Lecture with Mary Lynne Rainey on The Archaeology of Indigenous Architecture on Nantucket Island
The Archaeology of Indigenous Architecture on Nantucket Island
The composite ethnographic and historical record for the Northeast region portrays a widespread diversity in the styles and function of Native American family and community structures. On Nantucket, most historians have generalized Wampanoag Indian Residence under the term ‘wigwam.’ Andin some cases ‘English-style houses.’ Institutional structure types fall under interchangeable terms ‘meeting house’, church’, and ‘school.’ Although wigwams remained in use on Nantucket until the last decade of the 18thcentury, there are no written descriptions of buildings built and used by local indigenous people. Over the past few decades, compliance driven projects on the island have identified remarkably preserved traditional residential and institutional sites with important data. Analyses of these sites have informed our understanding of the antiquity of indigenous architectural traditional, and provided specific details about landscape siting building sizes, shapes, support systems, internal element and construction fabric.
