Colonial Encounters: The Lower Potomac River Valley at Contact, 1500-1720 AD

Part of: Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory

St. Mary’s College of Maryland received NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) support for a collaborative, collections-based archaeological study focused on the lower Potomac River Valley between c. 1500 and 1720 AD. During this period, the Potomac was an important setting in which people from three continents worked out new understandings of one another and of the new world in which they lived. The 16th and 17th centuries were a transformative period in early American history, and especially so in this region: in 1608, while mapping the Chesapeake Bay, Captain John Smith encountered an Algonquian world along the Potomac’s shores; at century’s end, it was a world that was no longer Indian, nor English, nor African. The legacy of those colonial encounters and interactions shapes and gives meaning to present-day Americans.

Thirty-three archaeological collections representing sites occupied by Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans on both shores of the Potomac were identified, which are available for this comparative study. These collections include tobacco pipes, ceramics, stone tools, glass bottles, architectural artifacts, trade items, animal bone, and many more materials with important stratigraphic and other contextual information that can be used to document and interpret economic, social, and cultural life in the region. All of these collections are housed at publicly-accessible repositories throughout the region. Most are cataloged with detailed site plans depicting architecture, fences, gardens, and fortifications available. These collections and the information found in them constitute a rich resource about life in the Potomac River at an important period in American history.

The digital materials contained in this collection are based on physical collections held by the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory, and include photographs and catalogs created as part of the Colonial Encounters project. The materials come from three different sites in Maryland: Mattapany (18ST390), Old Chapel Field (18CH233) and Posey (18CH281).

For more information about the Colonial Encounters project, visit www.chesapeakearchaeology.org.

Site Name Keywords
18ST390 • 18ST233 • 18CH281 • Posey Site

Site Type Keywords
Domestic Structure or Architectural Complex • Archaeological Feature • Domestic Structures • Settlements • House • Artifact Scatter

Other Keywords
Phase II • Navy • Compliance • Potomac Creek Ceramics • Phase I • Tobacco Pipe • Rhenish blue / gray • Lead Shot • Morgan Jones • Copper Triangle

Culture Keywords
Historic • Euroamerican • Archaic • Early Archaic • Middle Archaic • Late Archaic • Woodland • Colonial

Investigation Types
Data Recovery / Excavation • Site Evaluation / Testing • Systematic Survey • Collections Research

Material Types
Ceramic • Metal • Glass • Chipped Stone • Building Materials • Fauna • Fire Cracked Rock • Macrobotanical • Shell • Mineral

Temporal Keywords
Prehistoric • Historical • 17th Century CE • 18th Century CE

Geographic Keywords
United States of America (Country) • Maryland (State / Territory) • North America (Continent) • St. Mary's County (County) • Naval Air Station Patuxent River • US (ISO Country Code) • Patuxent River • Mattapany-Sewall Archeological Site • USA (Country) • Charles County (County)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-18 of 18)

Archaeological Investigations at the Posey Site (18CH281) and 18CH282 Indian Head Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (2005.012)
  • Artifact Catalog, Posey Site (18CH281), Colonial Encounters (2014)
    DATASET St. Mary's College of Maryland, St. Mary's City, Maryland. Colonial Encounters Archaeological Project.

    This database was generated by archaeological investigations of the Posey site during the Colonial Encounters: The Lower Potomac River Valley at Contact, 1500-1720 AD project.

  • Artifact Photographs, Posey Site, Colonial Encounters (1 of 3) (2014)
    IMAGE St. Mary's College of Maryland, St. Mary's City, Maryland. Colonial Encounters Archaeological Project.

    These photographs were generated by archaeological investigations of the Posey site during the Colonial Encounters: The Lower Potomac River Valley at Contact, 1500-1720 AD project. This record (part 1) includes the first 50 images.

  • Artifact Photographs, Posey Site, Colonial Encounters (2 of 3) (2014)
    IMAGE St. Mary's College of Maryland, St. Mary's City, Maryland. Colonial Encounters Archaeological Project.

    These photographs were generated by archaeological investigations of the Posey site during the Colonial Encounters: The Lower Potomac River Valley at Contact, 1500-1720 AD project. This record (part 2) includes the next 50 images.

  • Artifact Photographs, Posey Site, Colonial Encounters (3 of 3) (2014)
    IMAGE St. Mary's College of Maryland, St. Mary's City, Maryland. Colonial Encounters Archaeological Project.

    These photographs were generated by archaeological investigations of the Posey site during the Colonial Encounters: The Lower Potomac River Valley at Contact, 1500-1720 AD project. This record (part 3) includes the next 12 images.

Mattapany, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland (1998.032, 1998.034, 1998.035)
  • Artifact Catalog, Site 18ST390, Colonial Encounters (2013)
    DATASET Colonial Encounters Archaeological Project. St. Mary's College of Maryland, St. Mary's City, Maryland.

    This database was generated by archaeological investigations of the Posey site during the Colonial Encounters: The Lower Potomac River Valley at Contact, 1500-1720 AD project.

  • Artifact Photographs, Mattapany, Colonial Encounters (2014)
    IMAGE Colonial Encounters Archaeological Project. St. Mary's College of Maryland, St. Mary's City, Maryland.

    These photographs were taken of artifacts recovered through archaeological investigations of the Mattapany site. The photographs were generated as part of the Colonial Encounters: The Lower Potomac River Valley at Contact, 1500-1720 AD project.

  • Artifact Photographs, Mattapany, Colonial Encounters (1 of 3) (2014)
    IMAGE Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory.

    These photographs were taken of artifacts recovered through archaeological investigations of the Mattapany site. The photographs were generated as part of the Colonial Encounters: The Lower Potomac River Valley at Contact, 1500-1720 AD project. This record includes the first 50 images.

  • Artifact Photographs, Mattapany, Colonial Encounters (2 of 3) (2014)
    IMAGE Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory.

    These photographs were taken of artifacts recovered through archaeological investigations of the Mattapany site. The photographs were generated as part of the Colonial Encounters: The Lower Potomac River Valley at Contact, 1500-1720 AD project. This record (part 2) includes the next 50 images.

  • Artifact Photographs, Mattapany, Colonial Encounters (3 of 3) (2014)
    IMAGE Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory.

    These photographs were taken of artifacts recovered through archaeological investigations of the Mattapany site. The photographs were generated as part of the Colonial Encounters: The Lower Potomac River Valley at Contact, 1500-1720 AD project. This record (part 3) includes the last 50 images.

Individual Resources
  • Colonel Addison’s Plantation Revisited (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Esther Rimer.

    In the 1980s, archaeological investigations exposed the site of an 18th-century plantation near the Washington, DC Beltway and now destroyed by development. These investigations suggested that the plantation’s first resident was Colonel John Addison, an Indian trader and merchant, militia officer, Protestant, and planter with extensive connections across the Potomac. Twenty-five years on, archaeologists at St. Mary’s College of Maryland are engaged in an intensive re-evaluation of the earliest...

  • Out of the shadows…’: Examining Historic-Period Indian-made Ceramics Using Subtypological Analysis (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Valerie M.J. Hall.

    Maryland’s indigenous population, especially Indian women, transformed Early British American society during the 17th century. Maryland Indian women provided sustenance and crafts and served as cultural brokers, providing colonists with food and native-made goods, including aboriginal ceramics. Typing historic-period Native American ceramics in the Chesapeake region is challenging due to overlapping (and sometimes conflicting) typological attributes. Additionally, classifying wares by type...

  • Reassessing the Hallowes Site: Conflict and Settlement in the 17th-century Potomac Valley (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Brad Hatch. Barbara Heath. Lauren McMillan.

    The John Hallowes Site in Westmoreland County, Virginia was excavated from 1968 to 1969. While no site report was written, an article summarizing the findings was published in Historical Archaeology in 1971. The artifacts from the site were not systematically catalogued until the 1980s, and it was not until 2010-2012 that an integrated study that compared the artifact data with site features, site history, regional archaeological findings, and regional history was completed. Benefiting from...

  • Tipping Point (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Julia King.

    As historical archaeologists in the Mid-Atlantic region of the US turn their focus not just to Europeans and Africans, sensu Deetz, but to the region’’s Indigenous people, emerging interpretations emphasize resistance and survival in the face of the European colonizing machine. These narratives are aimed at challenging the deeply entrenched notion of the disappearing Indian, but they also tend to ignore the losses, especially through displacement, experienced by Native people. Using...

  • ‘Unraveling the Mystery of ‘Building X,’ George Washington’s Alleged Birthplace’ (2014)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Philip Levy. Amy Muraca.

    George Washington Birthplace National Monument boasts several seventeenth-century eighteenth-century sites. Two of these have long been associated with Washington. Decades of archaeology of this landscape though has created a complicated and record, but the holy grail of the landscape has always been locating the building in which Washington was born. Over the summer of 2013 a team of researchers reexamined the record and collection associated with what in the 1930s became known as ‘»Building...

Phase II Archaeological Investigations of 18ST233 and 18ST329, Webster Field Annex, Naval Air Station Patuxent River (2001.002)