In 1869 the Central Pacific Railroad built the original Transcontinental Railroad through the high desert of northwestern Utah. Along with miles of railroad grade, and hundreds of trestles and culverts, still more unremarkable earthen cuts were created to keep the line as level as possible in order to reduce fuel consumption, wear on locomotives and the time to move goods and people. A few miles west of Promontory, Utah, on nearly barren terrain is a rather ordinary through-cut within a slight rise in the landscape. It is unique, however, due to unusually preserved evidence of elongated piles of broken limestone together with visible pathways which were created by repeated passes of horse drawn wagons moving to and from the cut. There is limited historical documentation of these features. Thus, archaeology provides one of the only means of documenting and interpreting significant parts of this most extraordinary civil engineering achievement.

The Marshall Tunnel Canal is the uppermost effort of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company to connect the Mississippi to the Atlantic Ocean. Under construction from 1854-1856 and never completed, the site provides insights into engineering and construction techniques of the day. Due to the site’s sensitive nature, accessibility issues, and private ownership, the Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN), Virginia Department of Historic Resources (VADHR), and Data Investigations partnered to document the site using 3D digital heritage techniques that allow the resource to be shared widely with minimal site impacts. The team used a combination of terrestrial laser scanning and above and underwater photogrammetry to document the eastern portal in 2022 and the western portal in 2024. The techniques employed during the project resulted in the rapid collection of highly accurate data yielding numerous deliverables including models, videos, and orthomosaic images.

The Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp is one of many locations where incarcerated laborers were confined while they were forced to build the Western North Carolina Railroad from 1875-1891. Their labor was rented from the penitentiary to the railroad company under North Carolina’s convict leasing system, which targeted Black Carolinians in an effort to reassert White Supremacist hegemony in the wake of Reconstruction. Archaeological surveys and excavations at the site have uncovered evidence of imprisoned people’s living and working conditions in the camp. Through collaborative partnerships with local residents, scholars, and community organizations, this project has aided public education and historical reckoning regarding the site’s legacy. By combining archival research and spatial analysis, the author examines how power, control, and resistance were enacted and contested on this carceral landscape.

The Split Rock Light Station is a National Historic Landmark defined within a 25-acre landscape including the lighthouse and associated structures on Minnesota’s “North Shore” of Lake Superior. The light station served as an integral part of a system of navigation aids for commercial freighters traveling between key Minnesota ports and the Great Lakes during its years of active operation from 1910 through 1969. Since the time of decommissioning, the locality has continued to operate as part of the State Park and State Historic Site system. Through site improvements for public accessibility across the rugged terrain, a landscape analysis was completed using remote sensing, geomorphological analysis and other interdisciplinary methods to investigate the physical and social evolution of the locality. This analysis identified key surface and subsurface features to highlight that transformation, including archaeological features associated with the hoist and derrick system and below-surface remnants of the tramway.

The Manitou Passage of Northern Michigan, a vital historical artery of Great Lakes commerce, is a landscape scarred and shaped by the dramatic intersection of human ambition and natural peril. Employing Duncan and Gibbs's maritime cultural landscape framework, this paper examines how the Passages' many shipwrecks constitute more than relics—they are powerful symbols that have indelibly shaped local communities, reflecting layered narratives of risk, resilience, and remembrance. Using examples such as the Francisco Morazan (1960), the Three Brothers (1911), and the Rising Sun (1917), this study explores how shipwrecks and their related infrastructure have fostered unique cultural and economic responses within local communities. Lighthouses, lifeboat stations, and traditions of storytelling have etched maritime heritage into the physical and imaginative landscape, reinforcing the Passage's identity as a borderland—a liminal threshold where the boundaries between land and lake, commerce and commemoration, past tragedies and present-day identities continue to evolve.

Archaeologists have used space syntax to illuminate and quantify the dynamic relationships between past humans and the built environment in Pueblo settlements, Plains villages, Roman cities, and more from a spatial network perspective. Such studies have demonstrated the potential for pedestrian movement and accessibility to further our understanding of social interaction, organization, and power dynamics. However, archaeological uses of space syntax have been critiqued for being static and devoid of sociocultural context. This study uses space syntax analysis alongside historical maps, aerials, city directories, and newspaper accounts as a tool for understanding the dynamism of race and space in the Oak Cliff Freedman’s Town of Dallas, Texas throughout the 20th century. Specifically, it provides insight into the “circulation” patterns that made the Freedman’s Town a safe, interconnected place and exposes the (infra)structural violence that sought to disrupt and erase the community from the Dallas landscape.