Join us for this fascinating Zoom program about Indigenous Ceremonial Stone Landscapes in Connecticut and Southeastern New York
Dr. Lucianne Lavin will provide an illustrated PowerPoint presentation of various stone structures found in our woods with a focus on the built ceremonial stone landscapes of the Indigenous populations who have inhabited our area for more than 10,000 years. While Native American stonework is widely recognized out west and in the south, those in New England and the Middle Atlantic states have been largely unrecognized. As environmental stewards of our land, private and public, it is important that we learn to indentify these structures so that we can help protect and preserve them from future destruction.
Note: A Native American Ceremonial Site recently has been discovered in the woods in Chappaqua, NY with efforts underway to to preserve and protect this sacred landscape. Dr. Lavin will provide important background to better understand the importance of this discovery.
Our Hidden Landscapes:
Stone Cultural Features and Ceremonial Sites
A hike in the woods often reveals a variety of built stone cultural features to the experienced archaeologist and historian. Many of these are the remains of abandoned farmsteads and industrial mill sites. Others, however, represent Native American ceremonial sites. The idea of Native American designed stone features and ceremonial landscapes is fairly new to some Northeastern researchers, as it was traditionally thought that local Indigenous peoples did not build in stone and all such structures were the result of Euro-American farming activities. Some of it is, of course, but some of it is not. This PowerPoint presentation is an overview of the various kinds of stone structures found on our southern New England and New York landscapes, with a focus on Indigenous stone ceremonial landscapes. State regulations (in Connecticut, at least) support preservation of sacred Native American sites (that is, those sites of ritual significance), and so it is important for members of land trusts and conservation organizations, as well as private property owners to be able to recognize these sites within their properties and work to preserve them.
About Dr. Lavin
Lucianne Lavin is Director of Research and Collections, Emeritus at the Institute for American Indian Studies (a museum and research and educational center in Washington, Connecticut), a position she held for the past 18 years. She is a member of Connecticut’s Native American Heritage Advisory Council (a government agency whose appointed members advise the Office of State Archaeology and the State Historic Preservation Office on Native American graves/burials and sacred sites). A long-time Board member of the Archaeological Society of Connecticut, she served as its journal editor for 30 years. Dr. Lavin is an anthropological archaeologist with over 50 years of research and field experience in Northeastern archaeology and anthropology, particularly southern New England and southern New York. Her professional activities also include museum exhibition and curatorial work, cultural resource management, and public education in those disciplines.
She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology from New York University, and her B.A. from Indiana University. Her first post-graduate position was Research Associate at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, where she co-directed the museum’s present Connecticut Prehistory exhibit and wrote the accompanying teacher’s manual. She has owned and operated an archaeological firm for over 25 years. She was twice presented the Russell Award by the Archaeological Society of Connecticut, and was elected Fellow of the New York State Archaeological Association for exemplary archaeology work in their respective states.
Dr. Lavin has written over 200 professional publications and technical reports on the archaeology and ethnohistory of the Northeast; they include books, booklets, and chapters in books. Her award-winning book, Connecticut’s Indigenous Peoples: What Archaeology, History and Oral Traditions Teach Us about their Communities and Cultures, was published by Yale University Press in 2013. The book received an honorable mention at the 2013 New England Book Festival in the general non-fiction category (New England Book Festival JM Northern Media 2013-12-27), won an Award of Merit from the Connecticut League of History Organizations (Award of Merit Connecticut League of History Organizations 2014-02-25), earned Second Place in the Books category in the 2014 New England Museum Association Publication Award Competition (Publication Award New England Museum Association 2014-07-15) , and was selected as a Choice Magazine (American Library Association) Outstanding Academic Title for 2013 in the North America Category (Outstanding Academic Title Choice 2014-01-21).
Her latest book, Dutch and Indigenous Communities in Seventeenth-Century Northeastern North America (SUNY Press, 2021), is an edited volume rated by BookAuthority as one of “16 Best New Archaeology eBooks to Read in 2021.” Dr. Lavin recently received a Certificate of Award for Women in American History from the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (2018). A Connecticut native, she has lived much of her life in the lower Housatonic River Valley.