The Archaeological Society of Connecticut,  holds general membership meetings twice a year, in the spring and fall.(The  spring meeting is the annual meeting during which awards are presented and  officers elected.) Members and all individuals interested in archaeology are  invited to attend. The agenda for these meetings usually contains speakers on  historic and prehistoric archaeology and often displays of artifactual material. In addition,  there are always archaeologists in attendance who can help identify artifacts.  Time is also set aside for socializing and trading archaeological information.  Overall, these meetings serve as a clearinghouse for local archaeological  information.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF CONNECTICUT

SPRING MEETING

Western Connecticut State University

Danbury, CT

Warner Hall – 1st Floor

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Laurie Weinstein, Chair and Organizer

Cosimo Sgarlata, Assistant Chair, Local Arrangements

Theme: Indigenous Peoples of Western Connecticut.

Admission: non-members (general public) - $10, members (ASC) - $8, students - $5

8:30-9:30 Registration, coffee and pastries

9:30-9:35 Welcome, Laurie Weinstein

9:35-10:00 Opening Paper and Welcome, Problems in the Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Western

Connecticut, Daniel Cruson, ASC President

Abstract: New England in general and western Connecticut in particular, has long been a backwater in

American archaeology. Although we are beginning to catch up in the technology we employ, we are still

behind in the amount of information we have recovered about prehistoric aboriginal peoples. Similarly,

the Ethnohistory of this area is still saddled with the mindset and terminology of the 19th century

antiquarian historians who were fascinated by the “noble savages” that once inhabited this area but

struggled with the precious little reliable documentation which exists on them. The continued use of

words such as tribe, chief, and princess coming from the 19th century view of the Indian life in the

American West have also hampered our attempts to understand aboriginal life ways here in the 17th

century. In addition, downplaying the aftermath of the killing diseases of the late 16th and early 17th

centuries has clouded our view of what Native life must have been like before the onset of cultural shock

created by dramatically lower populations and the persistent European invasions of traditional territories.

Taking these factors into account should lead to a clearer picture of the original populations of this area

as well as shedding light on why existing descendants of these populations have had such trouble meeting

the BIA requirements for federal recognition.

Speaker: Dan Cruson taught archaeology at Joel Barlow High School for over 30 years, is the Town

Historian for Newtown, CT, and is the president of the Archaeological Society of Connecticut.

10:00-10:30 American Indian Language Studies in Connecticut from Stiles to Speck

Kathleen Bragdon, Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, The College of William and Mary

Abstract: The native people of Connecticut have always been significant participants in the region’s

history but although there are seventeenth century descriptions of their languages, in the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries, less is known about the survival and use of indigenous languages and dialects. This

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paper looks the few language descriptions and analyses available for this period, and attempts to put them

in their cultural and intellectual context.

Speaker: Kathleen Bragdon is a Professor of Anthropology at the College of William and Mary. Her

research interests include the ethnohistory and languages of the Native people of southern New England,

comparative ethnology, and the history of linguistics. She is the author of several books, including The

Native People of Southern New England 1650-1775 (2009) and is now at work on a history of

seventeenth century linguistic analysis of New England’s native languages.

10:30-11:00 Reconciling "Residence" and Mobility: Native Communities in 18th and 19th Century Western

Connecticut, Christine N. Reiser, Ph.D. candidate, Anthropology, Brown University

Abstract: This paper explores the impacts of competing ideas of residence, community, and "place" for

Native communities in the Housatonic Valley in the 18th and 19th centuries. It focuses, on the one hand,

on the ways Native communities were interconnected across diverse community locales. Drawing on

archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence, it explores the importance of movement between places for

maintaining kin and social networks, seasonal and ceremonial rounds, economic undertakings, and more.

On the other hand, it examines how movement was often villainized by Anglo-American officials and

observers, for whom "residence" meant fixity in a place. These tensions between ideas of residence - and

with it, community - have had important effects in erasing narratives of continuing community

connections in the 19th century and beyond.

11:00-11:30 The Archeology and Ethnohistory of Frontiers and Cultural Brokers, Examples from Easton and

Redding, CT, Stuart A. Reeve, Tetra Tech EC, Inc., David Silverglade, Historical Society of

Easton, Kathleen von Jena, Redding Town Historian

Abstract: The towns of Easton and Redding are in the Western Uplands of western Connecticut.

Archeology has a long history (to 1720) of avocational interest and, for more than a decade, support from

municipal funding and land use regulations. Local artifact collections and systematic site investigations

have allowed development of prehistoric chronological trends, variations in lithic type utilization, and

ceramic types that together suggest shifting population trends and geographic ranges of Native American

occupants. Historically, the area was within the territory of the Pequonnocks, Sasqua and Aspetucks.

European expansion forced local Native Americans to adopt varying strategies to preserve territories to

support traditional lifeways and cultural identities. Cultural brokers shaped this frontier, locally

including Romanoke, Wampus and Crecroes during the seventeenth century, and Chickens, the Warrups

family and the Euro-American Read family during the eighteenth century.

Speakers: Stuart A. Reeve, Ph.D. (SUNY Albany 1986) is a senior archeologist with Tetra Tech EC, Inc.

in New Jersey, conducting projects across the United States. For the past 18 years he has been involved

with Connecticut prehistoric and historic archeology, including as a long time cultural resources

consultant for the Redding Planning Commission. Recently, he was the project director and primary

author for a town-wide Historical and Archeological Assessment Survey of Easton, Connecticut, a twoyear

project funded by the town of Easton and the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation. His

research has focused on cultural ecology, cultural chronology and Colonial religion.

David Silverglade is the current President and Research Director of the Historical Society of Easton, CT.

He has a bachelor’s degree in archaeology and anthropology from Beloit College, as well as masters’

degrees in education and cultural anthropology from the University of Hawai'i. In addition to a twenty8

year focus on the anthropology of China and the Chinese diasporas, he has focused on southwestern

Connecticut archaeology since 2005.

Kathleen von Jena graduated from Norwalk Community College Archaeology Certification Program and

has her B.A. in Liberal Studies with a focus in American History and Historical Archaeology from

Charter Oak State College. She has served as the co-director of the Joel Barlow High School

archaeological field school at Putnam Memorial State Park. Kathleen has collaborated on several local

and regional studies of Easton and Redding, Connecticut and was the historical consultant on the

Georgetown History Project, narrating part of the documentary film, A Georgetown Story. She currently

serves as an archaeological consultant to the Redding Planning Commission and is the Municipal

Historian for the Town of Redding, Connecticut and works for the Connecticut Trust for Historic

Preservation.

11:30-12:00 Gunfight at the Federal Corral: Some thoughts on the role of expert witnesses in Gristedes v. the

Unkechaug Natio, 2008-2009, John A. Strong, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Long Island University

Abstract: In 2006 the Gristedes Supermarket Corporation filed a suit against the Unkechaug Nation,

charging the Indians with unfair business practices which, they claimed, had drawn away potential

customers. Several families on the small Unkechaug reservation called “Poospatuck” operate smoke

shops to sell untaxed tobacco products for about half the price charged by Gristedes. The tribe has about

two hundred and fifty members living on the reservation and about the same number living in adjacent

communities. The reservation is located on eastern Long Island about fifty miles east of New York City.

Chief Harry Wallace and the Unkechaug tribal council brought forward a motion to dismiss the suit

based on their status as an Indian Tribe with sovereign immunity.

The judge ruled that the tribe did have sovereign immunity from suit in a state court because they were

recognized as an Indian Tribe by the State of New York. But because they were not recognized by the

federal government, they did not have immunity from suits in federal courts unless they could show with

a preponderance of evidence that they met the United States Supreme Court criteria for tribal status. The

Supreme Court, in the case of Montoya v. United States 180 U.S. 261, 266 (1901), defined a tribe as “a

body of Indians of the same or similar race, united in a community under one leadership or government

and inhabiting a particular though sometimes ill defined territory.”

I was asked by James Simermeyer, the lawyer for the Unkechaug, to serve as an expert witness in the

case. My task was to provide the court with documentation that the tribe had a continuous existence

from pre-colonial times to the present. On October 8, 2009 the federal judge ruled that the Unkechaug

“had established by a preponderance of evidence that the three Montoya criteria are satisfied,” and

dismissed the Gristedes suit on the grounds of sovereign immunity.

One of the issues raised in the case was the role of the “expert witness.” Court precedents have defined

the role of the expert as that of a knowledgeable scholar who can inform the court about technical aspects

of the case which will help the judge to make an informed and objective decision. Each side presents

their chosen witness to the court along with documents which certify that the witness is well informed

about the matter to be adjudicated. The presiding judge then approves or rejects the witnesses. The

purpose of this paper is to discuss the problems faced by academic witnesses in what has devolved into

an adversarial process.

Speaker: John A. Strong, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Long Island University, has written more than

anyone wants to know about the Indians of Long Island!

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12:00-1: 30 LUNCH BREAK

Cosimo Sgarlata will have a list of restaurants within two blocks of the school! So, you should not have

any difficulty finding a place for a quick lunch.

1: 30-2:00 BUSINESS MEETING

2:00-2:30 Archaeology and Ethnohistory in Connecticut’s Northwest Corner: The Mahikan Connection

Lucianne Lavin, Ph.D. Institute for American Indian Studies

Abstract: There is plenty of documentary evidence for pervasive, persistent relationships between the

Mahikan peoples of the upper Hudson and Housatonic river valleys and their indigenous neighbors in

northwestern Connecticut. Eighteenth century texts record a web of social, political and kin relationships

that helped cement Native alliances during the turbulent colonial period. These bonds did not end with

the movement westward of most of the Stockbridge people in the 1780s but continued well into the 19th

century. Archaeological evidence from sites in New Milford, Kent and other Connecticut towns suggest

that these inter-community bonds were firmly rooted in earlier pre-European contact (prehistoric) times.

Speaker: Lucianne Lavin is an archaeologist who has been researching Northeastern Native American

peoples for the past 30 years. She received her B.A. in anthropology from Indiana University and her

M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology from New York University. Dr. Lavin has written over 100 professional

publications and technical reports on the archaeology and ethnohistory of the Northeast. She is presently

Director of Research and Collections at the Institute for American Indian Studies, a museum and

educational center in Washington, CT, a member of the state’s Native American Heritage Advisory

Committee, and editor of the journal of the Archaeological Society of Connecticut. She was awarded the

Russell Award twice by the Archaeological Society of Connecticut and elected Fellow of the New York

State Archaeological Association for her work in the archaeology of their respective states.

2:30-3:00 Henry Stephen Toncus (1817-1895): A Hypothesis in Indian Community Refuge, Kate April,

Independent Scholar

Abstract: During the first half of the 19th Century, substantial migrations of northeastern Natives out of

the region decreased. The diminished Indian population was further dispersed through adoption,

indenture, work, etc. For those Natives who remained it was inter-tribal marriages and inter-community

gatherings that sustained cultural survival. Based on some curious documentary evidence, I am

hypothesizing that "Henry Stephen Toncus" was a Montauk Indian who sought refuge among the

Schaghticoke Tribe at Kent, CT. This is ongoing research, and as such, the outcome should be

interesting.

Speaker: Kate April has had a varied career, but for the past 20 years has worked for Tribes in America's

Indian Country. Kate was the Interim Director of the Mashantucket Museum and Research Center during

its planning years until Tribal Member, Terry Bell took over the Directorship. Kate is currently the

Archivist at the Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum in Exeter, RI, and volunteers as Business

Administrator for the 55 year old Indian organization.

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Beyond her work in museums, Kate's main research focus has been historical and anthropological

genealogy used primarily for Federal Acknowledgement petitions. She has worked with several Indian

Tribes in the northeast and in the southern United States' regions. It was Kate's work with the

Schaghticoke Tribal Nation and the Shinnecock Tribal Nation that was the impetus for this particular

endeavor.

3:00-3:30 Looking for the Indians: The Little Known Heroes of the Revolutionary War,

Samantha Mauro, WCSU and Laurie Weinstein, WCSU

Abstract: WestConn was asked to assess Middle Encampment, Redding, CT. by Dan Cruson and

Kathleen vonJena. Very little was known about this sister Revolutionary War encampment to Putnam

Park. With the help of Dr. Bethany Morrison, Dr. Cosimo Sgarlata and Patricia Hickey, we ran two

summer field schools, surveyed and mapped the property and created GIS maps. Additionally, I worked

with numerous students over the years to uncover the ethnohistory of Middle Encampment. In particular,

I was most interested in the Indian peoples who were also American troops serving in the regiments. My

spring New England Archaeology class along with independent student Samantha Mauro has joined me

to help trace various Indian names and communities from western Connecticut which appeared in historic

accounts. We searched numerous data bases, including census and military records. We traced

connections between Indian groups throughout Connecticut and our Redding site. Some of the fruits of

our labors will be presented here today.

Speakers: Samantha Mauro is a senior at WCSU, majoring in art with a concentration in photography

and minoring in anthropology. She exhibited her photographs of a recent trip to India in a 2009 WCSU

student photography exhibition; she toured India with the Humanitarian Travel Club. She also presented

a paper at the NEAA meeting in Spring ’09 about her research on women campfollowers in the

Revolutionary War. She regularly contributes her photographs to the Danbury News Times.

Laurie Weinstein, Ph.D., is Professor, Anthropology, WCSU. She is the General Editor for Native

Peoples of the Americas, a multi-volume series, from the University of Arizona Press. She has written

extensively on a number of topics: New England Indians, Indians of the Southwest, and women and the

U.S. military.

3:30-4:00 The Fairfield Swamp Fight, Kevin McBride

Speaker: Kevin McBride is Director of Research for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research

Center and an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.

4:00-5:00 Roundtable Discussion by Presenters - Comments and Connections across Western Connecticut,

Long Island Sound and elsewhere

Note: For those people in need of accommodations, the Maron Hotel in Danbury has extended an 89.00

rate for you. You need to mention the name Weinstein, the conference and the WCSU rate.

http://www.maronhotel.com/hotel-overview.html

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Directions to Western Connecticut

State University - To Midtown

Campus (181 White Street, Danbury, Conn.)

From the East: Take Exit 5 off I-84 to

first traffic light (Clapboard Ridge

Road); turn right and continue on Main

Street to White Street (fifth traffic

light); turn left on White Street and

continue one half mile to campus on

left.

From the West: Take Exit 5 off I-84 to

first traffic light (Main Street); turn right

and continue on Main Street to White

Street (fourth traffic light); turn left on

White Street and continue one half

mile to campus on left.

.