“Butted and bounded as followeth”: LiDAR and the historical division of the landscape in southern New England

Summary

The English settlement of the southern New England landscape in the 17th and 18th centuries left a lasting impact both culturally and ecologically. One of the most remarkable archaeological legacies of the imposition of English-style agriculture on the New England landscape is stone walls, which to this day remain a defining characteristic of its landscape. By using LiDAR data, preliminary analysis has shown that stone walls are not only visible beneath the dense forest canopy that now covers southern New England, but that those walls correspond to property lines and divisions in historic maps as well as modern property boundaries. In addition to stone wall networks, LiDAR gives us insight into the geospatial arrangements of farmsteads and patterns surrounding stone wall lined fields.Using LiDAR is essential in further understanding the New England landscape, how that landscape was initially divided amongst English settlers, and how that has impacted our view of that landscape today.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014   •
• Foregrounding the Landscape in Archaeology

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-38,02