The History and Future of Ceremonial Stone Landscapes of Southern New England

Summary

Indigenous people have lived on and moved throughout the landscape of southeastern New England for thousands of years. Today, representatives from several Tribal Historic Preservation Offices are interested in identifying and protecting ceremonial stone groupings that are significant elements of ceremonial landscape sites, ties to which were in many cases severed by colonial law. These sites are important loci of Indigenous history, inter-Tribal ceremony, and collective memory. This presentation draws on my dissertation research, which examines ceremonial stone features and sites that represent the ancestors’ attempts to gain harmony with the Earth, her children of the nations of crawling, flying, walking, swimming, stone, and plant, and her celestial relatives. Historic sources, oral traditions, and ethnographic accounts, along with GPS and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been used to “let the landscape speak,” presenting spatial data for preservation and the reestablishment of Tribal connections to ceremonial places.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Mediating Spirit Worlds in Native North America

Keywords

Spatial Coverage