This book provides the perspectives of five different authors, archaeologists who have dedicated a significant part of their careers to understanding life in the 17th and 18th century English colony of Maryland. The genesis of this volume was a desire on behalf of the Maryland Historical Trust to create a synthetic volume that was accessible to the general public and which would describe the rich history and cultural heritage of the State as revealed through archaeology. This material culture of past people and places provides a window into history that the written record cannot duplicate (or actively attempts to silence). Dozens of sites are examined, ranging from plantation manor homes and slave quarters, to courthouses and ordinaries. Moreover, the lives of those who built Maryland are explored, including not only the powerful elites who governed the colony, but also those whose land and labor were being exploited: Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and poor indentured servants. All of them shaped what became Maryland, and this book tells their story as revealed through the objects they left behind and the clues buried in the soil of our State.

Bright white teeth. Straight leg bones. Awkwardly contorted arm bones. On a hot summer day in 2005, Dr. Douglas Owsley of the Smithsonian Institution peered into an excavated grave, carefully examining the fragile skeleton that had been buried there for four hundred years. "He was about fifteen years old when he died. And he was European," Owsley concluded. But how did he know? Just as forensic scientists use their knowledge of human remains to help solve crimes, they use similar skills to solve the mysteries of the long-ago past. Join author Sally M. Walker as she works alongside the scientists investigating colonial-era graves near Jamestown, Virginia, as well as other sites in Maryland. As you follow their investigations, she'll introduce you to what scientists believe are the lives of a teenage boy, a ship's captain, an indentured servant, a colonial official and his family, and an enslaved African girl. All are reaching beyond the grave to tell us their stories, which are written in bone.

This volume summarizes the remarkably diverse archaeological discoveries made during the past half century of investigations at the site of St. Mary’s City, the first capital of Maryland and one of the earliest European settlements in America. Founded in 1634, the city had disappeared by 1750, yet the archaeology documented in Unearthing St. Mary’s City reveals its untold history. Contributors to this volume review new research approaches and methods developed recently at Historic St. Mary’s City. They study the archaeology, architecture, and people of the lively seventeenth-century colonial hub. They also explore the landscapes of agriculture, enslavement, and remembrance that developed at the site in the centuries after the capital’s relocation to Annapolis. In their chapters, contributors delve into subjects such as soil analysis, ceramics, diet, forts, burials, plantations, state houses, tenants, tobacco pipes, gaming, and the education of women. The lands along the Chesapeake Bay have witnessed a vast range of human experiences, and this book highlights the lives of peoples of European, Native American, and African origins who lived on this site over a span of four centuries. Their stories illuminate the multilayered nature of this important place and the broader Chesapeake region and serve as a testament to the potential and power of historical archaeology. Contributors: Terry Peterkin Brock | Karin S. Bruwelheide | Charles H. Fithian | Silas D. Hurry | Stephen S. Israel | Robert Keeler | George L. Miller | Henry M. Miller | Ruth M. Mitchell | Alexander “Sandy” H. Morrison II | Douglas W. Owsley | Travis G. Parno | Timothy B. Riordan | Michelle Sivilich | Garry Wheeler Stone | Wesley R. Willoughby | Donald L. Winter

Uses primary source documents to provide an in-depth look into the history of the colony of Maryland and includes a timeline, glossary, and primary source image list.

Challenging Colonial Narratives demonstrates that the traditional colonial dichotomy may reflect an artifice of the colonial discourse rather than the lived reality of the past. Matthew A. Beaudoin makes a striking case that comparative research can unsettle many deeply held assumptions and offer a rapprochement of the conventional scholarly separation of colonial and historical archaeology. To create a conceptual bridge between disparate dialogues, Beaudoin examines multigenerational nineteenth-century Mohawk and settler sites in southern Ontario, Canada. He demonstrates that few obvious differences exist and calls for more nuanced interpretive frameworks. Using conventional categories, methodologies, and interpretative processes from Indigenous and settler archaeologies, Beaudoin encourages archaeologists and scholars to focus on the different or similar aspects among sites to better understand the nineteenth-century life of contemporaneous Indigenous and settler peoples. Beaudoin posits that the archaeological record represents people’s navigation through the social and political constraints of their time. Their actions, he maintains, were undertaken within the understood present, the remembered past, and perceived future possibilities. Deconstructing existing paradigms in colonial and postcolonial theories, Matthew A. Beaudoin establishes a new, dynamic discourse on identity formation and politics within the power relations created by colonization that will be useful to archaeologists in the academy as well as in cultural resource management.

James G. Gibb offers a unique study of 17th century English North American attitudes toward the acquisition and use of wealth. He analyzes domestic sites excavated in Maryland and Virginia to interpret patterns in the construction of household identities and places these patterns within the social and cultural context of the region. His work includes a new critical approach that underscores the role of conscious individual action in history and the importance of material culture in the construction of identities.

"The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital is the work of a mature scholar reporting on one of the most important, large-scale, and long-range projects in contemporary American archaeology."—Randall McGuire, author of The Archaeology of Inequality "Many would argue the Mark Leone is the most distinguished practitioner of historical archaeology in the United States, and one of the most prominent in the world."—Thomas C. Patterson, coeditor of Making Alternative Histories