W&M Featured Events
[PAST EVENT] Anthropology Brown Bag: "A Historical Ecological Approach to Archaeology of Precolonial Chesapeake"
Location
Zoom
In this talk, Jessica Jenkins will summarize her past and ongoing research concerning the historical ecology and sustainability of the Chesapeake estuary, particularly focusing on the relationship of past communities with oyster populations. During the early seventeenth century, English colonist, William Strachey, described the productivity of the Chesapeake fishery, writing that, “oysters there be in whole banks and beds, and those of the best I have seen some thirteen inches long.” Archaeological studies of oysters in the region have documented this productivity, noting millennial-scale sustainability of oyster reefs that were routinely and intensively harvested long before the arrival of Europeans. Jenkins’ future research will continue to bridge the social and natural sciences through two possible avenues: 1) a study of archaeological shell midden sites situated along the York River to explore the relationship of Indigenous communities to the Chesapeake area over the long-term; and 2) the development of a collaborative project that will draw together archaeological research of shell midden sites with present-day revitalization projects along the Nansemond River.
Contact [[jdcarlson]] for the Zoom link to this event.
Contact
[[jdcarlson]]