This monograph provides a comprehensive overview of the excavations of the Sarah Burnee/Sara Boston Farmstead, a multigenerational, female-headed household in the Nipmuc community of Hassanamesit. It outlines the organic quality of an evolving collaboration between the Hassanamisco Nipmuc of what is today Grafton, Massachusetts and the Fiske Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. The report details the collaboration as well as the excavation and analysis of an indigenous household that was economically and politically active during the 18th and 19th Centuries. Drawing on a rich corpus of archaeological data including micromorphology, material culture, floral and faunal analysis as well as documentary and oral histories, this monograph provides a rich portrait of Nipmuc women’s lives that continues to inspire their Hassanamisco descendants today. It serves as a model of how collaboration can reawaken Nipmuc pasts, and the links to Nipmuc futures.

AUTHOR

Stephen Mrozowski is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts and is the founding director of the Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research. He has conducted various international field research projects, with a focus on the growth of complex societies and colonization.

Heather Law Pezzarossi is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Syracuse University. Her research focuses on community-led archaeological projects undertaken in collaboration with Indigenous North American communities.

List of contributors: Joseph Bagley, Heather Law Pezzarossi, Stephen Mrozowski, Guido Pezzarossi, Dennis Piechota, Jessica Rymer, John Steinberg, Heather Trigg, Jerry Warner

REVIEW

‘This is an excellent example of how to conduct a long term, detailed, careful study of a nineteenth-century Native site, deploying all available sources and investing the needed time to interpret the activities on the site through a Native lens.’ Professor Audrey Horning, William & Mary

‘This monograph is an especially powerful story of resilient women in a matrilineal society facing enormous challenges within an oppressive and paternalistic system of settler colonialism.’ Sarah E. Cowie, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Reno

‘This project covered years of excavations generating well over 100,000 artifacts – this is a tremendous database to work with and the authors have demonstrated that.’ Professor Mark S. Warner, University of Idaho