speakers

The Speakers & Their Presentations:

Gary L. Brumfield is the Manager of Historic Area Communication for the Colonial Williamsburg oundation where he has been employed for over 30 years. He obtained a B.S. from Virginia Tech, in Forestry and Wildlife. Gary has spent considerable time researching the weapons, game and hunting practices of colonial Virginia. In recent years he began a detailed study of the deer hide trade in customs reports and merchants' records. Gary will present "Trust, Credit and the Assignment of Values in the Deer Hide Trade in the Third Quarter of the 18th Century". Often mistakenly described in the past as "barter," the hide trade was a complex system of credit and trust that mirrored in many ways the colonial mercantile system in place in towns and cities east of the mountains. This presentation will compare and contrast the two, explore the use of the buckskin as the "coin of exchange" in the mid-century Indian trade and place the hide trade in the context of the larger British-Colonial economy.

William Fox holds degrees in both Anthropology and Archaeology from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in Archaeology from McGill University. He has written and edited numerous works related to these fields. William will be presenting "Shaking the Earth: Turtle Shell Rattles Among the Ontario Iroquois". Turtle shell rattles from archaeological contexts in southern Ontario are considered in light of ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological evidence from eastern North America concerning their specific ritual affiliations. This evidence is combined with that derived from two other artifact forms to illustrate cultural connections which existed between tribes of the Neutral Iroquoian confederacy and nations to the south during the first half of the seventeenth century. The resulting Native interaction reflects the significance and strength of pre-Columbian inter-tribal connections following over a century of European contact.

Michael Galban (Washoe/Paiute) has worked for the past 13 years in Research and Interpretation at Ganondagan State Historic Site. He has a BFA from the State University of New York with a minor in Anthropology. Michael has worked on numerous publications pertaining to Native American studies and has been a consultant to National Geographic's series on Native Americans. Michael will be presenting "Ganondagan and the Fisher Collection: A New Look at some Old Material". The Boughton Hill site has yielded literally thousands of artifacts from the 1655-1687 era of colonial contact with the Seneca of Western New York. Located at Ganondagan, it has been referred to as the most important archeological site in the northeast. This discussion will revolve around selected artifacts which had an impact on the material culture of the later historic period. Most of these artifacts, from the newly acquired Fisher collection, have never been published, studied, or even seen before now.

Barry Keegan is currently the Supervisor of Native American Programs for the New York State Historical Association and The Farmers' Museum, located in Cooperstown, New York. He holds a B.F.A. from Parsons School of Design and has written several articles and papers concerning fire making, stone tools, bow making, fiber footwear and watercraft. Most of these have been published in the Bulletin of Primitive Technology and Wilderness Way Magazine. Barry will be presenting "A Revival of Building Replica Dugouts and Improvised Bark Canoes". There are scores of historical sources concerning the building of specific Native American watercraft. Some of these will be reflected in this presentation which will focus on the process of creating replica canoes, using primary sources for instruction. Based on his experiences, this will include a discussion of modern difficulties, such as time constraints, helpers, tree blights and how to work around these challenges. Boat use and maintenance will also be explored.

Susan McLellan Plaisted, MS RD CSP LDN, is the proprietress of Heart to Hearth Cookery, a food history business that focuses on experimental archaeology, research and foodways presentations, including Native American foodways. Susan presented a paper at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery in 2004 on the Native American uses of cattails as food and contributed two entries for the recently published Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Susan will be presenting "A-Maizing Corn: Unraveling the Mysteries and Cornfusion". This presentation will focus on unraveling the mysteries, debate and confusion about a familiar and common American plant, corn. The derivation of the word, theories of its uniqueness as a plant and major types will be discussed. With pictures of experimental archaeology in processing corn, several Native American uses will be explored.

Scott Stephenson is an independent scholar specializing in the history and material culture of Early America and its peoples. He received his MA and PhD in American History from the University of Virginia, and is curator of "Clash of Empires: the British, French, and Indian War, 1754-1763", an international loan exhibition that will appear in Pittsburgh, Ottawa, and Washington DC in 2005-7. Scott will be presenting "The Indian Fashion: Getting Dressed in Eighteenth Century Native America", Surveying a wide range of period images, objects and descriptions, Scott will explore the basic clothing and appearance of American Indians across Eastern North America during the Eighteenth Century. This richly illustrated talk will present several newly discovered images and objects as well as taking a fresh look at some familiar material in the light of recent scholarship.