The Archaeology of the North American Fur Trade

Summary

The fur trade was a multi-faceted, global phenomenon that had a formative influence on the history and cultures of post-Contact North America. Archaeological investigations of fur trade-related sites coincide with the inception of historical archaeology. This paper begins with a brief historical overview of the fur trades and summarizes some of the interpretive frameworks that have been employed to impose spatial and temporal order on this large-scale process. It also discusses the historiography of the archaeologies of the fur trades and examines how sites and sources have been mined, and what has been learned. The archaeology of Fort St. Joseph, an eighteenth-century fur trading post in the western Great Lakes region, underscores some of these trends and the relevance of fur trade archaeology in the twenty-first century. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The American Experience in Archaeological Perspective   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 133