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

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.