Archaeology Of The American Revolution

WASHINGTON — The Litchfield Hills Archaeology Club will sponsor a lecture on Sunday, January 13, by Dr Laurie Weinstein, professor of anthropology and chair of social sciences at Western Connecticut State University. Professor Weinstein’s talk, “Military Archaeology and Why the Revolutionary War Is Important to 21st Century Americans,” will detail her archaeological excavations at a former Revolutionary War encampment in Redding.

The presentation will be at The Institute for American Indian Studies, 38 Curtis Road. It will begin at 6:30 pm. The public is welcome, and there is a $5 fee for nonmembers of the archaeology club.

During the winter of 1778-79 there were more than 3,000 men, women and children camped in Redding. Dr Weinstein and her team of researchers — Dr Bethany Morrison (co-director of the 2007 field school) along with WCSU students Gina Sierra, Michelle Jowdy, Emily Siciliano, and Laura Sullivan — have been investigating why so many people ended up in Redding. The continuing excavations hope to more fully understand military strategies and objectives. Dr Weinstein believes that the Redding encampments offer a valuable lesson in American democracy, applicable over 200 years from the time of American independence.

Black soldiers were active participants in Washington’s army. “In fact,” recounts Dr Weinstein, “Redding may have supported the only black regiment.”

Archaeology augments history with material remains, that often provide a fuller picture of the past than written accounts.

Laurie Weinstein has an avid interest in the role of underrepresented populations in military history. She has written on women in the US military, in addition to articles and books on American Indians of New England and the American Southwest. She is the general editor for Native Peoples of the Americas, a multivolume series published by University of Arizona Press that covers archaeology and ethnography of peoples living all the way from the tip of Patagonia to the Arctic Circle.

Historical archaeologists Dan Cruson and Kathleen von Jena first encouraged Professor Weinstein to investigate the Redding site. Two years later she and her team are immersed in documentary work with an eye toward another field school in the summer of 2009.

The Litchfield Hills Archaeology Club meets every second Sunday of the month at 6:30 pm in the Research Building of the Institute for American Indian Studies. For information or directions call 860-868-0518 or visit the museum’s website at birdstone.org.