Identifying 17th Century Indigenous Community Formation within the Potomac River Valley

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 recent years, Chesapeake archaeologists have placed more emphasis on the unique cultural landscape of the Potomac River Valley, including studies on sub-regional British community formation. However, one area that has been undertheorized in the sub-region is Indigenous community formation during the colonial period. In this paper, we compare attributes associated with Indigenous-manufactured ceramics and tobacco pipes from the Coan Hall (44NB11), Boathouse Pond (44NB111), Posey (18CH281), Zekiah Fort (18CH808), and Heater’s Island (18FR72) sites in order to identify possible communities of practice throughout the Potomac River Valley. Identifying these communities of practice may demonstrate ties between Indigenous groups that were either overlooked or misunderstood by their European contemporaries. Identifying these relationships also has the potential to assist archaeologists in understanding Eastern Algonquian persistence during and after the colonial period.

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