University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Ephemeral and forgotten: an archaeological investigation of race, marginalization and historic preservation

Schumann, Rebecca Anne

Content Files
SCHUMANN-DISSERTATION-2021.pdf

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/113018

Description

Title
Ephemeral and forgotten: an archaeological investigation of race, marginalization and historic preservation
Author(s)
Schumann, Rebecca Anne
Issue Date
2021-07-12
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Fennell, Christopher
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Fennell, Christopher
Committee Member(s)
  • Frankenberg, Susan
  • Martin, Jeffery
  • Ritchison, Brandon
Department of Study
Anthropology
Discipline
Anthropology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Date of Ingest
2022-01-12T21:45:38Z
Keyword(s)
  • Systemic racism
  • historical archaeology
  • preservation
  • Virginia
Abstract
This dissertation investigates inhabitants of a ridge near the present-day Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon, Virginia. Excavations of this area from 2008-2010 uncovered three clusters of artifacts dating from 1800-1830, during Bushrod Washington’s ownership of Mount Vernon. Investigators argued that these clusters represented either three house sites or a combination of houses and an outbuilding. Researchers could find no documentary evidence that anyone lived in this area during Bushrod’s tenure. My research employs a mixture of historical anthropological and archival analysis, archaeological analysis and evaluation of comparative evidence to examine various hypotheses about who lived at this ridge. I examine what can be told about this site from these various lines of evidence and argue that individuals previously enslaved by George Washington lived at this site. I explore what the remaining questions about this site show about how anthropologists understand racial constructs and the ways that structural racism shapes the discipline. The Mount Vernon sites analyzed in this study illuminate how the enduring impact of past forms of structural racism continues to shape both diversity within archaeology and how archaeologists investigate and interpret sites occupied by marginalized groups. I examine how the interplay between these issues and historic preservation laws and practices can make it difficult to protect sites associated with marginalized groups. As a result. preservation laws nominally designed to protect historic sites actually act in an exclusionary manner and promote disparity in whose heritage we choose to preserve.
Graduation Semester
2021-08
Type of Resource
Thesis
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113018
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2021 Rebecca Anne Schumann

Owning Collections

Graduate Dissertations and Theses at Illinois PRIMARY
Graduate Theses and Dissertations at Illinois
Dissertations and Theses - Anthropology