Early Industry and Environmental Change in New England: the Seventeenth-Century Doane Site on Cape Cod, MA

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Plymouth Colony is often thought of very differently from that of Massachusetts Bay, the latter intended to be a “City on a Hill” or example for the world, while the former emphasized separation from it. While an over-simplification, the archaeology of these Colonies has largely entailed this distinction, with Plymouth Colony work focusing on the earliest, small farming sites and Massachusetts Bay research casting a broader net, including the early work at the Saugus Iron works. Excavations at the 1645-ca. 1700 Doane Site, now in Cape Cod National Seashore, however, have provided hints at more complexity to this comparison. Based on 2019 and 2022 archaeological excavation at this site, dating to the earliest European occupation of Lower Cape Cod, this paper explores the community organization of early Nauset (now Eastham), environmental change, and the possibility for early industrial refining and glassmaking experiments.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2023 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow