Deep History, Colonial Narratives, and Decolonization in the Native Chesapeake

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Deep History, Colonial Narratives, and Decolonization in the Native Chesapeake" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This session considers efforts to write archaeological histories of Native societies in the Chesapeake region that span the divide between deep history and the colonial era. Archaeologists’ efforts to bring the region’s precolonial past into conversation with colonial histories face tensions stemming from divergent research questions, writing styles, temporal frames, and interpretive touchstones. Moving beyond these tensions—theoretically, methodologically, and writerly—is critical if archaeologists are to contribute to efforts to decolonize narratives of indigenous pasts.