The Archaeology of Virginia's First Peoples

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The Archaeology of Virginia's First Peoples
by Elizabeth A. Moore, Bernard K. Means
English | 2020 | ASIN: B08L3NW8XJ | 310 Pages | PDF | 15 MB

This volume focuses on Virginia's pre-European Contact past. It opens with a discussion of Virginia's physiographic regions by Christopher Egghart, whose dedication to the Commonwealth's past led him to author over a third of the chapters you see here. In Chapter 2, Egghart discusses the rivers and resources that divide and shape the lands that American Indians traveled across, exploited, and settled and sets the state for a chronological presentation of Virginia's pre-European Contact American Indian past. Chapter 3, by Dr. Clifford Boyd, emphasizes the Paleoindian period, but also more thoroughly explores the pre-Paleoindian period in a way not possible previously. Dr. Michael Barber then considers, in Chapter 4, the Early Archaic period, which sees major transformations in climate, as the last major Ice Age ended, and Ice Age megafauna that fascinated Thomas Jefferson became extinct. The remainder of the Archaic period and the beginnings of the ceramic era, e.g. the Early Woodland, are considered by Egghart in Chapters 5 to 7. In addition to the introduction of ceramic technology, this span sees an environment that becomes more modern in its character and human settlements increased in size and duration. Dr. Carole Nash then considers the ambiguity that has long characterized the Middle Woodland period in Virginia, as is the case elsewhere in the Middle Atlantic region. This ambiguity vanishes to some degree during the Late Woodland period, which, because of a richer archaeological and ethnohistoric record, is considered in the remaining three chapters in this volume. Dr. Keith Egloff focuses on the Late Woodland cultures of southern Virginia, Drs. Christopher Shephard and Martin Gallivan look at eastern Virginia, and Drs. Bernard K. Means and Elizabeth Moore examine northern Virginia. Much more is known about the Late Woodland of eastern Virginia than the rest of the state, largely because it is here that American Indians and Europeans had the first and most sustained contact before native societies were disrupted-but not eradicated or vanquished as some have argued. In fact, by a happy coincidence, this volume comes out just a year after six American Indian tribes in Virginia received federal recognition: "...the Chickahominy, the Eastern Chickahominy, the Upper Mattaponi, the Rappahannock, the Monacan and the Nansemond tribes" (Portnoy 2018). Their recognition is just two years after the first Virginia tribe, the Pamunkey Indians, themselves were so recognized (National Park Service 2015). These are long overdue but ironic recognitions, given that the ancestors of these American Indian tribes lived in Virginia long before the first European even was aware of the rich tapestry of cultures that called Virginia their home. This volume helps tell the story of these American Indians, but is itself incomplete. Hopefully, future iterations of the story of Virginia's past will include the voices of the American Indians themselves.


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