What about traces of natural disasters? The study of vernacular architecture has to take in a lot of things when doing research.

Over the years, culture changes, and thus our physical environment changes. Over time, we have seen a change in the way in which homes and other buildings have been built so that they provide more function or provide for the maximization of land. In many ways, this is very similar to the ideas brought to mind in "The morbid and mortal toll of sprawl" (Steuteville 1). Roadways have changed, allowing drivers to "feel comfortable driving carelessly" (Steuteville 1). As a people, with more things drawing our attention and more technology providing distractions, we have had to make accommodations for those people because there is a realization that not everyone is going to do what they are supposed to do, but I believe this actually makes it more dangerous for those people that follow the law and do as they are supposed to.

You can only recover their stories through the eyes of the people who knew them. An indirect reference is that great for research though.

So material culture is a slightly more objective manner of research than an individuals recordings.

To get the true meaning of anything, you have to be able believe in, and support, your ideas concerning whatever it may be. You have to fight for what you believe in, and stand up for your beliefs no matter what. More than likely, there are other people that will suppoort you and who have the same ideas as you, but you just have to ge the ball rolling. As stated by Steuteville, "our complacency is killing us" (1).

Nothing shows class better than a person's living space, so vernacular architecture can sometimes show, more accurately than written history, class differences and how people in certain classes actually lived.

How will the vernacular researchers of the future show how the people of southern Louisiana lived by there aesthetic preferences? Will there be enough buildings left to research this?

Will the vernacular researchers of the future be able to see how the natural disaster brought the people of different classes together? I think that the only thing that would be able to show that would be written history.

I think it will be interesting to see how vernacular architecture is used in the future to study the sites of natural disasters. Will they use it to explore how people came together? Or will they use it to come up with a better plan to be prepared for natural disasters? Personally, I think that they won't be using architecture to study it. I think that in the internet age, vernacular archicture is only good for researching cultures and people that we don't have access to anymore, or who weren't around for the invention of the internet.

Placemaking seeks to implement buildings and community involvement based on what the community's identity is, so by analyzing the structures of the area, it can be understood what the community's identity is. Project for Public Spaces. "Placemaking on Main Street: Revitalizing Our Rural Places." Project for Public Spaces. N.p., 12 Aug. 2016. Web. 31 Aug. 2016.

Placemaking helps to create a thriving community by furthering its community involvement and creating jobs and activities, but it is a careful practice that works not against the history and present identity of the community, but rather with it. Project for Public Spaces. "Placemaking on Main Street: Revitalizing Our Rural Places." Project for Public Spaces. N.p., 12 Aug. 2016. Web. 31 Aug. 2016.

"Placemaking on Main Street: Revitalizing Rural Communities" Summary: Rural communities from all over the country are struggling to find a way to support their local economies and provide a stable future for them. They face the problem of having to figure out how to do these things effectively by using what they have available to them as far as financial and human capital. This way to do this is to develop solutions within the community using placemaking to create a sense of place and connectedness. To integrate placemaking into these rural communities, partnerships have been formed and have provided training programs for community leaders, serving to inform and also network the rural areas with potential regional funding partners. These partnerships allow the communities to not merely submit, but rather to integrate the important parts of the community’s identity into the future plans rather than wiping them out entirely. Main Streets are full of history and provide the identity of the place, and the objective of placemaking is not to erase these aspects, but rather to help them thrive by creating more places by attracting members of the community to become engaged. For this reason, the process of placemaking must be undertaken by the community in order to ensure positive outcomes.<br> Furthermore, placemaking creates spaces for people to be involved, rather than a space primarily for cars. This can be achieved by implementing low cost, projects to include parks, benches, and fun programs on the street to get people walking. The idea behind getting people to interact within their communities is to create place attachment to assure that young people stay rooted to their communities. However, it can be difficult to carry out these projects due to lack of funding or resources, so Lisa Mensah explains that “partnerships between sectors is central to making rural areas thrive,” so that rural regions can have an effective, lasting impact (Project for Public Spaces).

Project for Public Spaces. "Placemaking on Main Street: Revitalizing Our Rural Places." Project for Public Spaces. N.p., 12 Aug. 2016. Web. 31 Aug. 2016.

There is a certain way to read architecture. Without the basic training, it is almost impossible to accurately read a structure. If you do not have a basic understanding of how to read a structure, it is likely that you will misinterpret it in context.

Essentially, the reason we look at architecture is that it provides information on culture and people living there that hasn't been written.

Can an individual's own personally made belongings not be considered? Likely not because a personally made good is typically for use rather than decoration.

Nothing is random, especially in a building's construction, just as no word that an author writes is random to his story. A lackluster appearance in one house may show that the particular inhabitant is not concerned with appearance or that they have insufficient funds. A group of these houses point to an overarching cause in the community. Similarly, an ornate residence may point to a more flashy resident with the means to decorate.

The sewers imply a standard of hygiene in DeKalb's culture at that time. Be it a low or high standard depends on the population at that time.

This is interesting because most people are at least somewhat intrigued with old things. They are interesting, and it is because there is a story behind it. If there was no such interest or wish to understand these things, history would not be a class and museums would not be so crowded.

The old sewers indicate that previously that are was either not as densely populated or shows the cultural increase in hygiene. This is evidenced because in the modern day, the population has grown and caused a stress on the sewers.

Buildings in the past were built without thoughts of buildings of the future, as evidenced by my article. This helps push the idea of the egocentric mindset that is so common in America.

Sewers are made systematically, and sometimes that system has to be updated or changed for future use, such as in my article. People in the past cannot predict how things will be used in the future, so they build them with their present in mind.

One cannot only view one building and accurately draw conclusions about it. It takes analysis of various buildings and artifacts in order to determine what is normal and average and distinguish each building from the other in order to know the full history and context.

Humans in the past had to build sewage tunnels so as to not get disease from waste and to not infect their food. Sewers were and still are an important part of society.

Summary for the sewage in DeKalb: Outdated sewers have affected the county for decades. Built in a time where they were sufficient, the older sewage lines are now at capacity and cannot handle any more sewage added onto them. If they were to have these buildings added, there would be a high risk of sewage pipes breaking and leaking into the buildings, causing chaos and health concerns for many patrons of the sites.

The buildings are seeking alternative solutions. One development is offering to have a septic tank built and to discharge during slower hours. For another development, a lift was proposed that could lift the sewage up to a higher basin. The city hopes to push through this challenge and continue with all of the approved developments as planned.

Niesse, Mark. "Sewer Problems Threaten Dekalb's Growth." From the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Atlanta Journal Constitution, 2016. Web. 31 Aug. 2016.

Even though the people are no longer living, they left artifacts, things, and a legacy. The example here about a neighborhood is just one of many. For instance, many soldiers who fought and died in wars are not all named but because of what they did and the things we do have, we remember them and know they existed. Likewise, not all men and women who were enslaved are documented. Therefore, documentation through words is not always reliable, so further investigation into "things" is necessary.

Such as hygiene practice, which is something the analysis of the architecture of the sewers can help us understand.

I wonder what kind of techniques a vernacular researcher would use to study a building. I imagine they'd be able to tell what period a building was from or what the decoration is based off of. Would they use chemicals to study the actual materials used to make the house?

I would say that, yes.

Even though all of these documents could be classified as archeological findings or show the subjective view of one of the buildings inhabitants, vernacular researchers are able to relate them all back to the structure itself.

This answers my question about ordinary buildings. I was right, art architecture and sculptures are not included.

Axiom: a statement or proposition that is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true.

In Dr. Fernandez's class we had a discussion that ties in very closely with this. We discussed how different cultures view personal space. We found that in America, private space is valued more than public space, but in a place like Africa, public space is valued because they share a lot of things like their places of residence and the very ground below their feet.

What do they mean by "ordinary buildings"? I'm assuming they're referring to buildings with an actual use as opposed to more abstract art architecture.

In "Unpredictable, High Risk, High Cost: Planning for the Worst is the Worst", Ben Brown argues that the way we prepare for natural disasters is extremely inefficient. He argues that instead of being a political matter wherein pointless grants are being thrown around all over the place, it should be dealt with by non-profit organizations, local businesses, and scientists. According to Brown, the constant interference by the government into the matter is slowly nudging out scientific practice and discovery. Scientists have found that the probability of natural disasters is slowly on the rise, and we need to find a more efficient way of dealing with them in order to survive the coming years. Even the mass displacement of people in the effected area is more efficient than what we're doing right now.

Brown, Ben. "Unpredictable, High Risk, High Cost: Planning for the Worst is the Worst." Place Makers, 23 Aug. 2016,http://www.placemakers.com/2016/08/23/planning-for-the-worst-is-the-worst/. Accessed 5 Sep. 2016.

Has anyone else noticed how the tone of the narrator of this article is subtly judgmental of certain aspects? For the most part, the author is informative and reflective on the meaning of what was found at the Parting Ways site, but at some points the authors personal opinion comes out, giving the reader another way to view a situation.

I wonder why there was such a difference in the vegetation that grew in the middle of the plot of land and what grew around it. Could there have been a natural spring or something, thus influencing where the men decided to build their homes?

Terminus post quem means the earliest possible date for something. So the jar was made after the cellar was have supposed to have been filled, making it harder to pinpoint the exact time of these occurrings. In history it is very hard to make pinpoint exactly when events happened, unless there are artifacts with written dates on them. I guess most of history is just an approximation.

It appears a large degree of African culture has survived the transition from Africa to America. This is displayed in the building structure of the houses these men built, where they built them, the presence of a certain kind of pottery unique to Africa and the West Indies, and how the men disposed of trash in underground cellars.

Negative evidence is "evidence for a theory provided by the nonoccurrence or absence of something". So even though there is no physical evidence that a fireplace or chimney was built into the house, that somehow proves that one did exist? I'm a bit confused by what this paragraph is trying to say.

Why didn't black residents name their communities unique names, such as Parting Ways? Instead they used a common name: one used by numerous other black communities.

Is this referring to an actual Spider? If so, why? I find this very strange.

The square space of a home would drastically change the lifestyle of the residents. It could show details of how they lived, how crammed they were, and other important factors of living.

Architectural details of homes provide so much insight into the culture and lifestyles of different peoples. Here we have blacks literally using their home layout as a way of defining their culture. It may seem like an obvious fact that different types of people live in different types of buildings, but what is the significance of this? Could breaking down this idea really help understand and describe certain lifestyles?

This is exactly like what we discussed in our perspectives class: how certain cultures respect private space more and others respect public space. The fact that these African American families built their houses so close together despite their immense space shows their respect for each other and their lack of desire for a privatized life.

I think this is extremely important for the entire article, because the writer picks apart very specific details about the area piece by piece, but the point of the article is to explain the significance of the archaeology behind the area, and how it explains African American history better than documents can.

The Mohegans likely had a strong sense of collective identity. They saw themselves as part of a unit tied together through culture. The fact that we don't see much of this now could be related to the emphasis of "private space" we discussed in Dr. Fernandez's class.

This is an insight into their history and their way of life. We can read into their culture through the baskets.

This quotes just gives insight into who the Mohegan people are. Instead of valuing aesthetics purely for the visual and artistic pleasure, they put the value in the meanings behind the beautiful craft. To me, this is a fantastic quality of the Mohegan people as a whole.

I can't find anything on The Trail of Life or The Path of the Sun. What were these, were they similar to the infamous Trail of Tears?

This is the evidence supporting the fact that it is a narrative, but only as a whole. To get the whole story, the patterns and the symbols must be together.

If the Mohegan Culture, as a whole, didn’t value aesthetics and didn’t see the baskets as a materialistic value, why did people become legendary figures due to the baskets?

The same can be said about dollhouses. They are incredibly ornate for their minuscule size, and as of late, they represent our cultures need and want for family and home, not a physical place, but an emotional place to call home.(Cooley, “Dollhouses Weren’t Invented for Play”)

This just goes to show you how complex and in depth the boxes and their story telling can go, and shows us that there is much to learn about their culture and even the baskets themselves. Also, this relates to dollhouses in the 17th century because they were of many different styles, decoration, and size. However, unlike the Mohegan Baskets, the dollhouses represented wealth and social status. (Cooley, “Dollhouses Weren’t Invented for Play”)

This reminds me of something the read in Dr. Collins American Literature about how natives are very deeply in tune with nature, so this supports that claim.

The same can be said about dollhouses. On a basic level, they are an ornament or toy. But just like the Mohegan Baskets, if you look deeper, they represent someone’s story, whether its through the symbols telling the story, or the way the house is structured or decorated.(Cooley, “Dollhouses Weren’t Invented for Play”)

Symbolism also exists in the idea of a woven basket, where all parts are interconnected. According to the article "Traditional Native Concepts of Death," "One common theme found in many of the Indian cultures in North America is the idea of reincarnation" (Ojibwa.). Interwoven baskets embody this sense of cyclicality in nature, a reflection of core Native values.

Ojibwa. “Native American Netroots.” Native American Netroots. 1 Sept. 2014. Web. 6 Sept. 2016.

This directly relates to the initial use of dollhouses, which allowed girls the opportunity to practice management of a household and its servants (Cooley, Nicole.). The practice of basketry defines the role of women in Mohegan society as cultural messengers.

Cooley, Nicole. "Dollhouses Weren't Invented for Play." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 22 July 2016. Web. 5 Sept. 2016.

We don't see the same community fueled projects as often anymore, possibly because we are so culturally diverse here in Atlanta that we don't have any one cultural project to center on.

This allocates a sense of sovereignty to daily activities, reminiscent of Confucian values. In AP World History, we discussed how Confucianism allocates divinity to the most mundane interactions, that our monotonous contact with the world is a form of idiosyncratic worship. The Mohegan baskets attempt to bring that same holiness to everyday life.

This further validates the aforementioned idea that interwoven baskets symbolize the connectedness and cyclicality of life. The emphasis of nature and its influence on the design characterizes the immensity of Mohegan dependence on nature.

This essay really broadens my understanding of what can be studied as a historical "text". When we include non-textual sources such as sculpture and painting, we see the full picture with regards to a nation's culture and history.

The entire process of basketry, from the storytelling to the distribution, elevates the Indian culture; it allocated a sense of prestige to the customs of the culture, and garnered respect from other communities- even non-Natives.

According to "Baskets Carry Meaning," an article electronically published on a website devoted to the Oneida community, basketry helped Oneida Indians to economically adjust after their land was taken. They crafted baskets to sell to non-natives, beginning around the 1970s.

“Baskets Carry Meaning.” Oneida Indian Nation. 6 March 2013. Web. 6 Sept. 2016.

The extension of communication beyond words is an idea addressed in our Graphic Novels class, where images maintain as much significance as the text. The novelty of the analysis of this text is reflected in the disdain for graphic novels and comics, and childish or unsophisticated literature.

Women are described as having the same duty as ancient scribes: to document oral histories and other stories into some form of writing. At the time the Mohegans were making these baskets, most of the scribes in other countries were exclusively male. Writing and documenting stories was seen as something scholarly that could only be done by men. This shows how the Natives possibly valued women more so than most European and other Eastern societies did.

The elaborate and obviously practiced design of the basket reveals the availability of leisure time to the Native American community. Their society has progressed beyond supplying basic necessities for survival, which characterizes an advanced culture.

This seemingly small symbol opens up a lot about the Mohegan culture and beliefs. It relates them to not only the Earth and nature, but to space as well. Their spirituality is rooted in this sort of compass through their souls.

Three-dimensional texts have the possibility to expose so much more about the lives of the Natives than most written texts. As discussed in English 2130, objects have much more meaning than is apparent at first glance. The emotional symbolism that is held in objects, such as these baskets, far exceeds that of the written word. Therefore, these baskets hold more information and would be a more accurate representation of Native print culture.

This is the first sentence.

Primary resource; like archives, untainted by the perspectives of others, you can view and make your own assumptions about culture and people

Are we limited by the existence of a stringent, concrete language? Are we stunted from creative communication?

The elaborate design of the basket denotes the availability of leisure time among this Native American culture; this denotes their progression from basic necessities of survival

Reminiscent of the graphic novel class, more than words can be used for communication: comics and baskets

Does the existence of concrete language stunt our ability to communicate, or find/explore new means of communication?

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