On Saturday, January
25 at 2 pm, the public is invited to attend "Change, Continuity, and Collaboration: Studying
Eastern Pequot History in Southeastern Connecticut," a presentation by Dr. Stephen Silliman, Professor of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Boston. The Friends of the Office of State Archaeology
(FOSA), the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History and Connecticut
Archaeology Center at UConn, and Archaeology Society of Connecticut (ASC)
sponsor the presentation. The talk will take place at Smith Middle School, 216
Addison Road, Glastonbury, CT. Admission is $10 for the general public and $5
for students with ID. The annual meeting of the Friends of the Office of State
Archaeology (FOSA) begins at 1 pm and is open to the public. In case of
inclement weather, the snow date will be Sunday, January 26, 2014, 2 pm.
When
studying Native American history in New England, archaeologists must confront
several critical questions. How do we measure culture change and continuity in
the past? What are the implications of these concepts and interpretations on
political and heritage issues today? What role does community-based
archaeology with descendants play in addressing some of these issues? Join Dr.
Stephen Silliman who will discuss a long-term collaborative archaeological
project between the University of Massachusetts Boston and the Eastern Pequot
Tribal Nation to provide some answers to these challenging questions.
Dr. Stephen Silliman is a Professor of Anthropology and Graduate Program
Director of the M.A. in Historical Archaeology at the University of
Massachusetts Boston, where he has taught since 2001 after receiving his Ph.D.
in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. His research
interests include New England specifically and North America generally,
historical archaeology, indigenous and collaborative archaeologies, studies of
colonialism, and heritage studies. Many of these research interests have manifested
in his ongoing community-based archaeology program with the Eastern Pequot
Tribal Nation of southeastern Connecticut, a university field school project
that has been running since 2003. Dr. Silliman has published several books – Collaborating
at the Trowel’s Edge (2008), Historical Archaeology (with Martin
Hall, 2006), and Lost Laborers in Colonial California (2004) – as well
as articles in journals such as American Antiquity, American
Anthropologist, Historical Archaeology, Journal of Social Archaeology,
and Journal of Anthropological Archaeology and book chapters in numerous
edited volumes.
