New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology
Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2020
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology," at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.
The research on the 17th-century Plymouth Colony in Eastern Massachusetts is foundational to the field of historical archaeology. For several decades, James Deetz and his students excavated, studied, and published on Plymouth Colony sites, but this work was then followed by a long gap in both new site discoveries and analytical work on the regional collections. In the past several years, there has been a renewed focus on Plymouth and the surrounding region: the discovery of new 17th-century sites; new analytical approaches to the study of curated collections; and consideration of a different set of research questions, such as the long-term effects of the colonial settlement and more recent development on the landscape and environment. This session presents the diverse aspects of this research in the context of revitalizing a regional research program on the Plymouth Colony.
Other Keywords
Plymouth •
Plymouth Colony •
Ceramics •
Vernacular Architecture •
Trade •
Environment •
Religion •
Paleoethnobotany •
Colonialism •
Colonists
Temporal Keywords
17th Century •
1880-1920 •
1500-1700 CE •
Early Colonial Period/17th Century •
Late 16th through 17th centuries
Geographic Keywords
Coahuila (State / Territory) •
New Mexico (State / Territory) •
Oklahoma (State / Territory) •
Arizona (State / Territory) •
Texas (State / Territory) •
Sonora (State / Territory) •
United States of America (Country) •
Chihuahua (State / Territory) •
Nuevo Leon (State / Territory) •
Delaware (State / Territory)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-8 of 8)
- Documents (8)
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Environment, Religion, and Social Change: the Doane Site Archaelogical Project, Cape Cod, MA (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper provides a preliminary report on the 2019 excavations at the Doane Site, Eastham, Massachusetts, on Lower Cape Cod. This project looks at a well-known religious community in a less-clearly-understood time: the century and a half during which the descendants of those called “the Pilgrims”...
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"From Parts beyond the Seas": An Analysis of Trade and Plymouth Colony Ceramics (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Although Plymouth Colony has been studied extensively by both historians and archaeologists, materials from the original settlement have only recently been identified by University of Massachusetts, Boston archaeologists at Burial Hill in downtown Plymouth, Massachusetts. This paper is a diachronic...
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New Research on the "Old Colony": Excavations in Downtown Plymouth (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Since 2013, archaeologists from UMass Boston have been engaged in a collaborative research program focused on 17th-century Plymouth (MA) colony. This project has combined discovery of new sites in downtown Plymouth with a reexamination of existing collections curated from earlier excavations....
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Old Collections, New Creations: Updates from a Mayflower Family Home (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Around 1627, John and Priscilla Alden, both Mayflower passengers, moved their growing family from Plimoth Colony to nearby Duxbury. The archaeological evidence of their lives at the First Home Site has recently started to be reanalyzed. New creations include three Masters theses, a website, and an...
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"A permanent blemish...in the centre of the village": Class and the National Cultural Heritage Movement in Plymouth, Massachusetts (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The late 19th century saw the rise of the National Heritage movement in the United States. In Plymouth, Massachusetts, this movement focused squarely on the Pilgrims’ arrival on the Mayflower in 1620. In 1894, a group of prominent community members known as the Trustees of the Stickney Fund began...
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Pollen Analysis as a Proxy for Land Use Practices in Massachusetts, 1500-1700 CE (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Questions of land—who owns it, who controls it, who alters it—are central to human relationships, particularly in colonial contexts where power dynamics are embedded within the physical landscape. In Massachusetts, land was central to cooperation and conflict between the Wampanoag and English. Land...
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Useful Materials: a study of 17th century glass from Plymouth Colony using pXRF analysis (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. During the 16th and 17th centuries there was a revolution in glass production in England as both people and ideas dispersed through Europe due to political and religious unrest. Glass makers from northern France, Venice, and the Low Countries were brought to England to share their production...
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A Yeoman’s House in Marshfield: the c. 1638 Robert Waterman House (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Research on the “Old Colony”: Recent Approaches to Plymouth Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. As Plimoth Plantation became crowded for ever-increasing numbers of newcomers, colonists spread into neighboring areas within the Old Colony. One of these areas was Greene’s Harbor, or Marshfield. In the 1630s Robert Waterman and his wife Elizabeth, a daughter of prominent colonist Thomas Bourne,...