Understanding And Interpreting Indigenous Places And Landscapes

Summary

Since the earliest encounters of Native Americans and Europeans, places and landscapes with thousands of years of use and history in the "New World" have been renamed, depleted of resources, appropriated and stolen. Despite almost 500 years of contact, colonialism and repression by European settlers and their descendants, Native tribes continue to define places on the landscape in terms of tribal understandings, meanings and uses. This paper addresses the topic of place and landscape interpretation through three cases studies of National Register landmarks and historic places: a small Indian reservation and historic homestead in southern New England, the Bighorn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, and immigrant trails in the West. Archaeologists and those working in the field of historic preservation can benefit from more inclusive interpretations and understandings of tribal sites and places, TCPs and cultural landscapes encountered during cultural resource or academic projects.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Long-term Indigenous Entanglement in the Colonial World   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 671