Book Chapters by Edward Henry
Infrastructure in Archaeological Discourse, 2024
Roughly cal 300 BC–AD 500, Middle Woodland societies in the Middle Ohio Valley engaged in the pro... more Roughly cal 300 BC–AD 500, Middle Woodland societies in the Middle Ohio Valley engaged in the production of diverse built environments, iconographic artistries, and interacted with people across more of the North American continent than any other time in the pre-Columbian history of the Eastern Woodlands. This vast amount of interaction led to numerous regional expressions of the larger Middle Woodland social situation, visible in part through the materialization of earthen enclosures and burial mounds. This chapter synthesizes new research from small geometric earthen enclosures in Central Kentucky to show the local and highly situational nature of engagements with this infrastructure through time. This chapter argues that the emergence of these monuments, not in their singularity but as a network across a landscape, offers insight into the social institutions that evolved during the Middle Woodland era, as well as the responsibilities that came with participating in those institutions. This includes a consideration of how these features may also represent the dissolution of Middle Woodland social institutions. Because these enclosures endured well beyond their abandonment, archaeologists must not overlook these places as the material representation of pasts that subsequent Indigenous societies may have considered dangerous, less relevant, and no longer functional – essentially aging infrastructure.
Perspectives: Historicity and Temporality of Infrastructure, 2024
Time and history are central to understanding past and present infrastructures from a material an... more Time and history are central to understanding past and present infrastructures from a material and social perspective because infrastructure is tied to both socially embedded and pre-existing material phenomena. Social practice and historical forces converge to play significant causal roles underlying the emergence, maintenance, and permanence of infrastructure. The agential qualities of mechanisms like time and history determine whether a given infrastructure or networks of infrastructures will become durable, flexible in circumstances of transformation, or experience a certain degree of fragility, ultimately leading to their abandonment and destruction. Archaeologists must be prepared to confront the legacies of use and meaning associated with infrastructures and situate them within the unique time-frames of both their durability and the temporality of the actions they facilitated or challenged.
Urban Cultures of Central Asia from the Bronze Age to the Karakhanids: Learnings and conclusions from new archaeological investigations and discoveries, 2019
Archaeology from the newly discovered town of Tashbulak illustrates the development of a highland... more Archaeology from the newly discovered town of Tashbulak illustrates the development of a highland urbanism on the part of the Karakhanid (Qarakhanid) Empire, starting in the late 10th century CE. Located roughly 2,100 m asl, the architecture of Tashbulak covers 7 ha and its planning reflects urban principles common to known cities of the medieval period. From the results of our geophysical survey, we mapped major sectors of the town, including the citadel (and possible caserns), a lower town area with metallurgical workshops, and a large necropolis. Conspicuously absent at Tashbulak is a large and dense residential quarter and fortification wall, but at least one defensive tower is likely on the town’s south-eastern corner. While the planning of this highland centre was broadly in line with lowland cities, the Karakhanids adapted their construction at Tashbulak in the highlands to better align with the nomadic political structure, land tenure, economy, craft and industrial development that prevailed across Central Asia’s mountainous regions at the time. We argue that the Karakhanids innovated this unique form of highland “nomadic” urbanism, possibly to increase political integration of nomads across diverse geographic settings and to leverage a wider geographic range of demographic and economic resources fundamental to the growth and control of their empire. While still at an early stage of research at Tashbulak, we offer here a first look at nomadic highland urbanism and its relationship with the diverse institutional domains that defined the Karakhanid state.
Early and Middle Woodland Landscapes of the Southeast, edited by Alice P. Wright and Edward R. Henry. University Press of Florida, Gainesville., Oct 2013
Early and Middle Woodland Landscapes of the Southeast, edited by Alice P. Wright and Edward R. Henry. University Press of Florida, Gainesville., Oct 2013
Early and Middle Woodland Landscapes of the Southeast, edited by Alice P. Wright and Edward R. Henry. University Press of Florida, Gainesville., 2013
Exploring Southeastern Archaeology, edited by Patricia Galloway and Evan Peacock, Jul 2015
Archaeological Remote Sensing in North America: Innovative Techniques for Anthropological Applications, 2017
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Book Chapters by Edward Henry