"…near the side of an Indian field commonly known as the Pipemaker’s field": Reanalyzing the Nomini Plantation Midden Assemblage

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Contact and Colonialism" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Excavated in the 1970s by Vivienne Mitchell, a crew of volunteers, and avocational archaeologists from the Archeological Society of Virginia, the Nomini Plantation (44WM12) midden assemblage represents an extraordinary collection of mid- to late-seventeenth-century material culture. However, a full analysis and report were never completed, due to several factors. Starting in 2013, Hatch and McMillan began conducting a reanalysis of these materials, some of which were used in their respective 2015 dissertations. Now, with the assistance of her students at the University of Mary Washington, McMillan has completed the reanalysis of this stratified midden assemblage, which represents three successive households from ca. 1647-1722. This paper outlines what has been learned from this site, how it fits into the broader regional analyses that are taking place in the lower Potomac Valley, and future research directions for Nomini Plantation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeologies of Contact and Colonialism   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2019

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 387