The Power of Plants: Recentering Traditional Ecological Knowledge in New England

Summary

Often plants recovered from archaeological sites are not seen as keys to interpreting the agency associated with social contexts and cultural identities. Yet, the physical remains of plants left behind by individuals and communities, like other aspects of material culture, are the result of the choices made, completed actions, knowledge availability, and goals/strategies. This paper highlights and recenters traditional ecological knowledge of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe from 1000 to 1800 A.D. Additional plant-based data sets from Narragansett, Pocumtuck and Sokoki archaeological sites will be discussed to situate those plant-based interactions across time and space. Through an investigation of the domesticated and wild plants along with oral histories and historical documents, we gain an understanding of the choices involved in Indigenous foodways and subsistence strategies during one of the most tumultuous times in New England’s history. We demonstrate how Indigenous households and communities favored decisions about plants that provided flexibility in their social organization, while also allowing for maintenance of personal identities within and beyond colonized spaces. The materialities analyzed reflect the power of plants and the critical continuities and transformations of “traditional” subsistence strategies of Indigenous communities on an ever-changing landscape.

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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