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

529 Pages·2013·31.3 MB·English

by  Lucianne Lavin

Connecticut’s Indigenous Peoples
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Connecticut’s
Indigenous Peoples
What Archaeology, History, and Oral Traditions
Teach Us About Their Communities and Cultures
Lucianne Lavin
Institute for American Indian Studies
With a contribution to the Introduction by
Paul Grant-Costa, Yale Indian Papers Project
Edited by Rosemary Volpe
Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History
YALE PEABODY MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
/NEW HAVEN & LONDON
Published with assistance from the Mary Cady Tew Memorial Fund.
Copyright © 2013 by Yale University.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lavin, Lucianne
Connecticut’s indigenous peoples : what archaeology, history, and oral traditions teach
us about their communities and cultures / Lucianne Lavin, Institute of American Indian
Studies ; with a contribution by Paul Grant-Costa, Yale Indian Papers Project ; edited
by Rosemary Volpe, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-300-18664-2 (alk. paper)
1. Indians of North America—Connecticut—History. 2. Indians of North America—
Connecticut—Antiquities. 3. Indians of North America—Connecticut—Folklore. 
4. Oral tradition—Connecticut. 5. Connecticut—Antiquities. I. Title.
E78.C7L36 2013
974.6′01—dc23 2012044426
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
publication of this book is enabled by a grant from
Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford
This book is dedicated to my late mother, Marie Michrina Neff, whose
enthusiasm for archaeology and learning in general greatly influenced
my life pursuits. Without her gentle guidance, this book might never
have been written.
Contents
Foreword by Faith Damon Davison ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction | Archaeology in Connecticut 1
1 Connecticut’s Earliest Settlers
The Paleo-Indian Period 35
2 Coping with New Environments
The Early Archaic Period 57
3 Surviving in Hot, Dry Homelands
The Middle Archaic Period 72
4 The Hunter-Gatherer Florescence
The Late Archaic Period 85
5 Environmental Stress and Elaborate Ritual
The Terminal Archaic Period 121
6 Closure, Continuity, and the Seeds of Change
The Early Woodland Period 143
7 Prosperity and Population Growth
The Middle Woodland Period 167
8 Ecological Abundance and Tribal Homelands
The Late Woodland Period 192
9 Beaver Skins for Iron Axes
The Final Woodland Period 270
10 Surviving European-American Colonialism
A.D. 1633 into the Twenty-first Century 318
Notes 365
References 401
Figure Credits 449
Index 459
Color illustrations appear following page 192
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Foreword
I first met Dr. Lucianne Lavin back in the winter of 1986, when I was a lowly in-
tern at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, Connecticut.
The institution was preparing to put all of its collections’ card catalogue infor-
mation online—which seemed at the time like a great leap into the future. I was
checking the physical inventory of ethnographic materials in collections against
the registrar’s list and the card catalog. Lucianne was studying these collections for
a survey of indigenous pottery shards. We had a brief conversation, then both of us
returned to our work. I thought it was brave of her to seek a career in archaeology,
a profession that seemed to be overwhelmingly populated by males.
Since then, our paths have kept crossing. Dr. Lavin has instituted and par-
ticipated in many of the archaeological programs at a variety of scholarly organi-
zations. She has taught archaeological and anthropological courses at Connecticut
College, as well as at Adelphi University and Naugatuck Community College,
among others. She also owns and operates an archaeological firm and is a consul-
tant on many projects, too. She is the current director of research and collections
at the Institute for American Indian Studies, an educational center and museum
in Washington, Connecticut, where many programs are offered for both youth
and adult education. She is a longtime contributor and editor for the Bulletin of the
Archaeological Society of Connecticut, and the author of many professional papers
on the archaeology and ethnohistory of the Northeast.
As part of the network of professionals in this field, Dr. Lavin has access to
the results of the supervised avocational excavations in this region. She has been
ideally situated to keep current with recent excavations from around the state. I
cannot think of someone better qualified to write a book in this discipline, and I
am glad that she has taken time from all of her responsibilities to do so.
The time for this comprehensive book on archaeology and ethnohistory is
well past due. Most texts used to teach Connecticut’s archaeology in college
courses today are thirty or more years out of date, if one judges by the excavations
used as examples throughout their text. Professors should be happy to find a chro-
nology of Connecticut from geological time to a more recent era, and a compen-
dium of truncated site reports for the various aspects of Connecticut archaeology
between these two covers, as well as a wide-ranging list of references cited to direct
their students to more intense documentation.
Beginning with the geology and natural resources of the area, and then the
entry of its earliest visitors, the Paleo-Indians, the author uses the environment to
ix