The term “Clean Energy” notes advances in electricity generation that use alternatives to coal. Historically, producing mechanized power for grain mills, steam power, and electricity was accomplished by harnessing the power of water. The Columbia Barge Canal was constructed from 1818 to 1824 to provide a bulk transportation route for the cotton mill industry in the South Carolina capital. The canal that runs alongside the Broad River was modified and enlarged for hydroelectric power production in 1896. The Columbia Water Power Company and its successors utilize the river to generate power today. In 2015, catastrophic flooding damaged the canal and the hydroelectric facility, exposing the original 1890s electric generation infrastructure. A multi-year repair project is underway to repair the Columbia Canal and to document the cultural resources associated with the facility of the past as they prepare for powering the future.

During the late-nineteenth- to mid-twentieth centuries, three mining companies situated near Juneau, Alaska achieved international acclaim for the profitable working of immense low-grade gold deposits. Salvage and abandonment have subsequently reduced the surface visibility of the Treadwell, Alaska-Gastineau, and Alaska Juneau mines, but legacies of these operations endure in Gastineau Channel, where more than 99 percent of the material processed by these companies – amounting to several million tons of rock – was discarded. This paper combines the analysis of historic bathymetric maps with the results of environmental testing to identify lasting footprints that contrast with the "out of sight, out of mind" philosophy that so often justified industrial waste management.

The CRM Program at the New York State Museum was tasked with conducting a site examination of the H. Simon site prior to construction, in West Branch, NY. The site was initially documented during a phase I archaeological survey ahead of construction, based on a concentration of historic artifacts in the location labeled as a wool carding mill on nineteenth century maps. The domestic material collected indicated the occupants of the site were of a slightly higher socio-economic class typical of the rural setting. Further historic research shed light on the occupants of the site, pointing towards them potentially being political refugees belonging to a wave of immigration from the Germany following a failed democratic revolution. The archaeological and historic evidence show the Simon family were the prototypical “Forty-Eighters” who brought with them from Germany traditions of blending agriculture with other occupations such as cloth manufacturing and civic engagement.

Fort Ouiatenon, established in 1717, was the first French fur trade post in present-day Indiana. During the 1970s, over 100 kilograms of waste from metalworking activities were discovered in an area believed to be linked to a forge. This research investigated debris from a specific area previously associated with blacksmithing to identify the materials used and reconstruct metalworking activities at the fort. Multiple methods were used to determine the chemical and structural composition of a sample of artifacts. This research serves as a preliminary analysis of a large selection of debris, intending to understand the production and maintenance of metal technology at the fort.

The Cartier-Roberval site (CeEu-4) (16th century), discovered in the early 2000s, is considered the first French settlement in the New World (1541–1543). The excavations of the site revealed an important quantity of metallurgical artefacts and remains. Their analyses tell us a lot about the metallurgical activities that took place at this site, but also about the day-to-day lives of the colonists. They were conducted on micro-waste fragments, slags, technical ceramics (fragments) and other finished and semi-finished objects, using SEM, XRF, µ-LIBS and Raman spectroscopy. This talk will present the latest analytical results in detail, compare them with the historical data from metallurgical treatises (e.g. Ercker, Agricola, Theophilus) from the Renaissance, and contextualize them within their broader historical and social contexts. This will allow us to identify the type of metallurgical activities, which potentially took place in the fort, and tentatively determine their location within the organization of the settlement.

This paper examines a brick clamp, that is located on Ames Plantation, an 18,400-acre landbase that is located in both Fayette and Hardeman counties in Tennessee. This project utilizes portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) to analyze a variety of bricks sampled from standing buildings and historic sites located on the Ames property. Comparisons derived from the pXRF results determine which buildings were built from bricks produced in the kiln. Additional analysis comparing local clay sources to bricks from the kiln demonstrates where the clay for the bricks was sourced. This research helps us determine when bricks were manufactured in this kiln and how widely the bricks were used. Additionally, this gives us new insight into the architectural history of Ames Plantation, as it allows us to learn more about how people were exploiting the landscape around them to create a variety of different structures.