"The Archaeology of the Iroquois Restoration: Settlement, Housing, and Economy at a Dispersed Seneca Community, ca. A.D. 1715–1754" by Kurt Anders Jordan

Kurt Anders Jordan

Deposited 2002

Abstract
This dissertation uses archaeological and historical data to contest the ubiquitous and relentless negativism of scholarly depictions of 18th century Iroquois society, arguing that anthropologists' and historians' interpretations have been based more on erroneous assumptions of gradual cultural decline and the inevitability of replacement of Native with European lifeways than on sustained engagement with documentary and archaeological sources. Detailed reexamination of the evidence suggests a picture of 18th century Iroquois society far different from the negative depictions found in the literature.

The dissertation uses data obtained from 1996–2000 excavations at the Seneca Townley-Read site near Geneva, NY, along with fresh examination of primary sources to overturn several aspects of the conventional scholarly wisdom. In particular, the work suggests that Seneca construction of dispersed communities was an opportunistic response to local peace that reduced daily labor demands; that the house forms used by 18th century Iroquois peoples exhibited significantly less European “influence” than scholars usually assert; and that the Seneca fur trade economy remained viable at least through the mid-18th century, by a combination of a change in focus from the production of beaver pelts to deerskins and a continued “geographic middleman” position between pelt-producing Western Indian groups and New York fur traders. This exploration of specific political-economic conditions in the Seneca region exposes a dramatic contrast with the situation in the eastern Mohawk region, where the Mohawks were subject to substantial cultural dislocation as a result of European territorial encroachment.

In brief, the Seneca Iroquois in the early part of the 18th century enjoyed a period of hard-earned relative prosperity. Although this period was brief and was based on political, economic, and ecological factors that could not be sustained, the 18th century Senecas provide a distinct example of Native American success during entanglement with the more powerful Europeans. The dissertation also demonstrates archaeology's value in providing a perspective on Native American daily life that is missing from documentary sources, and proves the explanatory power of an approach that seeks causality based on specific analysis of political-economic conditions rather than subscribing to a totalizing narrative of cultural decline.