Abstract
The subterranean root cellar is the quintessential feature of rural nineteenth-century archaeological sites in Ontario and much archaeological, historical, and architectural research on rural farmsteads has focused on defining and understanding these structures. However, this work has neglected an important component of this feature – the root cellar drain. This paper contextualizes these features within their broader nineteenth-century ideals of drainage and goes on to tackle the topic with the use of statistical analysis on the associated geographical, social, and economic attributes. The discussion presents opportunities that are present from the vast quantities of historical sites that have been excavated in the past several decades. Going beyond simple comparisons of small handfuls of sites, one future for historical archaeology lies in statistical approaches on vast quantities of data available in the grey literature. As a result, this study shows a slow but steady acceptance of scientific farming practices in rural Ontario but also resistance, variation, and contraction of the published agricultural literature at the time. This goes to show that even the humblest, most mundane archaeological features have interesting stories to tell.
Recommended Citation
Venovcevs, Anatolijs
(2021)
"High and Dry - Contextualizing Domestic Root Cellar Drains in Southern Ontario,"
Northeast Historical Archaeology:
Vol.
50
50, Article 13.
Available at:
https://orb.binghamton.edu/neha/vol50/iss1/13
Included in
Archaeological Anthropology Commons, Canadian History Commons, Cultural Resource Management and Policy Analysis Commons, Food Security Commons, Geographic Information Sciences Commons
