Picking Up the Pieces of Harvard’s Colonialist Archaeology: The Turpin Site in Social, Historical, and Archaeological Context

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Improving and Decolonizing Precontact Legacy Collections with Fieldwork: Making Sense of Harvard’s Turpin Site Expedition (Ohio)" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

As with many archaeological sites, the Turpin site has factored into various social, historical, and archaeological narratives ranging from the good to the bad and ugly. Here we begin by situating Harvard’s archaeology project at Turpin within the social context of the mid-1880s when fieldwork was conducted at the dawn of professional archaeology in the United States. Then, we examine later investigations regarding how and why the site was excavated and how it factored into local identity and an understanding of precontact history. We review the usual issues of looting and “othering” of the site’s original inhabitants, but also surprising examples of stewardship and respect for the site demonstrated by one of the first Euromerican residents, the Turpin family. The Turpin family was connected to Thomas Jefferson by marriage and the lands on which the site is located were one of many land grants given to American Revolutionary War veterans. In short, our aim is to contextualize the history of fieldwork at the Turpin with hope that this case study can help inform decolonization of other precontact legacy collections through targeted fieldwork.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Improving and Decolonizing Precontact Legacy Collections with Fieldwork: Making Sense of Harvard’s Turpin Site Expedition (Ohio)   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39633.0