Historical Archaeology of Chesapeake Landscapes in Transition

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Historical Archaeology of Chesapeake Landscapes in Transition," at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Millenia of human occupation in the Chesapeake have reshaped the landscape in dramatic ways, a fact that has occupied historical archaeologists working the region since the discipline’s inception. In recent decades, Chesapeake archaeology’s emphasis has veered from the materials of elite colonial “founders” towards studies of the lives of free and unfree persons of color, the persistent damages of colonialism, the identification of nuanced intraregional variation, and more.

Papers in this session span the geographical and temporal reach of colonial and postcolonial life in the Chesapeake. Individually, they highlight the discipline’s pioneering origins in the region and the recent scientific and theoretical advances championed by current Chesapeake scholars. Collectively, they chart trajectories of social, political, and economic change both historically and archaeologically over the course of nearly 500 years in a region that was anything but static.