Indigenous Landscape Archaeology and Native Data Sources Lab

Indigenous LANDS Archaeology Lab 

The Indigenous Landscape Archaeology and Native Data Sources Laboratory is one of Central’s two on-campus archaeology labs. Under the direction of Dr. Mairead K. Doery, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, the space serves as an archaeological collection repository, a working research laboratory, and a center for student instruction and community engagement. The Indigenous LANDS Lab strives to foster connections between Central’s students and faculty; local and descendent communities in Connecticut, New England, and beyond; and the material histories of North America’s Indigenous peoples. We currently host three ongoing projects. 

Indigenizing Legacy Collections: Archiving the Farmington River Archaeological Project 

Since 1985, students at Central have learned how to conduct archaeological fieldwork (excavation, field documentation, and artifact care) through participating in the Farmington River Archaeological Project, a field school program investigating the Indigenous history of Connecticut’s Farmington Valley. The FRAP collections, which are stewarded by the Indigenous LANDS Lab, include thousands of stone and sediment materials, many of which have never been fully examined or catalogued. Students are working in the Indigenous LANDS Lab to clean, process, and properly analyze these artifacts using updated imaging technologies and new disciplinary frameworks for incorporating and honoring Indigenous knowledge forms into archaeological curation and collections research. 

Mapping Storied Landscapes of the Rocky Mountains: Framing Iconographic Forms of Indigenous History 

Dr. Doery’s doctoral research concerned the ways that Indigenous peoples living in western Colorado over the past two thousand years marked their relationships with the landscape in oral traditions, and through the creation of carved and painted images (rock art). These and other Native data sources (forms of knowledge used by Indigenous peoples to communicate, create, and interact with the past) are often forgotten in archaeological research. At Central, Dr. Doery will extend this research project through the incorporation of additional oral histories and rock art images recorded across the Rocky Mountain region, as well as the integration of a new type of historic imagery, ledger art. Students are involved in all aspects of this work, which offers skills in creating and managing informational databases; transcribing and qualitatively analyzing oral history data; digitizing written, drawn, and photographic documentation; and creating geographic and social maps using ArcGIS software.  

Collaboration is Central: Building Student-Community Partnerships in Archaeological Education 

A guiding objective of the Indigenous LANDS Lab is to incorporate Indigenous perspectives and data sources into all aspects of our work. Collaborative, community-based research is embraced by the platform of Indigenous Archaeology, but community engagement within archaeological pedagogy itself is rarer, and best practices for its integration are not well understood. As a teaching laboratory, the Indigenous LANDS Lab is uniquely positioned to contribute to this area of teaching scholarship through ethnographic research on the implementation of community partnership models in archaeological curriculum. Through community events, teaching partnerships, mini conferences, and other initiatives, we are gathering and synthesizing data on what it means to effectively (and emphatically) Central-ize collaboration in archaeological and anthropological education. 

Students who are interested in participating in any of these projects – or who want to learn more about archaeological fieldwork and research models; collections or archival work; or Indigenous North American history and culture – are encouraged to reach out to Dr. Doery. The lab is equipped to support student research projects at a variety of scales, including for an existing Anthropology or History class, an independent study, or a senior/honors thesis.  

We are also available to consult on archaeological materials and sites known to members of the public; we recommend consulting this guide first. We are particularly open to and excited about forming new collaborative research partnerships with local Indigenous communities and/or historical societies. If you have a need or an idea for a project that could readily involve trainee archaeologists, please reach out. 
The Indigenous LANDS Lab is located in the Elihu Burritt Library, Room #101. All are welcome to visit the lab and tour the collections during Lab Open Hours, special events, or by appointment. Come by and see what we’re all about!