The Powhatan Landscape - (Society and Ecology in Island and Coastal Archaeology) by Martin D Gallivan (Paperback)

About the Book

The Powhatan Landscape breaks new ground by tracing Native placemaking in the Chesapeake from the Algonquian arrival to the Powhatan's clashes with the English. Martin Gallivan details how Virginia Algonquians constructed riverine communities alongside fishing grounds and collective burials and later within horticultural towns. Ceremonial spaces, including earthwork enclosures within the center place of Werowocomoco, gathered people for centuries prior to 1607. Even after the violent ruptures of the colonial era, Native people returned to riverine towns for pilgrimages commemorating the enduring power of place.

Book Synopsis

Southern Anthropological Society James Mooney Award As Native American history is primarily studied through the lens of European contact, the story of Virginia's Powhatans has traditionally focused on the English arrival in the Chesapeake. This has left a deeper indigenous history largely unexplored--a longer narrative beginning with the Algonquians' construction of places, communities, and the connections in between. The Powhatan Landscape breaks new ground by tracing Native placemaking in the Chesapeake from the Algonquian arrival to the Powhatan's clashes with the English. Martin Gallivan details how Virginia Algonquians constructed riverine communities alongside fishing grounds and collective burials and later within horticultural towns. Ceremonial spaces, including earthwork enclosures within the center place of Werowocomoco, gathered people for centuries prior to 1607. Even after the violent ruptures of the colonial era, Native people returned to riverine towns for pilgrimages commemorating the enduring power of place. For today's American Indian communities in the Chesapeake, this reexamination of landscape and history represents a powerful basis from which to contest narratives and policies that have previously denied their existence. A volume in the series Society and Ecology in Island and Coastal Archaeology, edited by Victor D. Thompson

Review Quotes

"An important addition to the growing field of landscape archaeology, providing new perspectives on a people who have been previously understood only through the eyes of colonial interlopers."--American Archaeology

"Gallivan's approach is multidisciplinary and he is careful to integrate Native perspectives and participation with present-day issues of site preservation, loss, and protection. . . . A valuable contribution."--American Antiquity

"An archaeologically grounded, yet highly accessible, analysis of the deep history of the Chesapeake region. . . . Ties the precolonial past to the colonial past, the Native world to the Euro-American world, and by so doing . . . moves us well beyond the metanarrative of John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Jamestown settlers."--William and Mary Quarterly

"[Gallivan] supplements archaeological work with a skillful analysis of diverse documentary, visual, and material sources."--Journal of Southern History

"The Powhatan Landscape renders the deep history of the Algonquian Chesapeake visible in a fresh and exciting way. . . . Gallivan does a remarkable job demonstrating the explanatory power of place and rendering the 'eventful past' of Tsenacomacoh legible for modern readers."--American Indian Quarterly