Results from the Seventeenth-Century Doane Site, Eastham, Massachusetts

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In the summer of 2019, twelve students took part in a field school excavating one of the earliest known European-descended farmsteads on Cape Cod, likely settled in 1645. Unlike most Lower Cape settlements, Nauset (later Eastham) was directly connected to the Seperatist community of Plymouth. Excavations aimed to delimit and characterize the site, previously known from an historical marker but never verified archaeologically. This paper considers what the results can suggest about human-environment interactions and lifeways on the site, which was founded in an environment very different from today’s. Despite impacts from plowing, a variety of artifacts were recovered which have produced some surprising results. Among these are the relatively short duration of the site’s occupation despite the substantial nature of its architectural material, as well as resource utilization and evidence for cottage-industry metalworking.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2022 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology