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The Gibbs Farmstead: Household Archaeology in an Internal Periphery

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Abstract

The Gibbs farmstead, a rural domestic site in Knox County, East Tennessee, was inhabited by four generations of the Nicholas Gibbs family between ca. 1792 and 1913. In the following essay, world systems theory is combined with primary historical sources and the archaeological record to explore how aspects of the emerging global system influenced daily material life and household-level economic strategies among the Gibbs family in Southern Appalachia, regarded as an internal periphery within the world system. Focusing upon domestic architecture and foodways, consideration of material life reveals the presence of a strong vernacular orientation among the Gibbs family that was also substantially influenced by larger trends within national-level consumerism and popular culture.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, Ball State University, 2000 W. University Avenue, Muncie, Indiana, 47304

    Mark D. Groover

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Groover, M.D. The Gibbs Farmstead: Household Archaeology in an Internal Periphery. Int J Histor Archaeol 9, 229–289 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-005-9301-6

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