Semester of Graduation

Spring 2026

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Department of Geography and Anthropology

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

The Louisiana Seminary of Learning and Military Academy (16RA49), established in 1860 near Pineville, Louisiana, served as the original campus of what is now Louisiana State University (LSU). Despite its listing on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973, the site had never been scientifically investigated archaeologically. This thesis addresses that gap by integrating the Archaeology of Institutional Life with the Archaeology of Construction to interpret the site not as a static ruin, but as a dynamic archaeological palimpsest shaped by state power, enslaved labor, and political transformation.

This research employed a multi-scalar methodology combining archival analysis with remote sensing technologies, including Small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (sUAS) photogrammetry to produce a 1-centimeter resolution Digital Elevation Model and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey totaling over 5.6 kilometers of linear data. These non-invasive methods were validated through systematic shovel testing and nine targeted excavation units. Results reconstructed the site’s engineering history, confirming extensive landscape modification and providing material evidence for the documented collapse of the southeast tower through the recovery of structurally compromised underfired bricks.

Excavations yielded 14,689 artifacts dominated by architectural debris, reflecting the building’s catastrophic destruction by fire in 1869. Diagnostic artifacts, including a cast-iron Roman style Corinthian column and ornamental railings, materially express the state’s architectural ambitions, while slate pencils, inkwells, a Confederate uniform button, and a Sibley tent tripod reveal the cadets’ academic life and the site’s wartime militarization.

Most significantly, this research renders archaeologically visible the enslaved labor that constructed the institution. Bricks bearing preserved finger impressions provide embodied evidence of the individuals whose labor has been omitted from official histories. The excavation of a large jug-type cistern further documented the site’s post-institutional erasure, containing both the defaced “Union Stone”, its federalist inscription removed following secession, and twentieth century refuse from Camp Stafford. By reconstructing the site’s material biography, this thesis transforms the Old LSU campus from a passive historical landmark into an active archaeological landscape that reveals the entangled histories of institutional ambition, coerced labor, structural failure, and political conflict in nineteenth-century Louisiana.

Date

3-9-2026

Committee Chair

David Chicoine

LSU Acknowledgement

1

LSU Accessibility Acknowledgment

1

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