For over two centuries, the subject of Native American stone features and ceremonial landscapes in northeastern North America has been fraught with myth and controversy. Failure to accept Native American religious practices, a desire to disenfranchise Native Americans from their land, and a refusal to respect Native American ability to build in stone, left early European scholars with a challenge in explaining complex stone features they were encountering. Even now, serious archaeologists who recognize and research the indigenous origins of stone features encounter skepticism from some colleagues. This webinar explores the history of how these resources have been understudied, describes some significant identified resourcest, and provides recommendations for cultural resources firms and managers to improve their identification techniques and their approaches to collaboration with native tribes.
ACRA’s expert provider is Laurie Rush, an anthropologist and archaeologist who has lived, worked and studied in northern New York for over thirty years. Her area of research focuses on Native Americans of northeastern North America, and she currently serves as the Cultural Resources Manager at Fort Drum. Laurie has studied indigenous stone features since 1999 when the Fort Drum archaeological survey discovered, documented, and saved a ceremonial stone landscape. She has a BA from Indiana University Bloomington, an MA and PhD from Northwestern University, and is a fellow of the National Science Foundation and the American Academy in Rome. Dr. Rush was military liaison for return of Ur to the Iraqi People, and has represented the US DoD for heritage issues in Kabul and across the Middle East.