The Mill Site at Ohomowauke: An Eighteenth-Century Euro-American Domestic and Industrial Occupation on the Periphery of the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation

Summary

The Ohomowauke site (72-137), located on the Mashantucket Pequot reservation in southeastern Connecticut, contains a mid eighteenth-century Euro-American sawmill and associated domestic structures that would have been situated on the historic border of the reservation. While little remains of the sawmill, the cultural material recovered within and around the domestic structures, including the house of the mill operator’s family, provide an opportunity to examine the lifeways of a working class Connecticut family involved with one of New England’s first industries. Data from the site has allowed for interpretations on the social behaviors and daily practices of the people living by the mill, as well as their relationships with their Native American and Euro-American neighbors in the area. These interpretations were formed based on analysis of the entire post-contact artifact assemblage from the site, including European manufactured ceramics, items of personal adornment, the architecture of the house and its associated outbuildings, and botanical food remains.

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

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