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Curious Monuments Of The Simplest Kind: Shell Midden Archaeology In Massachusetts, Katharine Vickers Kirakosian

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I broadly consider how the recent past has affected rchaeologist’s present understandings of the deep past. To do so, I complete a historiography of the shell midden site type on Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket, Massachusetts using Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical methods. While archaeologists have generally interpreted shell middens as places for food refuse disposal, Native oral traditions as well as ethnohistorical and archaeological data have prompted some to reconsider such monolithic views of these complex sites. Through a series of interviews with local professional and avocational archaeologists, I show that there is, in fact, little …