When Tragedy Begets “Harvest”: A Comparison of the Macrobotanical Assemblages Recovered from two New England Colonial English House Sites

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Waterman (Marshfield, Massachusetts; 1638-ca. 1640s) and Sprague (Andover, Connecticut; 1705-ca.1750s) House Sites are separated by a century of colonial history and modern state lines, yet linked by a common fate. Both homes were occupied by English families on colonial frontier landscapes until they burned in catastrophic fires which, in turn, allowed for the excellent preservation of macrobotanical remains directly associated with daily food preparation and preservation activities within each home. Recently completed analysis of macrobotanical remains recovered at each site have highlighted that English colonists adapted their traditional foodways to incorporate Indigenous plant foods and knowledge. The Waterman family was one of many early families that blended Indigenous plants into their diet to survive in their new home. A century later, the Spragues also applied this successful subsistence strategy while including the European plants that were steadily becoming more accessible in the region. This paper’s cross-temporal investigation highlights the botanical adaptations made by the English to their diets on the colonial frontier, as well as the importance of these assemblages in recording the first bites taken by early New Englanders as their identity began to evolve from English colonists into the “Yankee” identity of later generations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52627