Some archaeological work has been done at the Shaker village near Lexington, Kentucky. Check out http://is.as.uky.edu/photos/shaker-village-kentucky-uk-archaeology-site-2012

Some work has also been done, albeit begrudgingly, at a hippie commune in Olompali (sp?) State Park in California. Check out http://www.archaeology.org/0907/abstracts/hippies.html for a very brief description. A little Googling will reveal more info including at least one scholarly article.  http://scahome.org/publications/proceedings/Proceedings.25Fernandez.pdf
Wavy Gravy, by the way, the voice of the Hog Farm commune with residential locations in New Mexico and Tennessee and a traveling component (think the announcer of "breakfast in bed for 500,000" at Woodstock) still lives in a communal setting somewhere in California (I forget where but it wouldn't be hard to find). 

A Barnard/Columbia student has been doing both archaeology and ethnohistory focused on the hippie commune of New Buffalo near Taos, New Mexico. Check out http://stanford.academia.edu/LindsayMontgomery/Papers/981063/New_Buffalo_Playing_Indian_and_the_Culture_of_Counter-Culture

Jeff

Jeffrey L. Boyer, RPA
Supervisory Archaeologist/Project Director
Office of Archaeological Studies, Museum of New Mexico

  *   407 Galisteo Street, Suite B-100
  *   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
  *   tel: 505.827.6387   fax: 505.827.3904
  *   e-mail: [log in to unmask]

The biggest problem with the past is that it reads better in reverse. Life is far messier in real time.

________________________________________
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Benjamin Carter [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 8:44 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Archaeology of Communal Societies

All,

Let's not forget Stan South's excavations of Moravian settlements
(Historical Archaeology in Wachovia). The Moravians were communal, at
least in the early part of their appearance in the US, say between 1742
and (I forget the precise date here) sometime in the 1760s and even
after that they still held onto many of their communal tenets even
though people no longer lived in gender/age groups.

There are also a couple of other Moravian excavations out there, but I
no longer recall locations. Unfortunately, amazing excavations were
completed here in Bethlehem, PA the Moravian base for their activities
in the Americas. Most excavations were in the 1960s and 70s, but nothing
was ever published. I tried to go through some of the old collections,
but they are in less-than-ideal conditions and I had little luck.

I have also done a very minor amount of testing at Gnadenhuetten, the
site of a massacre of Moravian missionaries, but don't have much to
speak of and certainly not enough to publish.

Cheers,
Ben




On 7/24/2012 2:04 AM, Stacey Camp wrote:
> Hi Sam,
>
> Dr. Stacy Kozakavich did a fascinating study of a Marxist utopian commune
> outside of Sequoia National Forest in California. Here is a link to her
> dissertation:
>
> http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=9XpwtZSJCzEC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=sta
> cy+kozakavich&ots=UxV464-UnF&sig=hfAekiWUmNLp8T2qaKZuXWSMEzc#v=onepage&q=sta
> cy%20kozakavich&f=false
>
> She also published an article in Historical Archaeology on a different
> utopian commune, which can be found using the link below. I believe that
> entire edition of Historical Archaeology was on utopian/intentional
> communities:
>
> http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25617319?uid=3739648&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3
> 739256&sid=21100940879593
>
> Best,
>
> Stacey
>
> ==============
> Stacey Lynn Camp, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Sociology, Anthropology, & Justice Studies
> University of Idaho, Moscow
> Phinney Hall, Room 106
> (208) 885-6736
> [log in to unmask]
> UI Faculty Profile: www.uidaho.edu/class/socanthro/staceycamp
> The Kooskia Internment Camp Archaeological Project:
> www.uidaho.edu/class/kicap
>
>
>
>
>
> On 7/23/12 1:10 PM, "Samantha Savory" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> I have just begun researching a collection  that has a
>> transcendental/foureuristic society component. I would appreciate some extra
>> sources that would help to provide a stronger background in past work as well
>> as  potential research avenues.
>> It was suggested that I should compare this site with Shaker Village sites,
>> because they were both prominent societies in the Northeast at the same time.
>> I was considering looking at foodways, but the site had several occupations.
>>
>> Comments and suggests would be welcomed.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Sam