Smoking Areas: Change and continuity of Eastern Pequot smoking practices through spatial analysis and clay tobacco pipe distributions.

Summary

Throughout the process colonialism many cultural traditions have been negotiated through the interactions of different sociocultural groups. One such tradition that was deeply affected was smoking. Tobacco, a staple product of the Americas, was returned to Europe by colonizers; this began a tobacco smoking revolution which spread clay tobacco pipes back to North America in the 17th-century. These instruments made smoking a more accessible and leisurely activity for Native American and European communities, while also retaining some ritual significance to some Indigenous groups.

My research examines the continuity and change of Pequot smoking traditions from the late 17th- through the 19th-century. Data collected from numerous 18th- and 19th-century household sites from the Eastern Pequot Archaeological Field School seasons and two English households from the same period are used to explore this research problem. Specifically, the use of space and clay pipe distributions across these sites are used to determine similarities and differences of smoking practices between and within the two cultural groups over time. The aim of my comparative research is to see how this Pequot community negotiated their smoking traditions during the course of English colonization and American settler colonialism in New England.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Exploring 12,000 Years of Occupation, Land Use, and Conflict: Archaeological and Historical Research Sponsored by the Mashantucket and Eastern Pequot Tribes

Keywords

Spatial Coverage