Archaeology and the Challenge of Storytelling at George Washington Birthplace National Monument.

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Archaeology of Chesapeake Landscapes in Transition", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Recent excavations and archaeological record re-study projects have enabled considerable changes in the interpretation of the George Washington Birthplace National Monument National Monument (NPS). Sites there have been the subject of excavations from as early as the 1890s and has seen several digging approaches and methodologies over the years. The park has played an important role in Chesapeake regional archaeological history just as generations of differently formatted and executed excavations have helped shape the park’s interpreted story. One persistent issue though in this work is the question of how we know what we know – the ontology of archaeological knowledge – challenged by deeply entrenched stories fed by many different streams. The park and its many excavations spread over time force us to consider the intersections of received stories, the assumptions implicit in methodologies, the needs of desires of interested communities and partners in the creation of archaeological interpretation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025   •
• Historical Archaeology of Chesapeake Landscapes in Transition

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow