41. 33rd Annual Symposium on Ohio Valley Urban and Historic Archaeology

A week after the KHC Archaeology conference, the 33rd SOVUHA will take place in Clay City, Kentucky. I've never been to a Symposium on Ohio Valley Urban and Historic Archaeology, I expect that it will be like other conferences only with a new set of people. I'm looking forward to seeing what is going on in historic archaeology in neighboring states.

I'm going to take the opportunity to tweak the paper I will be presenting at the KHC conference based on any feedback I receive though I plan on presenting it in a different way. I want to do a tighter focus on the progress and results at the Jack Jouett Archaeology Project. We'll see what it turns out like around the time that I present these two papers.

Refining an Archaeological Model of Farm Distilleries

“Bourbon Archaeology” projects highlight histories excluded from the modern distilling industry while testing an archaeological model of distilling. Popular whiskey histories present three tiers of distilleries. My research correlates each tier with expected material signatures. Since the process of distilling requires key components, the materials associated with alcohol production areas should be similar while site layouts and ancillary components vary between each tier. Preliminary results from investigations of an early 1800’s farm distillery owned by Jack Jouett suggests refinements to this model as various social and technological factors influence the archaeological signatures of these sites.