Grounding Futures in Pasts: Eastern Pequot Community Archaeology in Connecticut

Summary

Collaborations between archaeologists and Native communities have expanded significantly in the past 20 years. For most, this is recognized as an important and healthy development on methodological, theoretical, practical, and political grounds, especially when anchored deeply in the communities themselves and designed to address political as well as professional issues. We have worked together in different capacities for more than 13 years on the Eastern Pequot Archaeological Field School, a joint venture between the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation and the University of Massachusetts Boston, to find ways to better orient archaeology to contemporary heritage and political concerns, community participation across generations, land management, and historical and cultural preservation. This effort has involved an equal emphasis on both process and product; careful attention to the linking of methods and materials with local knowledge and social memory; and a comparative and ever-changing perspective on the potentials and pitfalls of collaborative practice.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• A Global Dialogue on Collaborative Archaeology

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16479