Markers of Difference or Makers of Difference?: Approaches to Atypical Practices on Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Sites

Summary

Documentary and archaeological evidence suggests that there was significant diversity within Postcolumbian Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) communities living in what is today New York State during the 1600-1779 period. Previous scholars have emphasized atypical burial practices, skeletal evidence, architectural techniques, and ceramic styles, usually seeing these divergent practices as evidence for the presence of outsiders. While Haudenosaunee groups certainly incorporated significant numbers of outsiders (by processes of both individual and group adoption), it is worth thinking about atypical practices and the identities and labor relations associated with them in a more fluid sense. Who would have continued, discontinued, or adopted practices that stood out from those of the majority? What sort of social roles or inequities went along with these sorts of social difference?

Interested researchers should consult the published version of this paper in Historical Archaeology, volume 52, number 1, pages 12-29 (2018).

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Labor and Plurality: Excavating the Political Economy of Identity   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-58,04