Research Catalog

Title

Eldorado! : the archaeology of gold mining in the far North / edited by Catherine Holder Spude ... [et al.].

Publication

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press ; [Rockville, Md.] : Society for Historical Archaeology, c2011.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Spude, Catherine Holder.
• Society for Historical Archaeology.

Description

xv, 357 p. : ill., maps; 23 cm.

Summary

• When gold was discovered in the far northern regions of Alaska and the Yukon in the late 19th century, thousands of individuals headed north to strike it rich. This massive movement required a vast network of supplies and services and brought even more people north to manage and fulfill those needs. In this volume, archaeologists, historians, and ethnologists discuss their interlinking studies of the towns, trails, and mining districts that figured in the northern gold rushes, including the first sustained account of the archaeology of 20th-century gold mining sites in Alaska or the Yukon.
• The authors explore various parts of this extensive settlement and supply system: coastal towns that funneled goods inland from ships; the famous Chilkoot Trail, over which tens of thousands of gold-seekers trod; a host of retail-oriented sites that supported prospectors and transferred goods through the system; and actual camps on the creeks where gold was extracted from the ground. Discussing individual cases in terms of settlement patterns and archaeological assemblages, the essays shed light on issues of interest to students of gender, transience, and site abandonment behavior. Further commentary places the archaeology of the Far North within the larger context of early 20th-century industrialized European American society.

Series Statement

Historical archaeology of the American West

Uniform Title

Historical archaeology of the American West.

Subject

• Excavations (Archaeology) > Yukon > Klondike River Valley
• Gold mines and mining > Yukon > Klondike River Valley > History
• Klondike River Valley (Yukon) > Antiquities
• Klondike River Valley (Yukon) > Gold discoveries

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

• Rediscovering Eldorado : an introduction to this volume / Catherine Holder Spude and Robin O. Mills -- An overview history of the Alaska-Yukon gold rushes, 1880-1918 / Robert L. Spude -- Theoretical perspectives on the frontier mining pattern / Donald L. Hardesty -- A proposed model for a placer gold mining settlement system / Robin O. Mills -- Predicting social and economic function at residential and commercial site types in the far North, 1880-1920 / Catherine Holder Spude -- New perspectives from the North : comparative opportunities and challenges in an archaeology of Eldorado / Margaret Purser -- Intermediate coastal transfer and supply settlements : supplying the Upper Yukon through Skagway and Dyea / Robin O. Mills and Catherine Holder Spude -- Already here and rich : a brief ethnohistory of Upper Lynn Canal / Thomas F. Thornton -- Tobacco pipes, medicinals, and decorated dishes : the archaeology of gender and economic class in households from Skagway, alaska / Doreen C. Cooper and Catherine Holder Spude -- Faunal remains in Skagway : gold rush to working class / David R. Huelsbeck.
• Getting around the landscape: links in the interior transportation system / Robin O. Mills and Catherine Holder Spude -- An overview of Chilkoot Trail archaeology / Eve Griffin and Karl Gurcke -- Canyon City : the archaeology of a company town on the transportation network to the Klondike / T.J. Hammer -- Central and secondary distribution settlements : supplying the mining districts / Robin O. Mills and Catherine Holder Spude -- Explaining variability in northern gold mining saloons / Catherine Holder Spude, Robert M. Weaver, and Tim A. Kardatzke -- Living at the edge of a boomtown : transient life in Dawson City during the Klondike gold rush / Michael Brand -- Boom through bust and beyond : changing settlement system functions at coldfoot, a placer mining town in Alaska / Robin O. Mills -- Alder smoke and shoe nails : life in an early-20th-century mining camp / Howard L. Smith, Robin O. Mills, and Catherine Holder Spude -- Extracting the wealth : sites on the gold creeks / Robin O. Mills and Catherine Holder Spude -- Living the solitary life : placer mining camps in Alaska, 1900-1950 / Becky M. Saleeby -- Alaska natives in the gold rush : a look at Valdez Creek in the early- to mid-20th century / Robert E. King -- Cabin comforts : the archaeology of bachelor cabins on Fish Creek, Alaska / Andrew S. Higgs and Robert A. Sattler.

Call Number

JFE 14-2070

ISBN

• 9780803210998 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 080321099X (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

2011021621

OCLC

712115576

Title

Eldorado! : the archaeology of gold mining in the far North / edited by Catherine Holder Spude ... [et al.].

Imprint

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press ; [Rockville, Md.] : Society for Historical Archaeology, c2011.

Series

Historical archaeology of the American West

Historical archaeology of the American West.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Added Author

Spude, Catherine Holder.

Society for Historical Archaeology.

Research Call Number

JFE 14-2070