A Deeper Look into Colonial Newport through Orphaned Collections

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House is the one of the oldest surviving homes in Newport, Rhode Island. Built for Stephen Mumford in 1697 the property encapsulates the colonial era of New England and provides insight into its changing communities highlighting the lives of marginalized groups. In 1998, an excavation of the backyard of the property was conducted by archaeologists at Salve Regina University, however the artifacts recovered were never fully analyzed and the documentation for these excavations was partially lost. Our research aims to discover the place an orphaned archaeological collection has in gathering new data to aid in the understanding of the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House and all those who inhabited it throughout the years. Overall, this research provides insight into understanding the makeup of the coastal community and gaining new perspectives from groups whose story has not yet been told. These efforts will contribute in creating a larger narrative about the history of Rhode Island, and in particular the lives of enslaved people, and will show how revisiting orphaned collections can contribute to important new research.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52624