Connecticut's Indigenous Peoples: What Archaeology, History, and Oral Traditions Teach Us About Their Communities and Cultures

Description

More than 13,000 years ago, people settled on lands that now lie within the boundaries of the state of Connecticut. Leaving no written records and scarce archaeological remains, these peoples and their communities have remained unknown to all but a few archaeologists and other scholars. This pioneering book is the first to provide a full account of Connecticut’s indigenous peoples, from the long-ago days of their arrival to the present day. Lucianne Lavin draws on exciting new archaeological and ethnographic discoveries, interviews with Native Americans, rare documents including periodicals, archaeological reports, master’s theses and doctoral dissertations, conference papers, newspapers, and government records, as well as her own ongoing archaeological and documentary research. She creates a fascinating and remarkably detailed portrait of indigenous peoples in deep historic  times before European contact and of their changing lives during the past 400 years of colonial and state history. She also includes a short study of Native Americans in Connecticut in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book brings to light the richness and diversity of Connecticut’s indigenous histories, corrects misinformation about the vanishing Connecticut Indian, and reveals the significant roles and contributions of Native Americans to modern-day Connecticut.  Contents Foreword Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Archaeology in Connecticut 1 Connecticut’s Earliest Settlers The Paleo-Indian Period 2 Coping with New Environments The Early Archaic Period 3 Surviving in Hot, Dry Homelands The Middle Archaic Period 4 The Hunter-Gatherer Florescence The Late Archaic Period 5 Environmental Stress and Elaborate Ritual The Terminal Archaic Period 6 Closure, Continuity, and the Seeds of Change The Early Woodland Period 7 Prosperity and Population Growth The Middle Woodland Period 8 Ecological Abundance and Tribal Homelands The Late Woodland Period 9 Beaver Skins for Iron Axes The Final Woodland Period 10 Surviving European-American Colonialism A.D. 1633 into the Twenty-first Century Notes References Figure Credits Index