Historical Archaeology in Trinity County

The New River Mining District Project assessed correlation between socioeconomic grouping and social drug use in a remote mining district of the Trinity Mountains.

Overview[edit | edit source]

The New River Mining District of the Trinity Mountains played a significant role in this region's hard rock mining gold rush. Historic accounts like that of William Brewer suggest that social drug use was a central part of Trinity mining culture. Brewer also suggests that Trinity mining culture was unique to the northern Californian region. Of the various Trinity mining districts, the New River Mining District is perhaps the best-preserved. It is for these reasons that the New River Mining District sites were used as a case study in late 19th-century social drug consumption. The project's primary research questions were investigated utilizing modern archaeological methods. These methods included intensified pedestrian survey, subsurface testing, and intuitive data recovery. How did an individual's socioeconomic grouping affect what social drugs they consumed and where they consumed them? Research in the New River Mining District will satisfy this research question. It is the intention of this project to provide archaeologists and resource managers a model to identify socioeconomic grouping based on social drug data.

Northwestern California has a long history of social stratification. Historically, this stratification began with the initial settlement by gold miners in 1850 (Andreas et al. 2010). As Trinity gold towns boomed so did the miners' lust for the social drugs: alcohol and opium. The institutions of social drug consumption and socioeconomic stratification shaped mining culture, and the possibility of a correlation between the two invites investigation. How did individuals in gold mining towns associate status and socioeconomic grouping with social drug consumption? Weaverville is a case study for the symbiotic nature of this expansion. William Brewer explains it best in his diary: "There are twenty-eight saloons and liquor holes in the place, and gambling and fighting are favorite pastimes" (Brewer 1930: 330 [1864]). The remoteness of the northwestern Trinity Mountains meant the mining towns (and their cultures) developed differently than in other parts of California. While miners here came from the same cultural-historical background as in other places, they were surrounded by a completely different cultural ecology. This ecological zone has been named the Klamath-Siskiyou bio-region, and is unique in California (Lake 2007).

The geography of this region is especially rugged, making access to the interior watersheds an arduous task even in contemporary times. The journey to the town sites and hard rock mines of the New River District was treacherous relative to travel in other parts of the state. The arduous and sometimes dangerous task meant that the price of goods in far-flung mining towns was high and unstable (Keter 1998). The isolation of the Trinities increases the probability that the culture of the California gold miner has been relatively well preserved in the archaeological record; unaltered by landscape transformation and isolated from social change. A traveling companion of Brewer's, Remond, speaks to this end when stating "I think that the mining customs are better preserved in this place (Weaverville) than in any town I've yet seen in this state"(Brewer 1930: 330 [1864]). The purity of Trinity mining culture made it unique to this region. The same factors that made it unique (its isolation and surrounding ecology) also aided in the preservation of its archaeological remains.

The New River Mining District Project's research perspective was being influenced by a number of different theoretical camps. Middle range theory, the modified general utility index, and the prestige goods economy model have already shaped this proposal's research questions and outlook. Praetzellis (2000) touches on the subject of opposing lenses in his book Death by Theory. A theoretical model is a lens that we can look through to help us see culturally patterned behavior from some perspective. No model can explain everything. But each can give us a glimpse of one of the structures that is behind what we think of as individual choice [Praetzellis 2000:87]. It is for this reason that multiple behavior models were utilized to explain social drug consumption in the New River Mining District. These behavioral models draw heavily from processual and Marxist archaeological theory.

Processual and Middle Range Theory 3.4.1[edit | edit source]

Processual archaeology began in the late 1960s with the publication of articles by anthropologists such as Julian Steward and Leslie White. Processualism contrasted the archaeological model that predated it, which only attempted to collect materials and place them into arbitrary categories – and this aptly named paradigm is called particularism (Johnson 2010). Archaeologists utilizing the processual paradigm viewed culture as a tool humans use to adapt to physical and cultural environments. This model for human behavior is defined by anthropologists as cultural ecology and was pioneered by Julian Steward. Processual archaeologists were more scientific as they sought to explain human behavior based on recoverable data. One of processualism's architects, Lewis Binford, established middle-range theory, a highly utilized approach for analyzing archaeological materials (Binford 1977). Middle range theory defined archaeological data as the static record (Binford 1977; Johnson 2010). The static record is representative of what Binford called past cultural dynamics. Johnson (2010) describes the relationship between the static record and dynamic culture best in "Archaeological Theory": All archaeologists offer possible links between statics and dynamics, every time they put forward an interpretation of archaeological evidence. In practice, Binford argued, archaeologists do this by making assumptions about the middle range, that is, the 'space' between statics and dynamics [Johnson 2010:51].

The middle range is bridged by a variety of sources that demonstrate what behavior the static record represents. Ethno archaeology, experimental archaeology, historic records, and behavioral archaeology are all valid ways of bridging this "space" (Johnson 2010). The theoretical framework Binford constructed was applicable to both historical and prehistoric archaeological fields. Melburn Thurman interviewed Binford on the subject in "Conversations with Lewis R. Binford on Historical Archaeology". In his interview, Binford is quoted as saying:

I never thought there was anything different about historical archaeology. It just, maybe, has a richer body of information to bring to the specific archaeological experiences. But still, the general archaeological experience is no different [Thurman 1998:33].

It is important to remember that while many of the archaeologists developing processual method and theory were prehistoric archaeologists, their work is applicable within the realm of historical archaeology. Opponents of processual archaeology have stated that its approach discounts the role of perspective in interpreting data. The shift away from the hard-line scientific approach of processual archaeology continued until the formation of post-processualism. During the 1980's archaeologists identifying themselves as post-processualists formed a new theoretical camp. Post-processualists argued that middle-range theory could not 'neutrally' act as an arbiter between different explanations. They instead acknowledged that each archaeologist is innately biased and perceives data through their own theoretical lens (Johnson 2010; Praetzellis 2000).

Project goals[edit | edit source]

This research design centers on social drug consumption and socioeconomic grouping at historic town sites located in the New River Mining District. Socioeconomic grouping during this period is well documented and can be archaeologically detected in the static remains of the New River Mining District (Brewer 1930; Berrien 2014; Budig-Markin 1999; Lyman 1987; Schulz and Gust 1983). All socioeconomic groups in the New River Mining District have some history of social drug consumption. There are, however, discrepancies in which social drugs these groups consumed and how they consumed them. The New River Mining District Project queried: how did an individual's socioeconomic grouping affect what social drugs they consumed and where they consumed them? Research in the New River Mining District will test these hypotheses:

Hypothesis 3.5.1[edit | edit source]

• Hˡ Individuals in the New River Mining District consumed specific social drugs, in defined locations, to demonstrate what socioeconomic grouping they belonged to.
• H² Individuals in the New River Mining District consumed specific social drugs, in defined locations, without demonstrating what socioeconomic grouping they belonged to.

Background and field research in the New River Mining District was conducted to satisfy these hypotheses. The project's hypotheses will be tested by asking several questions of data sets recovered from the New River Mining District.

1. What are the socioeconomic groups represented by this dataset?
2. What social drugs are most prevalent in this dataset?
3. Is this data set representative of a public social drug consumption area (consumption is the primary activity), or a domestic social drug consumption area (consumption is the secondary activity)?

Datasets represent a defined refuse deposit, and its associated feature(s). Once collected, datasets can then be utilized for comparative analysis. The refuse deposit from a saloon in White Rock City will, for example, be analyzed as a complete dataset. It can then be contrasted by a data set recovered from a saloon somewhere else in the New River Mining District. By doing so, the New River Mining District Project will be able to demonstrate that these saloons either serviced similar or different socioeconomic groups. Each group will be defined and then identified based on their cultural material remains.

Goals/Significance 3.5.2[edit | edit source]

Social drug concentrations are ubiquitous to historic sites; it is to an extent, uncommon to discover a historic site in northern California without a social drug component. While these deposits give archaeologists an insight into past life ways, very little has been done to research the behaviors they represent. This thesis will produce a body of work which will allow archaeologists in northern California to extrapolate socioeconomic grouping based on social drug data.

References[edit | edit source]

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