains three ways historical archeologists interpret artifacts as historical documents, commodities, and ideas. It highlights different interpretations and explains how some artifacts contain important information directly on their surfaces. A site visit, focusing on one archeological site, appears at the end of the chapter.
Historical Archaeology and the Wider World
This chapter explores the concept that historical archaeology can play an important role in understanding the world on a global level through the lens of colonialism and globalization. Isolation and connection are explored, as is the notion of scale in archaeological research. Brief studies of the worldwide spread of Chinese Export Porcelain, Spanish olive jars, and cut-sponge-decorated whitewares provide examples. A site visit, focusing on one a…
Theoretical Perspectives in Historical Archaeology
Public Historical Archaeology
Historical Archaeology Today
This chapter explores two important features of today’s historical archaeology: the study of the contemporary past and the role of collaboration and partnership building. Brief introductions to campus archaeology and the archaeology of water are included. The chapter also considers the future of historical archaeology and explains how students can be educated in the field. A site visit, focusing on one archaeological site, appears at the end of t…
A History of Historical Archaeology
This chapter explores the history of historical archaeology using research on colonialism as an example. The overview shows that the discipline has transitioned from an exclusive focus on Europeans to a more inclusive perspective that also investigates African, Indigenous, and descendant communities’ histories. The growth of historical archaeology has meant that today’s field, with its diverse subjects and perspectives, is an exciting pursuit pra…
The Archaeology of Modern Worlds in the Indian Ocean
The Mediterranean, Braudel, and Historical Archaeology
Attempted Erasure and Recovery of the Free Black Community of Wilberforce, Ontario
Archaeologists have long recognized the relationship between colonialism and the attempted erasure of Indigenous heritage by creators of the dominant ideology. Efforts to rewrite history with practices that include attempts to erase have also negatively impacted how African heritage is presented in the Americas. The Wilberforce settlement in southwestern Ontario, Canada, provides an example of attempted erasure. An archaeological perspective, whe…
Modern World
Race in Archaeology
Ceramics as Dating Tool in Historical Archaeology
History and Archaeology
Interculturality and Archaeology
European Contact and Global Expansion (Post-CE 1500)
International Journal of Historical Archaeology
Racialized Incorporation, Urban Irish America, and Cut-Sponge-Decorated Ceramics
The Janus Face of Removal
Removal is two-faced. It simultaneously presents disaster and opportunity. Its effects may leave permanent scars on the landscape and within the minds of individuals and their descendants who suffered removal at the hands of others. Archaeologists paradoxically can benefit by removal to the extent that the remains discovered at past habitation sites may reveal realities left unmentioned or purposely silenced in textual sources. The Great Famine o…
Archaeological Research and the British in Latin America
Digging the Bronx
A Historical Archaeology of the Modern World
Archaeology and slave resistance and rebellion
The archaeology of New World slavery has exponentially expanded during the past two decades to become perhaps the most influential area within today's historical archaeology. As part of this research endeavour, archaeologists have examined many kinds of sites and have made diverse and important contributions to the literature. Sites associated with fugitive slaves have been studied, but not as frequently. We argue that the archaeology of slave re…
The Archaeology of the African Diaspora
Archaeologists currently studying the African diaspora generally examine three broad issues, in decreasing order of prominence: the material identification of African identity, the archaeology of freedom at maroon sites, and race and racism. While conducting this research, several scholars have learned that many nonarchaeologists are deeply interested in their interpretations. At the present time, the archaeology of the African diaspora is not a …
The Challenge of Race to American Historical Archaeology
Historical archaeologists should be leaders in examining the archaeological dimensions of race and racism in the United States. With few exceptions, though, this has not been the case, as most archaeologists have conflated race and ethnicity. American historical archaeologists have a great opportunity to provide new insights to the anthropological investigation of race and racism if they choose to take this course of action
The Archaeological Analysis of Plantation Society
In recent investigations of plantation society, Otto and Moore use a model that incorporates status and caste. I argue that these concepts are too vague for plantation studies and must be replaced with a more relevant formulation that includes economics and power. A reconsideration of the data presented by Moore indicates that these last concepts have greater strength in the archaeological analysis of plantation society
The Archaeology of African-American Slave Religion in the Antebellum South
An interest in New World slavery is a recent and exciting development within American archaeology. As archaeologists have rushed to discover the material aspects of what slaves ate, what kinds of dwellings they inhabited, and what sorts of material culture they used, they have also gathered information about slave religion. Although much of this information is incomplete and open to numerous interpretations, it nonetheless exposes an important ar…
Twenty-First-Century Historical Archaeology
Toward a global historical archaeology
Demography and pathology of an urban slave population from New Orleans
Twenty‐nine skeletons from the first cemetery in New Orleans provide significant new information about urban slavery in America. Dating as early as 1720 and used perhaps as late as 1810, the cemetery provided an identifiable sample of two whites, 13 blacks, one individual of possible Indian‐white ancestry, and two possibly mulatto individuals. Numerous skeletal and dental lesions were noted in the series, and historical information was used in co…
Encyclopedia of Historical Archaeology
The Encyclopedia of Historical Archaeology is a ground-breaking compendium of information about this ever-growing field. Concentrating on the post-1400 period as well as containing generic explanations of historical archaeology where needed, the encyclopedia is compiled by over 120 experts from around the world and contains more than 370 entries covering important concepts and sites
On plantations and patterns
Three 19th-century house sites in rural Ireland
This report describes archaeological research at three house sites in rural Ireland. The anthropologically-based research began in 1994 with the goal of attempting to understand the material conditions of daily life in the 19th-century Irish countryside. The excavation results presented here were obtained from individual households in counties Roscommon, Sligo and Donegal, at sites dating from the early to mid-19th century. Two of the sites are k…
The Material Basis of the Postbellum Tenant Plantation
An Archaeology of Eurocentrism
The role of Europe and Europeans in the archaeology of post-1500 history has recently been critiqued. Some research has been pejoratively labeled Eurocentrism. This paper addresses the problems with adopting an emotional understanding of Eurocentrism and argues instead for its archaeological examination within the framework of an explicit multiscalar modern-world (historical) archaeology. An example comes from seventeenth-century Dutch settlement…
The Anthropology in American Historical Archaeology
Since its infancy, American historical archaeology has maintained a relationship, albeit often a tenuous one, with its anthropological parentage. Given both the history of the field and its practitioners' often-tortured efforts to define their intentions, goals, and perspectives, it is not surprising, perhaps, that many anthropologists may not recognize the important contributions historical archaeology can make to the anthropological project. A …
The Archaeology of Poverty and the Poverty of Archaeology
Beneath the material surface of things
Symbolic Violence and Landscape Pedagogy
Historical Archaeology
Historical archaeology is a relatively new field, having been professionalized only since the 1960s. Some historical archaeology was practiced before this date but generally not by professionally trained scholars. Archaeologists use “historical archaeology” in two ways. They use the term in a general sense to refer to any archaeological research that employs both archaeological materials and historical (textual, oral, visual, architectural) sourc…
Pesquisa arqueológica inicial em Palmares
Introduction
Historical archaeology on southern plantations and farms
Imagining the Past
Journal Article Imagining the Past: East Hampton Histories. By T. H. Breen. (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1989. xiv + 306 pp. $19.95.) Get access Charles E. Orser, Jr. Charles E. Orser, Jr. Illinois State University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 77, Issue 2, September 1990, Pages 631–632, https://doi.org/10.2307/2079200 Published: 01 September 1990
Beneath the Surface of Tenement Life
Historical Archaeology as Modern-World Archaeology in Argentina
Toward A Partial Understanding Of Complexity In Arikara Mortuary Practice
Ethnohistorical references on Arikara mortuary practice are summarized, and the recently proposed hypothesis that Arikara mortuary practice was more complex than previously suspected is evaluated. In addition, the ethnohistorical sources are reinterpreted, and it is proposed that some Arikara mortuary complexity was directly related to season of death
Uniting Public History and Historical Archaelogy
THE EMERGENCE and development of public history have real implications for American archaeology in general and for historical archaeology in particular. However, even though public history and archaeology have often been practiced together, there has been little discussion of how these two subfields relate to each other in a practical sense. The purpose of this paper is to explore how public history and historical archaeology can work together to…
Using Ari Kara Osteological Data To Evaluate An Assumpti on oF Fur Trade Archaeology
Osteological data from the Arikara-affiliated Mobridge site in South Dakota are used to test an hypothesis frequently expressed in archaeology that the relative quantity of recovered Euro-American goods can be used to infer a siteʹ s relative age. Crania from the Mobridge site are examined for intra-site differences and thecompared with crania from four other sites. Our analysis suggests that the dating assumption may have validity for some archa…
The Explorer as Ethnologist
Charles E. Orser, Jr., James Mackay, The Explorer as Ethnologist: James Mackay's "Indian Tribes" Manuscript with a Test of His Comments on the Native Mortuary Customs of the Trans-Mississippi West, Ethnohistory, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Winter, 1983), pp. 15-33
South Dakota Doesn't Pick Up Tucson Garbage
A Computer Simulation of Euro-American Trade Good Flow to the Arikara
A computer simulation is used to examine the influx of Euro-American trade goods to the Leavenworth site (39C09), the last earthlodge village occupied by the Arikara in South Dakota. Parameters for the simulation were set according to reliable historical sources, and over 200 computer runs were made. The simulation suggests that complete saturation of Euro-American goods could have occurred at an Arikara village fairly rapidly after the commencem…
Trade Good Flow In Arikara Villages
Arthur Ray's hypothesis concerning the effect of middleman trade on the archaeological record is evaluated using archaeological data from four Historicperiod Arikara sites in South Dakota - Sully, Phillips Ranch, Leavitt, and Leavenworth. The general validity of the hypothesis is supported, but is weakened if mortuary information is excluded. The addition of such data adds strength and reliability to the hypothesis
The sorghum industry of a 19th-century cotton plantation in South Carolina
Cannon's Point Plantation 1794-1860
Plantation Status and Consumer Choice
Demography and pathology of an urban slave population from New Orleans
Twenty‐nine skeletons from the first cemetery in New Orleans provide significant new information about urban slavery in America. Dating as early as 1720 and used perhaps as late as 1810, the cemetery provided an identifiable sample of two whites, 13 blacks, one individual of possible Indian‐white ancestry, and two possibly mulatto individuals. Numerous skeletal and dental lesions were noted in the series, and historical information was used in co…
Real or Imagined Confusion in Ethnohistorical Research? A Rejoinder to Thurman
Recently, Melburn D. Thurman has argued that my handling of the James Mackay manuscript, an early 19th-century account of Plains native groups, is unsound. Many of Thurman's criticisms, specifically those concerning the date of the document, the details of Mackay's experience on the Missouri River, and the intent of my original article, stem from misrepresentation and misunderstanding. Thurman has refused, for example, to accept that my essay was…
Archeology
The Archaeological Analysis of Plantation Society
In recent investigations of plantation society, Otto and Moore use a model that incorporates status and caste. I argue that these concepts are too vague for plantation studies and must be replaced with a more relevant formulation that includes economics and power. A reconsideration of the data presented by Moore indicates that these last concepts have greater strength in the archaeological analysis of plantation society
On plantations and patterns
Tabasco brand pepper sauce bottles from Avery Island, Louisiana
Historical archaeology on southern plantations and farms
The Material Basis of the Postbellum Tenant Plantation
Journal Article The Material Basis of the Postbellum Tenant Plantation: Historical Archaeology in the South Carolina Piedmont. By Charles E. Orser, Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988. xviii + 322 pp. $35.00.) Get access David Gerald Orr David Gerald Orr Univeristy of Delaware Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 76, Issue 4, March 1990, Page 1277, https://doi.org/…
Imagining the Past
Journal Article Imagining the Past: East Hampton Histories. By T. H. Breen. (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1989. xiv + 306 pp. $19.95.) Get access Charles E. Orser, Jr. Charles E. Orser, Jr. Illinois State University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 77, Issue 2, September 1990, Pages 631–632, https://doi.org/10.2307/2079200 Published: 01 September 1990
The Material Basis of the Postbellum Tenant Plantation
Bibliography of slave and plantation archaeology (as of December 31, 1991)
Beneath the material surface of things
Pesquisa arqueológica inicial em Palmares
Archeology
Consumption, Consumerism, and Things from the Earth
(1994). Consumption, Consumerism, and Things from the Earth. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History: Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 61-70
History (93 works) · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies (82 works) · Archaeology (80 works) · History (53 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (51 works) · Geography (46 works) · Sociology (36 works) · Art (25 works) · Philosophy (23 works) · Computer Science (22 works)