Podcast 142: Historical Archaeology and Indigenous Collaboration

The Preservation Technology Podcast Episode 142

Catherine Cooper speaks with Rae Gould, Holly Herbster, Steve Mrozowski, and Heather Law Pezzarossi about centering indigenous collaboration in their archaeological work in New England.

The Preservation Technology Podcast is a series about the people and projects that bring innovation to preservation. Read articles based on episodes, listen, or subscribe. This podcast is produced by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT).

 

Beginnings of a Working Relationship

Catherine Cooper: Hello, my name is Catherine Cooper. I am here with...

Rae Gould: Hi, I'm Rae Gould and I'm a member of the Hassanamisco Nipmuc. I also serve currently as Executive Director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Brown University.

Holly Herbster: Holly Herbster. I am in Pawtucket, Rhode Island today, which is where I also work at the Public Archeology Laboratory, which we refer to as PAL. And I'm a cultural resource management archeologist and a principal investigator at PAL and also a proud graduate of the UMass Boston Historical Archeology Program.

Steve Mrozowski: I'm Steve Mrozowski, I'm director of the Fiske Center for Archeological Research and distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Heather Law Pezzarossi: Hi, I'm Heather Law Pezzarossi. I am an assistant professor at Syracuse University.

Catherine Cooper: Welcome. So could you introduce how you all met and got started on this project?

Rae Gould

Image courtesy of Brown University

Rae Gould: I think the first person out of this gang that I became colleague and friend with was Holly. I was serving as the THPO, the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, for my tribe. And as part of cultural resource projects, Holly and I would stay connected about projects. Sometimes we would do walkovers together. I had some training under the Mashpee person, Mark Harding, who was working for Quinna at the time, and just immediately connected with Holly. She and PAL in general do their work in really respectful and engaged ways. I wish every archeologist would watch and listen to how they do their work.

Met Steve along the way. He was working on the project for Magunkaquog that Holly had done her MA thesis on or was in the process of doing her MA thesis on, but it became a UMass Boston project. And I think at that time he realized there were tribal people in the area as well. And then eventually Steve became one of my professional mentors and was on my committee for my PhD dissertation. And then Heather is one of his students and one of the many people that he has trained over the years on how to do this work.

Steve Mrozowski: I think we actually met, Rae, the first time about that there were these wonderful canoes that were discovered in one of the ponds out there, and they asked us whether we would help with their conservation. But as Rae pointed out, I was working on projects in Ashland, Massachusetts, which was Magunkaquog at the time. And then we had the opportunity to do this project with the Hassanamisco. And I had never really collaborated with indigenous folks before that, and in fact had avoided doing the archeology of indigenous North America because I just didn't feel comfortable doing it. But I really didn't have a model of how it could be done properly. And so I talked to Rae and I met with the tribal council and one of the members, Cheryl Holly at the time, actually raised some fairly serious but correct questions about what we did and how we did it.

And so I asked them would they support us doing this work because otherwise we weren't going to do that. And they agreed. Then one of the great things about having great students to work with was Heather came along and she and her now husband, Guido Pezzarossi both worked with me on the project at Hassanamesit woods, which started in 2003.

And I think one of the things that I do want to say is that I was at Uppsala University on sabbatical in 2016, and I was writing a book that was supposed to be entitled, the Metaphysics of Archeological Practice. And we had been talking, the four of us about writing this book, and I remember getting emails from Rae saying, “So are we going to do this or are we not?” And I remember coming to it like a really big moment and thinking, so how many people you really think are going to read the Metaphysics of Archeological Practice? Nobody cares about that. And I thought, let's do the Nipmuc book as we referred to it. And obviously that was the right choice.

Heather Law Pezzarossi: It was a good choice. I started at UMass Boston at the right time. I think that's what it was. For me, I was just starting out when UMass Boston was just starting out organizing and designing a field project at Hassanamesit woods. Steve was already my advisor, I think by that point. But from there I got to meet Rae and I knew of Holly because she had been at UMass Boston before me, but then I got to know Holly better too. And we've just always been in contact ever since.

Rae Gould: We had been presenting from the material that we had worked on and the different sites that are talked about in the book. So it was just kind of this organic unfolding, I think where one point we were like, gee, we should put all this together and write a book or something of some sort.

Heather Law Pezzarossi: My very first conference presentation ever, it's a weird conference presentation where there were questions after, which doesn't happen all the time. And I was absolutely terrified because I had given the presentation and I thought it was over. And then somebody asked a question that I couldn't answer, and Rae stood up and defended me. And then from there...

Holly Herbster: I was there when that conference happened. So I remember that we all sort of bonded together behind our mama bear. You introduced the connections Rae, but for me, this was kind of a transitional thing from the Magunkaquog site being rediscovered as part of a PAL CRM project for a subdivision, and the little bit of research that we got to do as part of that CRM project. We never have enough time to do the testing we want to do or the research we want to do. So I felt like we had kind of scratched the surface and I became really, really interested in trying to find as much documentary information as I could about the site, which was utilized during this period of intense propagandizing of the John Elliot missionary movement and sort of how native people were represented in the records as well as in the physical remains that were in the ground.

And when we realized how important that site was, and UMass Boston was able to come in and do sort of the proper, more full, excavation and analysis of the site after PAL had first done some work there. That turned into an opportunity for me to expand that research and worked perfectly as a thesis topic for me.

Writing a Book

Rae Gould: We were going on 20 years of knowing each other. We had done these presentations, we had been talking very organically about these sites and the fact that no one had really done a Nipmuc specific book. So that was important. And the other element about it that we all agreed on, I think pretty much immediately was that it'd be something that was really accessible, so that anyone from my tribe could pick this up and read, say a 10th grade education. It wasn't theory, it wasn't for our colleagues, although certainly our colleagues use it. It's a great introduction to both archeology. There's a lot of methodology, there's data analysis, there's interpretation, but it's something that even a high schooler could pick up and read and really get to know Nipmuc history and culture through this lens of archeology. That is just, I think, a really great way to share it.

Steve Mrozowski

Image courtesy of Steve Mrozowski

Steve Mrozowski: I've learned so much from all of them, and that's true. Holly, I've learned a lot about perseverance and sticking to it. And Heather was just the most wonderful student you can imagine, just to work with. What's kind of unusual to have four different authors actually be authors on the same book and we knew that that might present a challenge. And the editor at the University of Florida Press was really wonderful. And when we decided that the book would be made accessible to just anybody who could read it, that was another challenge worth fighting. And everybody's a good writer, and that really helped. And it's easily the most satisfying experience. I don't think that would've been the case with others, because I have written with other folks and each one is different. I think it was really important that Rae was the one who said, anybody from the tribe has to be able to pick this up and read it. It was a wonderful thing to get to do.

Holly Herbster: I have to say that for me as a CRM archeologist, the idea of gray literature surrounds me every day of the week. I feel like we do a lot of writing and research, and that information doesn't go anywhere. It gets filed on a shelf. I am so, so proud of this book and of our group all working together on it. And I feel like this is a book that I would want to read over and over and over again about other types of archeology in other places. And I don't really see books like this a lot, at least the archeology of the northeast, the places that I work. And so I am hopeful that this book, beyond being so important for telling Nipmuc history, will also be the model for other people to start thinking about how are they doing their archeological work, who are they doing it with, and how are they giving that information back out again in a way that's lasting?

Rae Gould: So Steve had written a book with a colleague previously called Living on the Boot, and when I read that book, I was like, if I ever write a book, that's the kind of book that I want to write. And I want it to be fun to read. I want it to be engaging and I want it to be educational and didactic at the same time. So I think I said to everybody like, hey, what about using Living on the Boot as a model? I think it works.

Holly Herbster: You're right. I amend my statement that I had never read something like that. I did read Living on the Boot, and that is my same impression.

It’s About People and Relationships

Heather Law Pezzarossi: I think the takeaway for this book is going to be different for everybody. There's a lot of opportunity for people to say at the very basic level, oh, I didn't realize that the historical period heritage of Nipmuc people was so rich. But beyond that, there's a lot of potential for other realizations as well. There's potential for talking about issues of materiality. I'm talking about it from an academic sense, but materiality doesn't have to be this academic thing. It just has to do with how objects relate to personhood.

Steve Mrozowski: For me, it was a real learning process and the Nipmuc have been just very welcoming. And Rae is, is just an easy person to work with. And what I'm most proud of about this book is that it's readable and it tells a story and we bring to life these folks in a way that makes them real. And it's not just the artifacts, the material culture, but the work that Holly did with all the documents. And the book begins with those three amazing vignettes of individuals and their experiences. And right off the bat, that sets the tone for the rest of the book. And by the way, I should say we're still working. And one of the reasons that these books are important is because I now have a new Nipmuc student, Brittney Wally, and she came to this through the book. That's what we hope the book does more than anything, brings those relationships out and fosters them.

And so I just hope this serves as a model for how other people should do it and I think it has. I the fact that the Society for American Archeology gave us the scholarly book of the year award, the fact that they were able to recognize that this was an amazing scholarly product with the ability to communicate to everybody, I think shows how good it is and how proud we all are of it. It's all really good archeology and it's very scientific if you want to use that term. And I always have found it great that when I talked to Cheryl Holly about it, she likes the science part of it the best. And I think that's what the Fiske Center represents, that it brings a lot of really good western science to bear on serving indigenous people. And that's the way it should have been from the start.

Centering Collaboration in Historical Archaeology

Heather Law Pezzarossi

Image Courtesy of Syracuse University

Heather Law Pezzarossi: I have never done archeology that wasn't geared toward collaboration. That was where I started. I just kind of showed up at UMass Boston when this was beginning. But the real lesson of collaboration is that it takes a long time, and that's not really how academia is designed for these projects that take decades to come to fruition. It's not the model. So for me to just sort of realize right off the bat, just like in every other aspect of your life, rich relationships take a long time to develop. This one's going to as well, and you need to have that in mind from the get go. And second of all, be willing to be wrong. That's also not how academia operates normally.

Holly Herbster: I started my long archeology career not learning that collaboration was the way you should do everything and how everything is done. A good part of my career as a CRM archeologist and as an academic was done prior to developing relationships with indigenous communities in the places that I worked all over New England. And I've gotten to the point where when I look back on that, I can't imagine not doing that now. It's really opened my eyes to the responsibilities of doing this profession that I do love and understanding that there are those hard conversations that you need to have sometimes and that it is a process of learning every single day. I am a completely different archeologist today than I was 30 years ago, and I'm always learning. I'm changing the way I think about something. And it's all based on these ongoing relationships that are continuing to be built.

Steve Mrozowski: The phrase that I've been using a lot is get ready to give it up. In other words, you just got to say, tell me what you need, what you want. Will you support this? And you've got to be willing to just listen to what I think of as the airing of grievances. There's a release of emotion that people are going to share with you, and you've got to be comfortable with that. And I have to be honest here, working with the Hassanamisco has been easy for me because of the individuals involved. It's like I really love it. Working with some other groups, it's been a lot more challenging. And yet the one thing that I did learn early on that continues to come true is you need to be willing to understand that there's a history there, that if you are interested in it, you have to understand that it's not your position to be the authority. Your position is to listen.

Rae Gould: You need to ask if people even want you doing this work and approach it and say, here are my skills. I'm a historian, I'm an anthropologist. I have been thinking about this geographic region or about this particular topic. Is this something that would be of interest to you and/or how can my expertise and my skills be of service to your people? You don't know how many times in one academic year I have to actually say to my colleagues, well, have you asked if they want this work being done? And for many people who are experienced academics and maybe into their 50s and even 60s now, that's the first time they've actually heard that.

Holly Herbster: We as archeologists need to be more forceful in kind of changing the way that we do things and understanding that the system that we operate in with our Section 106 compliance and our federal and state regulations needs to be changed. And we need to advocate for that because we're the people who are doing that work under those regulations because as it has been made clear today, true collaboration and true consultation takes time. It needs to involve people, engaging with each other, giving people an opportunity to have the time, especially if there are multiple people involved in a conversation to be able to talk about things. So I think that we have a responsibility as the non-indigenous people to kind of push the way that we're doing things into a new way of doing things.

Heather Law Pezzarossi: One of the ways that collaboration can begin is with allyship.

Steve Mrozowski: One of the big things that we are doing and have to do is not only reach out and treat with respect the indigenous folks who we hope to collaborate with, that I think is a given. But I think one of the things that maybe folks don't realize is that we have just as big a challenge reeducating our colleagues and the people who run our universities, or institutions like PAL, because where I am at UMass Boston, we're on record as wanting to be an anti-racist community. And there's a stress on community engaged research. But believe me, when it comes time to have somebody come up for tenure, the colleagues are not going to look at community-based research the same way they're going to look at "scientific research" and good collaboration in my mind is good science. That's the thing that I always hit my colleagues with who view themselves as scientists. This is what good science should look like.

Believe it or not, they're harder to get to than some of the indigenous folks. Because I always understand why the indigenous folks are like, why should I trust you? That I totally understand. But why my own colleagues won't trust you and think that, oh, you're just doing this because it's trendy and stuff like that. I really lay into them when they do that. And even my most difficult colleagues, they might come around after a while and it's funny because they'll like look down the hall to make sure nobody hears them say, “I'm really starting to see that what you've been talking about, there's something to it.” It's a big challenge to overturn at least a century, if not longer, worth of practice. But God, it's so liberating and you feel for the first time you're actually doing something that serves a community.

Holly Herbster: I occasionally have to reach out to an area and to tribal groups that I'm not familiar with. And one thing that I've really learned from these relationships that I've built in New England is that you do start in a very formal way and approach tribal leadership. And right off the bat, I always make sure that I indicate who I am, what my reason for reaching out is, what my background is. And I just ask, is there any information that I need to provide to you about me and the work that I'm doing or I'm proposing to do? And who would be the best person to reach out to? So just ask the questions right away. Just don't go charging in.

Heather Law Pezzarossi: I also think that in terms of the idea of protocol, you have to be pretty flexible with that. It's going to be different for every group. There are manners, I guess, for lack of a better word, but also understanding that groups are going to respond differently to different kinds of requests, and that relationships can be formed in all different kinds of ways.

Steve Mrozowski: So right now I have a project we're doing with the Shinnecock on Long Island, and one of the things that we realized was we started out trying to formalize a set of protocols, and we wanted it to be a totally encompassing protocol. And then it became obvious that we were going to have to change that to a sort of project by project protocol. And the reason why that was was because the Shinnecock wanted to do things in a very all-encompassing manner. So they took the notion of protocols very seriously. And so we're still in that negotiating process. And I think that the most important lesson I've learned is that each group of people is different. Each tribal nation is different. So you just have to be flexible and see what they want. But I think most importantly is it has to be sincere.

Rae Gould: It's not just about being a research professor. There are many ways to do this work and that this book can be a model for, and I'm just super, super grateful that we've gotten to know each other, that I've had the honor of knowing and working with Steve and Heather and Holly. If I never do another thing in my life, I'm good. I'm happy and really, really pleased that we did this and just thankful for their friendship and for all of the knowledge that they're doing.

Steve Mrozowski: Well, one thing I will say is that we're all still working together. I'm working on two other projects with Holly. And Rae, and Heather and I have been talking about another project with the Hassanamisco where we want to sort of repopulate the Nipmuc landscape today. And so I would expect that this won't be the last time that we do what we did for this book. And that's... I sure hope not, anyways, so I don't see any reason to stop.

Holly Herbster: I just want to say this is, for me, the proudest accomplishment of my professional career. And I don't see a way to top it. Maybe we can, I hope we can, but this collaboration and these relationships that I've built with my colleagues have been so important to me and are really going to guide my future career for as long as it lasts.

Heather Law Pezzarossi: This has been such a rich experience, and I think one of the most important things about our project is that going forward and just kind of questioning that idea that indigeneity is something past facing and refiguring it so that we can think about indigenous futures, is a project for all disciplines but an especially important one.

Steve Mrozowski: That's the way archeology has treated indigenous history. Like they ended and it hasn't ended. Everybody's still here. And that's why we have to be future oriented and reconnect those pasts to futures, because that's what it's all about, the future. It's not about the past. I mean, it's about having the past serve the future. And that's what this book does.

Catherine Cooper: Thank you all so much for sharing your insights and experience with us.

Holly Herbster: This was great.

Rae Gould: Thank you, Catherine, for reaching out to us.

Steve Mrozowski: Thank you.

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