About Me!

Oreste-Profile

My name is Juliet Oreste and I’m an undergraduate student at University of Washington. My major is currently undeclared but I am using this experience at Grand Ronde to enhance my education and participate in a possible career path.

I grew up in Marin County, California, so I’ve always been interested in the outdoors, and traveling to museums and historic sites around the country led me to an interest in archaeology. This is my first real archaeology experience outside of the classroom and I’m excited to do some hands on activities. I’m also interested in learning more about low-impact methodology, and incorporating that into indigenous archaeology. Learning more about indigenous communities is something that I have been looking forward to and think is important.

Outside of the classroom, I enjoy playing guitar, drawing, and listening to music. Before college I was super into trail running, but I’ve had less time (and motivation) to get out and on the trails since I moved up to Seattle. I also enjoy traveling a lot and have been on hiking trips in several places around the world and am looking forward to future adventures.

About Me

Hello! My name is Cessna Westra and I am very excited to be a part of FMIA 2019. I just recently graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma Washington, and I am hoping to start a career in government archaeology here in the Willamette Valley. I have lived in Eugene, Oregon my whole life and have come to love this place and everything about it. I am here hoping to learn how to work with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and how to improve the systems within US government archaeology, so that they can help manage tribal belongings in a manner approved of and preferred by the Grand Ronde.
Outside of the professional world, I enjoys being with friends and family as the primary joy in my life. I am also a new dog owner and am slowly realizing just how much dogs are really just small furry humans. I am eternally in love with books and movies and I tend to break into random lectures on Harry Potter if provoked. I love country music and horses as well in complete contrast, and have lived my whole life in between nerdy and country.
In school I majored in anthropology with a focus on archaeology. I hope to some day pursue a masters degree at OSU but I will always remain faithful to my fighting ducks back in Eugene where football is concerned.
I look forward to meeting many new people through this field school, and learning as much as possible about Grand Ronde heritage, practice, and culture.

About Me

My name is Fiona Koehnen and I am an undergrad in the Archaeological Science and Indigenous Archaeology majors at the University of Washington. My focus is in Pacific Northwest Indigenous Archaeology.  I am also a member of the Husky Marching Band in the sousaphone section.

Me marching in the 4th of July parade in Friday Harbor

Project Capstone: Re-writing Burien and White Center’s history with communicative narratives

 Re-writing Burien and White Center’s history with communicative narratives, and arming its people with resources to fight massive tenant evictions

After the amazing journey of having studied the differences between narrative community histories, and those official accounts, as well as looking at the wave of tenant evictions, these are the conclusions I’m taking with me, as well as the continuation of this project in collaboration with WCCDA and Future Wise:

  • We find ourselves in a smaller community on the outskirts of a larger metropolitan area that still harbors a predominantly old blue-collar, working class, white conservative population, which is similar to those earlier colonial settlers that started exploiting the land for timber.

 

  • This conservative community has clashed with the immigration waves from different corners of the world where the US started or collaborated on wars: According to some integration programs from WCCDA, even though POC and older white folks might get along when they live door to door, there is still a fear of being “erased” by those conservative folks: Leading to hate-motivated actions like the publishing of a list of “illegal and criminal immigrants” on a map that scared many people, where Hugo Garcia commented as well on several articles:
  • https://www.kuow.org/stories/after-controversial-flier-burien-neighbors-fight-back-love-letters “After controversial flier, Burien neighbors fight back with ‘love letters’”

 

  • Negative stereotypes rooted in earlier late 1800’s days, still prevail, marking this area as “no the most desirable to live” and therefore, making prices low and habitable for these immigrant communities. However, I believe these stereotypes also give people in power the permission to remove them as gentrification advances.

 

  • These negative stereotypes could be used against targeted immigrant communities in times of Trump, following up to those hateful fliers depicting latinx people as “drug dealers, criminals etc”, and give more permission to “those in power” to displace people in larger numbers.

 

  • I believe that by collecting narrative accounts and putting all the different programs and resources that these associations do for the community in one single, attractive and easy to use website, people who are either moving in or afraid that they might be displaced, it will be beneficial!

 

“Religious Freedom”

The founding of America, as it’s taught in most public schools, says that one of the primary tenets of the immigrants travelling here was religious freedom, and that this has always been a land where everyone is free to practice their own faith. Of course anyone who’s been paying attention knows that this isn’t the case. Religion is more often used as a means of control rather than a choice freely made. Settlers pushed their Christian faith on the Natives already residing here and then did the same to the Africans brought here forcibly to work on plantations and in homes. Those Africans were prohibited from practicing their faiths not only because to be not Christian made one into a “heathen” but also because their new owners feared that access to this faith would unite them and make them more difficult to control. However, a brief look at the archaeological record makes it clear that telling someone to abandon their faith, even threatening them, does not always make it so.

At a number of different plantations there is ample evidence in the deposits found in the slave cabins that shows the Africans who lived there continuing to honor and practice their beliefs. At the Hume plantation, Hermitage plantation, Garrison plantation, and many others, deposits in and around around the slave dwellings show evidence of conjure bags intended for calling on protective spirits, items placed at doorways and under windowsills to keep the home safe, items representative of fire near the hearth and much more. There is even evidence of animal sacrifices at some of the sites. This continued following of the beliefs and religious practices they brought with them from their homeland shows a remarkable brand of persistence and subtle resistance even at times when the white slave owners appeared to have all the power. To me this information is extremely important to bring to light because it adds depth of character to the single story of African slave life in America. It’s a story of pride and strength even in the face of terrible adversity and it bears remembering.

Pre-Colonial New England

I chose to research Native American tribal life before colonization for a few reasons. The first being I grew up in Massachusetts, and every year in school we would visit important historical sites, and a lot of time in the subject of history was spent on the Pilgrims and Puritans, the Salem Witch Trials, and anything relating to the Revolutionary War – such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Battles of Lexington and Concord to name a few. The second being that later on in life as I picked up more history books, I was amazed at how much Native American history is overlooked in schools – especially the time period before colonization. The legacy of what the first few colonists recorded of Native Americans is strong, and unsurprisingly – a little inaccurate. Even today in many public schools – if not the majority, Native American history is taught as if it begins in 1492, or 1603, or 1620, and Native Americans are compared to Europeans and characterized as primitive.

This is not the case however. A lot of what we know about New England Native American daily life pre-colonization is from archaeology, and it has taught us a lot. For example I didn’t know that Paleo Natives arrived in what is now New England around 12,000 years ago, or that tribes in New England had trade routes that went all the way to Wisconsin and the Dakotas in the West, and Virginia to the south. What I also found interesting was how much Native American material culture evolved, especially from 5000 years ago to 300 AD, to 300 AD up to the arrival of the Europeans. Farming tools became more effective, as did the move from using soapstone for pots to using clay pottery. Native Americans in not only manages to survive, but thrive in the harsh temperamental climate of New England for thousands of years. They were not simple hunter gatherers, nor brutal ‘savages’ as many contemporaneous primary accounts would have you believe. They had advanced farming methods which yielded successful and bountiful crops, as well as exceptional knowledge of the land and the animals that inhabited it.

I felt it was relevant to include the recent struggle of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts. In 2015, they were approved to have 321 acres held in trust – which would become a reservation and they would gain the right to build a casino – which was not the main reason for the desire to re-acquire their land back. In October, this decision was reversed by the US government, despite them being a federally recognized tribe. I think if more people knew about the long and rich history of Native Americans in different regions of the United States, especially before colonization, movements such as the one in Mashpee would get more attention and more public support – perhaps even changing the outcome, and archaeology is a great tool for uncovering that deeper past and supporting a more truthful and accurate narrative.

Sources:

Barboza, Robert. “History: Wampanoag Artifacts Offer Clues to the past.” Southcoasttoday.com. July 26, 2016. Accessed November 16, 2018. http://www.southcoasttoday.com/special/20160726/history-wampanoag-artifacts-offer-clues-to-past.

Bradford, William. “History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647.” The American Historical Review18, no. 3 (1913). doi:10.2307/1835526.

Collins, Dave. “Archaeologists Dig Native American Fort Found in Connecticut (Update).” Phys.org – News and Articles on Science and Technology. August 28, 2018. Accessed November 02, 2018. https://phys.org/news/2018-08-archaeologists-native-american-fort-connecticut.html.

Fogarty, A. (2018, March 17). Native voices, accurate history forge deeper, better understanding of American Indians in nation’s schools. Retrieved from https://insider.si.edu/2018/01/genuine-article-native-knowledge-360-introduces-schoolchildren-authentic-native-americans/

Fox, J. (2018, October 6). Mashpee Wampanoag protest Trump administration land ruling. Retrieved from https://mashpeewampanoagtribe-nsn.gov/news/2018/10/9/mashpee-wampanoag-protest-trump-administration-land-ruling

Mandell, Daniel R. King Philips War: Colonial Expansion, Native Resistance, and the End of Indian Sovereignty. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.

Russell, Howard S. Indian New England before the Mayflower. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1985.

Shuffelton, Frank. “Indian Devils and Pilgrim Fathers: Squanto, Hobomok, and the English Conception of Indian Religion.” The New England Quarterly 49, no. 1 (1976): 108-16. doi:10.2307/364560.

“The Pequot War.” The Mashantucket (Western) Pequot Tribal Nation. Accessed November 02, 2018. https://www.mptn-nsn.gov/pequotwar.aspx.

“Timeline.” Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. Accessed November 02, 2018. https://mashpeewampanoagtribe-nsn.gov/timeline/.

Wilbur, C. Keith. The New England Indians. 2nd Edition ed. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 1996.

Winthrop, John.”What Warrant Have We to Take That Land?”England, 1629.

Five Points, NY

For my final project I did a neighborhood analysis on Five Points, New York. We did several readings for class that detailed prostitution in the area, but I wanted to get an in depth look at what this area was really like. Throughout my research, I kept coming back to the prostitutes and it finally dawned on me that there was a very large part of the community that took part in the industry. Young men who were interested in taking part in “sporting culture” would visit these lovely ladies and it was widely believed that if they focused their sexual energies on willing women, the men would be less likely to rape (insert eye roll here). I also found that a generous portion of the community were immigrants and African Americans. The African Americans would have their own community within the larger community of Five Points and it would be centralized around their church. The larges of which was St. Philips African Episcopal Church. During this time people were pouring in from Ireland to escape the potato famine and there was a clash of cultures, resulting in riots and drunken fights. It was difficult for people to get along, especially since everyone lived in extremely close quarters. With the influx of people moving into the neighborhood, the wooden houses that held single families were torn down and replaced with larger brick tenement buildings. These buildings were intended for a single family to use one apartment, but this wouldn’t necessarily be the case. Each apartment had two rooms, and if the family renting the apartment was smaller, say, two parents and one child, then they would sublease the extra space to other people. This resulted in extremely crowded and filthy living conditions. All in all, it was a very interesting subject to look into and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Erie County Poorhouse Cemetery

For the capstone assignment this quarter, I chose to research the Erie County Poorhouse Cemetery. It seemed fitting to look into something close to home, and the site of the Erie County Poorhouse is actually within walking distance to my family home.

Figure 1: Erie County Poorhouse and Hospital 1896 (Tokasz 2017)

Today, social safety nets are taken as a given- unemployment, social security, and medicare are institutions millions of Americans rely on, but less than a century ago these services didn’t exist.

During the 19thcentury, the United States population exploded and the nation’s urban centers ballooned. Buffalo was no exception, and the 1825 opening of the Erie Canal ushered in an era of unprecedented industrial and economic growth (Goldman 1983:34). With the growth of industry and population came a similar growth in the number of disabled, unemployed, and impoverished. Old systems of localized care (usually run by families or parishes) were unable to keep up, and the new system of poorhouses promised to rehabilitate those in need.

In its 97 years of operation, the Erie County Poorhouse treated over 180,000 individuals(Ledgers 1861-1952). During that time thousands died and were buried in the Erie County Poorhouse Cemetery.

Figure 2: Hayes Hall 2002 (LaChiusa 2002)

In 2008, an infrastructure update on the University at Buffalo’s South Campus revealed human remains from the Erie County Poorhouse Cemetery, and following a 2012 NY Supreme Court order, researchers were able to excavate and study the remains. What they found gives us insight into the lives of people who are not mentioned in history books- the blue-collared immigrants who worked hard to make a life in a new country- the backbreaking labor they undertook to earn a living, the things they ate to survive, and the struggles they faced on a daily basis.

Projects like these help us reflect on our current society and help us realize our progress and our shortcomings. It helps us connect to the past on an emotional level and it helps us care about the people around us.


Bibliography

Goldman, M.

1983    High Hopes: The Rise and Decline of Buffalo, NY. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY.

LaChiusa, C.

2002    Buffalo Architecture and History: Hayes Hall.In University at Buffalo. Chuck LaChiusa with permission from the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning, Buffalo, NY.

Ledgers, E. C. P. H.

1861-1952       Erie County Poorhouse Ledgers. Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, Buffalo, NY.

Tokasz, J.

2017 372 nameless dead, exhumed in 2012, are headed back to the grave. The Buffalo News. Buffalo NY.

 

Place Names in the Arctic and the Role of Archaeology Today

Scan your eyes over a standard-issue map of North America, and you will find names of European political leaders, explorers, and places repeated across the Canadian Arctic: Victoria Island, Melville Peninsula, Cambridge Bay. These names offer little acknowledgement of Inuit presence, which extends for millennia across the land, ice, and water today known as the Canadian Arctic. For my final project in Historical Archaeology, I explored community-based research on Inuit place names and how that can help us understand memory, identity, colonialism, and interpretation in the Arctic. Interwoven with place names are the politics of colonialism, the sovereignty of language, and the creation of historical narratives through interpretation.

The most striking result of my research was how colonial legacies continue to influence narratives of history, identity, and indigeneity today. Archaeologists have the ability to use their work to deconstruct colonial systems put in place to disrupt the communication of traditional knowledge––known as Inuit qaujimajatuqangit––and to advance social justice in the Arctic. For academics used to controlling every aspect of research design and execution, sharing authority with communities can be an unsettling. But I would argue that for archaeology to remain relevant in today’s world, the field can no longer hold itself apart and above the people in it.

Influence & Development of the Seattle Craftsman in the 20th Century

For my final project, I was most interested in discussing architecture, its impact, and importance in the environment surrounding it (which obviously, is extremely broad). I narrowed it down to Seattle and vernacular architecture, with the Craftsman-style bungalow. It is a house that all the locals see every day in passing, but we really don’t give enough attention to.

Taking four previous architectural history classes, I honestly hated discussing the history. One of the previous classes had us research a building in Seattle and its historical significance, but I was picking at straws and it was difficult to find enough reliable information. Researching from an historical archaeological perspective was much more interesting, because I surprisingly found so much I could discuss within in my paper. Thankfully, I even had notes on the specific architectural styles that I was discussing, from the classes that I did go to last year! And I still had my architecture textbooks, so it looks like they didn’t end up being a waste of money!

Anyway, my topic discusses the influence of previous styles of architecture and their accompanying ideology on the development of the Seattle bungalow, and how it contributed to suburban expansion. The Craftsman-style derives its roots from the Arts and Crafts movement in England, in which reformers found that industrial society was corrupt and they had these Romantic ideals of incorporating real craftsmanship and nature into their designs, whether it was architectural or furniture or textiles. They despised classical architecture and believed in a “no-frills” aesthetic, where artistic integrity should be included within the structure. Planners talked about having garden cities (which I personally, think is a good idea) that had maximum capacities to counter overpopulation in cities. In terms of architecture, houses were built with local materials instead of imported, and there was no geometric order to structures.

In America, the bungalow became most prominent in the west coast, starting in California. One of the more famous examples is the Gamble House, or if you’re not crazy and you’ve seen Back to the Future (if you haven’t seen it, you’re a slacker, McFly), Doc’s house. In Seattle, the bungalow became a capitalistic venture more so than an ideological one. Jud Yoho, a businessman advertised Craftsman homes without them being craftsman. They were the same style, but just mass-produced and much cheaper which appealed to buyers. They also included better appliances, and provided families with a sense of security and independence. Characteristic of Arts and Crafts houses, they had open plans, and so the dining room and living rooms had a flowing procession.

The more I researched into it, the more I became interested. I feel this is important to talk about because these homes have become characteristic not just of Seattle, but of the Pacific Northwest, and the rise in population growth from companies like Amazon could become a potential threat to pieces of history. The cost of living rises each year (my rent went up $100 in just a year—that’s 50 cups of coffee!) and unless you work at a tech company or some other decently-paying job (or you’re Jeff Bezos or Dr. Meredith Grey), rent does become a burden. It’s a problem that directly affects all of us.