Architectural Debris and Construction Sequencing at an 18th-Century Rural Native American Household in Connecticut

This thesis details the archaeological investigation of a rural Native American household site on the Eastern Pequot reservation in southeastern Connecticut. Spatial and architectural artifact analyses are used to determine the sequence of construction and nature of structures built a late 18th-century occupation in order to place the site in a context of Native Americans living through colonialism via the construction of a built environment and place-making. The data set used to conduct the analysis includes both architectural material, particularly nails and window glass, and non-architectural material such as ceramics and vessel glass. Unique to sites so far investigated on the reservation, Site 102-123 shows multiple structures and construction phases. The structures are relatively small houses with dry-laid fieldstone chimneys. Each structure is associated with a different type of storage, a root cellar for one and a subfloor cellar for the other. The architectural materials suggest not just collapse but likely directed demolition. In addition, the filling in of subfloor storage areas and the large number of broken nails in the assemblage imply that recycling of architectural materials was part of the deliberate demolition of the site. The most likely interpretation of the site is the sequential construction of two structures which remained in use concurrently, and these provide a unique view of conceptual and physical residence on the reservation as residents shifted their uses of space, buildings, and storage in the latter decade or two of the 18th century