Ring Forts: The Research Topic

Over the summer of 2015, I completed my archaeological field school by excavating in County Clare Ireland at the Caherconnell ring fort site. The idea for my research stemmed from the field work I had already completed last summer. The main goal of this research project is to understand the affects of ring forts on the landscape of Ireland, especially in County Clare. Pictured above is the site in which I completed my field school. Caherconnell is a stone ring fort located in County Clare, Ireland.

On November 14, 2015, I accompanied my classmates and professor to tour the community of little Vietnam. The purpose of this trip was to see first hand what we had been discussing in class and to reflect on the way humans have impacted this area of New Orleans. The first thing we did on the field trip was to visit the Vietnamese Farmer's market. Many of the stands had already packed up for the day, but there were still some people selling seafood and vegetables. Not all of the food for sale at the Farmer's market was grown by the back yard gardens as it became apparent from the "Dole" stickers stuck to various fruits, but we did see some of the fruits of the gardens. We then went look at where the levee gardens once were, and I was surprised to see how low the levee was in relation to the street. After, we took a ride though the streets of the neighborhoods, and we went look at the Mary Queen of Vietnam church. We met up with Victoria who was a former student who grew up in little Vietnam. Victoria explained to us her project she's working on with sustainable agriculture and really gave us a lot of insight into the community of little Vietnam. Victoria took us to a store and showed us some traditional foods. An older woman was outside of a grocery store selling winter melons that she had grown in her own garden. While we were there we also went check out a Hispanic store because as Victoria explained, little Vietnam is not only limited to people of Vietnamese decent. Before Victoria left us she explained the impact of environmental racism and how it has affected the community. What I took away from my experience with the time we spent in little Vietnam is that this is an extremely close knit community. The people rallied together with the help of the catholic church to get the levee garden space and then they did the same thing to fight the landfill in recent years. I really enjoyed learning about this culture and how they changed the environment's landscape and make it their own.

;This is a map of important places in little Vietnam, New Orleans according to our research and discussion of levee and back yard gardens in class. The polygons represent the different gardens made by the Vietnamese immigrants. The blue polygon represents the backyard gardens, the red represents the levee gardens, which were destroyed by hurricane Katrina, and the yellow polygon is a possible small field of gardens. I then put place marks down for important places to the history of the Vietnamese backyard and levee gardens or the people themselves such as the catholic church and the Versailles apartment complex.

This is a map of three very important places in Haiti during the earthquake that occurred on January 12 2010. Each of these places played an important role for Haiti has as a "place" in the eyes of the outside world and how each place's role changed through a natural disaster. During the aftermath of the earthquake, there was much turmoil happening in Port-au-Prince. People were hurt, buildings were destroyed, and life was disrupted by 7.0 magnitude earthquake. One of the greatest tragedies that happened as a cause of this disaster was the destruction of the Palace National which was completely destructed and was later demolished. The second important place that was vital in the construction of place during the aftermath was Place du Marron which was used as a place for people to set up camp.

This map shows the data from the Atlantic Slave trade in 1777 and 1778, and records from hurricanes in 1898. The Slave trade is identified by a small blue ship and the Hurricanes are marked by variations of storm clouds based on their progression from a tropical depression all the way to a hurricane which have the hurricane symbol. The red place marks mark the place where slaves died along the journey. The darker colors mean there were higher death counts. The highest death counts were in the beginning and ending of the journey. This could be because of an influx in diseases or resistance. The start and end of the slave trade journey are marked by yellow stars.

This map demonstrates the relationship of rice farming and the relocation diffusion of African rice farmers into slavery. African people along the rice coast were captured and sold into slavery to wealthy South Carolinian families. The plantation owners in South Carolina used slave labor in order to build rice fields. There are several similarities and differences between the two types of rice fields. Both of the rice fields are constructed similarly, and have access to large water sources, levees, and ditches. However, the South Carolina rice fields are much larger in comparison to the African rice fields. Upon examination using the ruler tool in Google Earth, I have found that the South Carolina rice fields are about .15 miles in horizontal length, and .27 miles in vertical length while the African rice fields are only 02 miles in horizontal length and .04 miles in vertical length. In the reading by Sluyter, the size difference can be explained by the use of slave labor. There was more labor forced to do the work, so plantation owners were able to have much larger rice fields, while African rice farmers had limited labor sources and were farming for subsistence not trade goods. During my research I discovered that the African rice fields seem to be more organized and shallower than the American ones. This could be explained by the fact that the South Carolina rice fields were largely abandoned after the civil war,but the African rice fields are still being maintained today. I also observed that the African rice fields are much closer to the coast than the South Carolina rice fields. The South Carolina rice field. The African rice fields are only 2.23 miles from the coast, while the South Carolina rice fields average to be 28.75 miles from the coast. The difference in environment of African and North American may play a role in how these fields are situated.

A Divided Dixie

This map is a representation of the region Dixie as defined by Garreau, the red line, and two other formal forms of regions. The brightly colored pink region that is represented on the map reflects a formal region of dialect. In this region of the south, people refer to carbonated beverages as "Coke" as opposed to soda or pop, which is prevalent in other regions of North America. The other polygons represented on the map reflect the major denominations of the christian religion in the south. The southern united states is majority christian in faith and the two major denominations are Baptists, green, and Catholic, blue.
I have divided Dixie by these two different maps of formal regions. During this assignment I found it very hard to define what makes a culture unique. I chose to divide the region of Dixie by dialect and religion, because I believe that some of the most defining factors of Dixie are religion and language. Because the majority of the South speaks English, it was hard to reflect that on a map. I found a map of America that divided regions based on the Coke vs. Pop/Soda terminology debate. In the south, people are more likely to call a carbonated beverage "Coke" versus "Pop" or "Soda." One of the biggest theories for the difference in dialect  is that Coke was created in the south, in Atlanta, Georgia, and during the great depression, Coke factories provided much needed jobs to poor southerners. This is just one of the quirks that makes Dixie, Dixie and I represent that in the pink polygon on my map. The other polygons represent the other way I chose to divide Dixie. Religion is very important to the people of Dixie, and the most prominent religion is Christianity. I then divided Dixie into the two most popular denominations of Christianity in the south which are Baptist (green) and Catholic (blue). After I created all of the polygons and overlapped them, I noticed that a grey area started to form in the center of the region of "Dixie". I have carved that new region in the yellow line and named it "The Deep South." This is the area that I feel represents "Dixie" better than Garreau's map. It is smaller and more southerly located. From just using two formal regions, dialect and religion, it is clear to see a more defined Dixie.
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/17/7917165/maps-that-explain-america