Our Hidden Landscapes

Indigenous Stone Ceremonial Sites in Eastern North America

Edited by Lucianne Lavin and Elaine Thomas

SERIES:

The University of Arizona Press

Challenging traditional and long-standing understandings, this volume provides an important new lens for interpreting stone structures that had previously been attributed to settler colonialism. Instead, the contributors to this volume argue that these locations are sacred Indigenous sites.

This volume introduces readers to eastern North America’s Indigenous ceremonial stone landscapes (CSLs)—sacred sites whose principal identifying characteristics are built stone structures that cluster within specific physical landscapes. Our Hidden Landscapes presents these often unrecognized sites as significant cultural landscapes in need of protection and preservation.

In this book, Native American authors provide perspectives on the cultural meaning and significance of CSLs and their characteristics, while professional archaeologists and anthropologists provide a variety of approaches for better understanding, protecting, and preserving them. The chapters present overwhelming evidence in the form of oral tradition, historic documentation, ethnographies, and archaeological research that these important sites created and used by Indigenous peoples are deserving of protection.

This work enables archaeologists, historians, conservationists, foresters, and members of the general public to recognize these important ritual sites.

Contributors
Nohham Rolf Cachat-Schilling
Robert DeFosses
James Gage
Mary Gage
Doug Harris
Julia A. King
Lucianne Lavin
Johannes (Jannie) H. N. Loubser
Frederick W. Martin
Norman Muller
Charity Moore Norton
Paul A. Robinson
Laurie W. Rush
Scott M. Strickland
Elaine Thomas
Kathleen Patricia Thrane
Matthew Victor Weiss

The editors have presented a very successful case for the long-term use as well as the historic Native use of ceremonial stone landscapes (CSL). Thirty-three tribes, these authors, and these editors want these landscapes recognized and preserved.’—Cheryl Claassen, Journal of Anthropological Research

‘Our Hidden Landscapes: Indigenous Stone Ceremonial Sites in Eastern North America is a must-read text written by an eclectic group of knowledgeable authors that provide a diverse perspective on the problematic issues surrounding Native American sacred stone structure sites.’—Harry O. Holstein, Stones Bones

‘The chapters offer a perspective and opinions on the indigenous cultural landscape scene in eastern North America, one that is seldom (if ever) seen or discussed by conventional archeology. The book is written to widen the view and argue for more research and insights regarding eastern North American stone constructs and indigenous origins.’—Herman E. Bender, President of the Hanwakan Center for Prehistoric Astronomy, Cosmology and Cultural Landscape Studies

Lucianne Lavin is an archaeologist, a director emeritus of research and collections at the Institute for American Indian Studies Museum in Connecticut, and the author of Connecticut’s Indigenous Peoples.

Elaine Thomas is a Mohegan tribal member and has worked in the Mohegan Tribal Government for twenty-two years. She works with tribal nations in identifying and preserving ceremonial stone landscapes.

Foreword by Laurie Weinstein

Introduction
Lucianne Lavin and Elaine Thomas

Part I. Indigenous Perspectives on the Meaning and Significance of Ceremonial Stone Landscapes

1. When the Landscape Speaks for Itself, What Do We Learn?
Doug Harris

2. Markings of Ancestral Pathways: A Native Perspective
Elaine Thomas

3. Unseen Borders and Ways of Knowing: Northeastern Algonquian Sacred Lands
Nohham Rolf Cachat-Schilling

Part II. Academic Perspectives on Understanding, Protecting, and Preserving Indigenous Ceremonial Stone Landscapes

4. Obligations of Place: Engaging with Tribal Historic Preservation Offices in New England to Preserve and Protect Ceremonial Stone Landscapes
Paul A. Robinson

5. “So You Believe in Aliens, Too?” An Anthropologist Looks at Stone Features in the North American Northeast and the Archaeologists Who Do and Do Not Study Them
Laurie W. Rush

6. Introduction to Stone Removal and Disposal Practices in Agriculture and Farming
James E. Gage

7. Ceremonial Landscapes in the Chesapeake
Julia A. King and Scott M. Strickland

8. Stones and Their Places: An Application of Landscape Theory to Ceremonial Stone Landscapes of West Virginia
Matthew Victor Weiss and Charity Moore Norton

9. Piled Stone Features of Jackson County, Georgia
Johannes H. N. Loubser

Part III. Case Studies of Ceremonial Stone Landscapes

10. A Sacred Space on a Hilltop in Harwinton, Connecticut
Robert DeFosses

11. Interpreting Row-Linked Boulder Sites from Georgia to New England
Norman Muller

12. Historic Ceremonial Structures
Mary Gage

13. A Theoretical Model of the Moon and the Milky Way at Ancient Meeting Places
Frederick W. Martin

14. Mythologies of Light and Cast Shadow Within Northeastern Stone Chambers
Kathleen Patricia Thrane

Contributors
Index

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