In the Era of Social Media
Someone #1 responds: “I've never seen documentation for any
stone walls in North America in the 1400s. Never heard in any lectures about
pre European history with stone walls in fields.”
And the “stone wall” conversation begins:
Someone I know says: “there are written accounts from
settlers in New England, having found stone rows when they arrived in the
region.”
#1 replies: “if you could show me the source and the text please, I
would greatly appreciate it. I know all about controlled burning to assist in
deer population management. That was used by New England native Americans. From
my other understanding, they built few stone structures, as they were heavily
nomadic.”
#1: “online University lecture gave details on it. Maybe the
guy lied. I'm looking for details on stone structures we can say were produced
by pre 1400 Eastern North American people. I've studied stelae monuments in
South America...Pueblo also had a variety of stone monuments. Everything I've
learned about tribes going towards the East Coast and New England have them
fully utilizing wood for structures. I was asking for documentation on stone
walls being erected around fields, the kind we all know European settlers made
in droves, but made by pre Columbian folk. That's what the OP post is all
about. Fwiw... I live on land in CT that was farmland from the 1600's with
original stone walls and fallen stone bridges over river ways. All this was
Native American tribal land... near the Housatonic River.”
Someone, apparently mimicking a TV commercial, says:
"Three main reasons:
1) clearing the fields
2) clearing the fields
3) clearing the fields
It was either plant crops on the fields, or grow more rocks
in the fields. (Or both.)"
Of course, the SHEEP
show up quickly in the conversation, when several people suggest: "Look up Sheep Fever in New England.
Merino sheep were smuggled into the US in the early 1800s and wool production
boomed. A majority of the old stone walls were for keeping sheep.”
Someone posts this link of SHEEP – with a banner and several
photos of Ireland for some sheepish reason: https://sugarriverregion.org/new-hampshires-hidden-sheep-farming-history/
And there are some responses about aliens and lost civilizations, perhaps jokingly or perhaps seriously, it’s hard to tell sometimes on social media. It's a strange place where images such as this show up:
So where to begin?
First one might consider the affect (effect?) of what Bruce
R. Trigger began calling a “Colonialist Archaeology, a type of “Alternative
Archaeology” in 1984. Despite a similarity to Indigenous made stone structures
of all sorts all over the western hemisphere that may have been used to
“domesticate a landscape,” including stone wall-like structures, the New
England area is a place where this colonialist archaeology has inhibited any
serious scientific study of what are colloquially known as “(Yankee) stone
walls:”
“Trigger (1984) started his paper with a discussion of nationalist archaeology, the primary function of which is to bolster the pride and morale of nations or ethnic groups aspiring to nationhood. Examples of nationalistic archaeological traditions cited by Trigger include those in Denmark, Israel, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, China, and Germany.
The
second category, colonialist archaeology, refers to archaeology practiced by
colonizers in a colonized country. Examples show that colonial archaeologists
often emphasized the primitiveness or lack of accomplishments of the ancestors
of colonized people to justify discriminatory behavior as well as colonization
itself. The United States, New Zealand, and parts of sub-Saharan Africa are
examples of countries and regions that experienced periods of colonialist
archaeology.
Third,
Trigger pointed out that states with worldwide political, economic, and
cultural power have produced imperialist archaeological traditions. He included
in this category the archaeological traditions of the United Kingdom, the
Soviet Union, and the United States after the advent of processual archaeology.
Archaeologists working within an imperialist tradition take for granted the
superiority and universal applicability of their theoretical and methodological
approaches. They also exert a strong influence on research around the world
through their writings, the international nature of their research projects,
and the key role they play in training archaeologists from various parts of the
world.”
“Introduction:
Evaluating Multiple Narratives: Beyond Nationalist, Colonialist, Imperialist Archaeologies”
- Clare Fawcett, Junko Habu, and John M. Matsunaga (2008)
https://anthropology.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/habu_multiple_narrtatives.pdf
That Colonialist
Archeology is alive and well and very vocal still in New England, where some State
Archaeologists refuse to entertain the thought that anyone other than European
American farmers could have stacked stones for any other reason than clearing
agricultural fields and keeping domestic animals contained in pastures and
prevented from entering those agricultural fields. In Massachusetts, the Office
of Archaeology will not accept site reports that suggest an Indigenous origin
of any culturally stacked stone features by anthropologists, archaeologists, or
independent researchers. Not much funding goes to any study that’s not related
to “the superior culture” replacing the “primitive nomadic” Indigenous on a
pristine wilderness, an empty void where nothing much happened until 1620.
Examples of this
Colonialist Archaeology controlling a narrative that Yankee Stone Walls abound,
claiming without any real evidence that most if not all stone wall-like
structures are post contact constructions. Beginning with the apologistic
writings from the settler colonial period about the righteousness of acquiring
Indigenous land for settlement using Biblical Law, to modern writers, Colonialistic
Archaeology is still alive and well in New England. From books, articles,
lectures, and videos by (or about) Eric Sloane to Tom Wessels, Robert Thorson,
and Susan Allport (to name just a few), to a manifesto-like, unscientific ad
hominin attack by Timothy Ives called “Stones of Contention,” the Colonialistic
points of view keep being repeated, and in Ives case appear to perhaps be embracing a new era of Nationalistic Archaeology. The former Principal Archaeologist of Rhode Island
contends that since there are almost no “Real Indians” living in New England,
there is no good reason why we should even bother to put any effort or money
into studying or protecting suspected Indigenous culturally stacked stone
features. He also accuses some professional archaeologists and anthropologists
as “academic frauds,” as well as suggesting that people claiming Indigenous
ancestry are more likely grifters who should get Real Jobs and become Real
Americans.
It "Trickles Down," as they say, this Nationalism:
Personally, after 35
years of observations and independent research, combined with the first 35
years of my lifelong love of stone walls and the Connecticut landscape I have
called home, I would probably say that an unknown percentage of the “stone
walls” snaking across the landscape, the Indigenous Cultural Landscape, of this
Eastern Gate of Turtle Island, may well be related to the use of fire by Native
Americans to “domesticate the landscape.” Roger Williams early on questions the
right of Europeans to claim Indigenous land, cites this cultural burning but
never mentions stone wall-like “bounds” that may have been used to control these
low intensity cultural burns. The Puritans did shortly afterward create Fence
Laws that included a height requirement of somewhere around 4 to 5 feet tall
that was easily attainable by using split rails to meet the requirement,
fencing that was considered an “improvement” on supposedly vacant land, or
recently vacated land, that had been allotted to private landowners.
The statement made in one of the many comments also reiterates the claim that “the natives present when the Europeans arrived may have been nomadic. But they are said to have told the Europeans that the stone walls were already present when they themselves arrived” is another bit of Colonialistic Myth, that Indians were recent arrivals in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut that may be more related to Puritan and other Christian beliefs of devil worship by the Indigenous Peoples that could result in death or slavery in Bermuda or elsewhere in the Caribbean Islands.
"Toby, is that your devil worshipping snake effigy?"
"No Reverand, it was here long before we got here..."
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