Recycled Connections: Re-use and Related Landscapes of the Historic Peterson Farmstead and 1855-Present Day

Abstract

This thesis utilizes archaeological investigations undertaken at the Historic Andrew Peterson Farmstead to examine processes of production, consumption, and re-use, as well as spatial distribution and changing physical environments, socio-spatial systems, and economic networks within farmstead contexts. The Peterson farmstead was established in 1855 and has been continuously occupied to the present day, allowing for interpretations of the beginnings of agriculture in the region, as well as the evolution of farmsteads in Minnesota after the turn of the twentieth century. Archaeological deposits and their spatial distribution within the farmstead layout supplemented by archival analyses broaden our understandings and interpretations of interrelated use areas and changing landscapes within a farmstead through ideas of production, consumption, and re-use within a farmstead context. The information gathered from archaeological deposits allow for a fuller and more complete understanding and interpretation to be utilized in the transformation of the property as an interpretive center.