Pequot Cultural Entanglement During the Pequot War: Moving beyond an "assumed, realized, or imminent expression of European domination"

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Perspectives from the Study of Early Colonial Encounter in North America: Is it time for a “revolution” in the study of colonialism?" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This paper explores the nature of cultural change and continuity during the earliest colonial period (ca. 1615-1637) in southern New England. Intercultural exchange between Europeans and Native people in the region is believed to have brought sweeping disturbances to Native American lifeways, however the nature and pace of those changes is little understood. The site of Calluna Hill (CT 59-73) is the location of a small Pequot village burned by the English during the Pequot War in 1637. The excavation of a site like this offers us an opportunity to understand the complex and agentive ways that the Pequots adopted novel materials and ideas into their worldview. Beaudoin argues that traditional studies of colonialism “embeds the discussion within an assumed, realized, or imminent expression of European domination”. The findings from Calluna Hill suggest that a post-colonial, entanglement-based approach may better define the reality of cultural continuity in the 17th century.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Perspectives from the Study of Early Colonial Encounter in North America: Is it time for a “revolution” in the study of colonialism?

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 450