Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


36440.pdf (4.76 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Investigating the Archaeology of Shifting Community Values at Chrisholm Farmstead

Fish, Theresa R
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1573576021260609

Abstract Details

2019, MA, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: Anthropology.
Throughout the 19th century, Amish and Mennonite settlers fleeing persecution in Europe settled in the United States. In this study, I focus on families who settled in what is now Butler County, Ohio. For these settlers, there is a robust historic record telling a story of the community shifting from conservative Amish to more liberal Mennonites. I investigate to what extent the archaeological remains recovered from the Augspurger family’s farmstead, Chrisholm, align with that story. Are the found possessions indicative of changes in identity in the same way that the documents are? I hypothesize that as religious tendencies of these families shifted, so did their personal everyday possessions, which should be seen in the archaeological record through change over time in artifact type. I expected to find positive correlations between my two data sources, archaeological data previously collected by the Cincinnati Museum Center in a preliminary survey of the Chrisholm site and historical objects including written materials and photographs from this community. The results help to understand if, for this group of people, possessions used for daily practices can be linked with known values of intentional communities, or if there are tensions between these data types that need to be considered. The historical data were able to provide evidence for the stories of changes in identities and values overtime at Chrisholm. These materials pointed to changes to aspects of Amish and Mennonite identity such as outward appearance, language, and education. The project shows that the archaeological remains recovered from the site were not able to address changes in identity as they were hypothesized to do. These findings suggest complexities in how these datasets might intersect, and perhaps in how historical archaeologists are able to examine changes in religious identities and group values.
Sarah Jackson, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
C. Jeffrey Jacobson, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
89 p.
Archaeology
Identity; Religious Identity; Amish Mennonite; Historical Archaeology

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Fish, T. R. (2019). Investigating the Archaeology of Shifting Community Values at Chrisholm Farmstead [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1573576021260609

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Fish, Theresa. Investigating the Archaeology of Shifting Community Values at Chrisholm Farmstead. 2019. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1573576021260609.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Fish, Theresa. "Investigating the Archaeology of Shifting Community Values at Chrisholm Farmstead." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1573576021260609

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1573576021260609
304
© 2019, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Investigating the Archaeology of Shifting Community Values at Chrisholm Farmstead by Theresa R Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.