“What Was Our Ancestors’ Pottery Like?” Exploring Ceramic Heritage with the Shawnee Tribe

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part I: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

A hallmark of Tom Dillehay’s career is his engagement with local and descendant communities. This is exemplified by his tireless work for the Mapuche, the establishment of anthropology departments throughout South America, and the instrumental role he played in creating the Kentucky Archaeological Survey. We do not recall him ever preaching about community engagement—he simply did it. “Giving back to the community” is one of our missions at the Kentucky Archaeological Survey. At the request of the Shawnee Tribe, we have joined an interdisciplinary team of archaeologists, ethnohistorians, linguists, ceramic artists, and Tribal citizens to help them reconnect to their Fort Ancient ancestors and rediscover ancient foodways by understanding Fort Ancient pottery. It is the Tribe’s hope that a new generation of Shawnee artists will revive its precontact ceramic traditions. In the spirit of collaboration modeled by Dillehay, we report on preliminary results of our research with the Shawnee Tribe—our own “giving back” to a Native community that considers Kentucky its ancestral home. This research targets shell tempered Madisonville Tradition ceramics recovered from locations where historic period documents indicate the Shawnee may have migrated to in the late 1600s/early 1700s, especially near Savannah, Georgia.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)   •
• Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part I: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36369.0