Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Despite long running debate about the implications of the prehistory concept in North American archaeology, most archaeological site recording systems have not kept pace. Categories such as prehistoric, protohistoric, and historic offer streamlined recording practices in the field but nonetheless perpetuate a simplistic and teleological approach to understanding Indigenous life after contact with Euroamericans. Part of the issue is simply one of recognition. Native American groups continued to occupy many sites for decades and centuries after the arrival of Euroamericans, often without substantial materials pointing to contact with outsiders. In other instances, Indigenous sites from the era of mass produced consumer goods may be difficult to distinguish from those of non-Native settlers. Yet even when site occupants and chronologies are well known, many archaeological recording systems force sites into restrictive categories that further hamper regional understanding of Indigenous patterns of residence after 1492. Through case studies spanning North America, papers in this session will address issues related to how archaeologists recognize sites in the field, record them in regional databases, and ultimately interpret them for and with different stakeholders.

Other Keywords
Historic • Colonialism • Indigenous • contact period • Ethnohistory/History • Cultural Resources and Heritage Management • Historical Archaeology • Political economy • Dating Techniques • Survey

Geographic Keywords
North America (Continent) • United States of America (Country) • USA (Country) • Arizona (State / Territory) • Utah (State / Territory) • Nevada (State / Territory) • Territorial Collectivity of Saint Pierre (Country) • California (State / Territory) • Canada (Country) • North America: California and Great Basin

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-11 of 11)

  • Documents (11)
Documents
  • Belonging, Not Belongings: Thinking beyond the "White Possessive" in the Identification of 19th Century Indigenous Landscapes in New England (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Law Pezzarossi.

    This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In her recent book, "The White Possessive," Aileen Moreton-Robinson details the way in which Western Nationhood hinges upon the possession of property. Consequently, the mechanisms by which Indigenous people become "propertyless," are crucial for the state’s denial of Indigenous sovereignty. For...

  • Distrust Thy Neighbor: Examining Reservation Period Camps through Tribal Archaeology and Story Mapping (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Maureen Mahoney. Dave Scheidecker. Paul Backhouse.

    This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The most recent history of the Seminole Tribe of Florida (STOF) and its settlement on Federal Trust land is little understood. Settling onto the various reservations in the 1930s, community members organized the layout and location of their camps based on sociohistorical beliefs stemming from a distrust...

  • Documenting Persistence: The Archaeological Paper Trail of Indigenous Residence in Marin County, California, 1579-1934 (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lee Panich. Tsim Schneider.

    This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As part of our broader efforts to document patterns of Native American residence in the nineteenth century, we examined the documentary record associated with nearly 900 archaeological sites in Marin County, California. This paper trail begins with the first regional surveys conducted during the early...

  • "I Can Tell It Always": Confronting Colonialist Presumptions and Disciplinary Blind Spots through Community-Based Research (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ian Kretzler.

    This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The nineteenth and early twentieth century history of western Oregon is rife with Euro-American presumptions about the trajectory, pace, and nature of Native cultural change. Federal architects of the state’s reservation system and, later, reservation agents wrote extensively about Native peoples’ ability...

  • Is Archaeology Up to the Pepsi Challenge?: The Identification of Marginalized Populations in CRM Archaeology (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Beaudoin.

    This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The determination of the ethnic or cultural affiliation of an archaeological site, Indigenous or otherwise, is often considered one of the primary starting points for the interpretation of 19th-century archaeological sites. This determination is a significant step in the archaeological process and...

  • Looking at the World through Rose-Colored Flaked Glass (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Russell.

    This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Flaked glass can be a critical keystone artifact in identifying historic Indigenous sites. Yet flaked glass is frequently overlooked or looked at skeptically and dismissed. The effect of overlooking or dismissing flaked glass is a narrowed archaeological perspective and understanding of the Indigenous...

  • Native Narratives and Settler Colonialism in the Rocky Mountain West (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Scheiber.

    This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of the social and material effects of European colonization on indigenous inhabitants has been a regular topic of archaeological discourse in the United States for the last twenty years, with strong publication records in the Southeast, Southwest, and California. A generation of recent scholars...

  • On the Rez, It's All Our History (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Catherine Dickson. Shawn Steinmetz.

    This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tribal members understand history, perhaps better than most communities. It's the concept of prehistory that brings blank stares. As a non-tribal member archaeologist working for a tribe, it's my job to ensure places in the tribes' past (both distant and recent) are adequately addressed under cultural...

  • Recognizing Post-Columbian Indigenous Sites in California’s Colonial Hinterlands (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathleen Hull.

    This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Land-use patterns of seasonally mobile hunter-gatherers present a particular set of challenges to archaeological recognition of post-1492 indigenous residential sites in the colonial hinterlands of California. The relatively short duration of site use, frequent re-use of sites episodically occupied in...

  • Small Sites as Evidence for Seneca and Cayuga Settlement Expansion, circa 1640-1690 (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kurt Jordan.

    This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sites in Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) territory that yield small numbers of artifacts diagnostic of Postcolumbian indigenous occupations typically are treated as ephemeral occurrences: travel stop-overs, resource-procurement stations, and the like. Concentration on obvious diagnostic artifacts such as glass...

  • Understanding Ancestral Wichita and French Trade at the Deer Creek (34KA3) Site (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Trabert.

    This is an abstract from the "Recognizing and Recording Post-1492 Indigenous Sites in North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Deer Creek is an eighteenth-century fortified site in Oklahoma that is featured in dozens of publications yet was not excavated until 2016. While archaeologists today acknowledge the site as a Wichita village, others have insisted Deer Creek is a European fort. Historical narratives bereft of...