"A PLEASURE GARDEN IN THE DESERT, TO WHICH I KNOW NO COMPARISON IN THIS COUNTRY": SENECA IROQUOIS LANDSCAPE STEWARDSHIP IN THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES

Abstract

In this dissertation I model dynamism in 16th–18th century Seneca Haudenosaunee landscape practices through a multiscalar approach that combines archaeological data, textual sources, insights from Haudenosaunee scholars, and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) mapping. This landscape was formed by indigenous processes at the ‘periphery’ of colonial control where the effects of colonial military actions variably affected Seneca communities. Within the context of the 200-year Seneca site sequence, my material analyses focus on identification of archaeologically-recovered charcoal from three sites—Ganondagan, White Springs, and Townley-Read—successively occupied by the same community under variable political and economic conditions (ca. 1670–1754 CE). Finding strong evidence for contextually different uses of wood and forms of Seneca landscape stewardship, I conclude that that the Seneca community maintained and re-created certain kinds of relationships with the landscape through a period of difficulty and change. This research emphasizes the agentive action of Haudenosaunee people and highlights the necessity of addressing the role of past human-landscape processes in shaping not only environments encountered by early colonial figures but also those we live with today.