Overview
My research and writing concentrates on improving the state of public and scholarly knowledge about the long-term scope of Indigenous occupation in the Finger Lakes region of what is now New York State. I have worked with Hodinǫ̱hsǫ́:nih (Six Nations Confederacy) colleagues since 1999, and I maintain commitments in Onöndowa’ga:’ (Seneca) and Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫˀ (Cayuga) territories.
My initial work focused on the archaeological and historical study of the settlement patterns, housing, and political economy of seventeenth- and eighteenth- century Onöndowa’ga:’ people. Archaeology provides a perspective that both supplements and challenges document-based histories. The empirical evidence provided by archaeology challenges inaccurate narratives of Indigenous decline and powerlessness that pervade scholarly and popular writing about Indigenous North Americans. For example, fieldwork at the 1715-1754 Onöndowa’ga:’ Townley-Read site near Geneva, New York, recovered data indicating substantial Onöndowa’ga:’ autonomy, selectivity, innovation, and opportunism in an era usually considered to be one of cultural disintegration. The results of this project are presented in my first book, The Seneca Restoration (University of Florida Press, 2008).
I currently am leading a research project focusing on domestic areas at the 1688-1715 Onöndowa’ga:’ town at White Springs, also located near Geneva, New York, and the predecessor to the Townley-Read site. Excavation, geophysical survey, and surface collections, conducted in collaboration with representatives of the Onöndowa’ga:’ descendant community, took place in 2007-2015. The project is in the cataloging, analysis, and writing stage.
Since 2017, I have worked with Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫˀ (Cayuga) people on a variety of community-directed initiatives. I have worked most closely with language teacher, Faithkeeper, and historian Steve Henhawk. We have tried, using Steve's words, to "straighten out" the record of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫˀ history, since it has been distorted by the errors and misconceptions of previous settler writers. Our work has encompassed place names, reinterpretation of archaeological sites, and the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫˀ role in the American Revolution. Steve and I co-teach From the Swampy Land, a class on Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫɁ culture, history, and current events. In 2022, With input from several Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫɁ people, I put together the short, public-facing book The Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫɁ People in the Cayuga Lake Region: A Brief History (2022, Tompkins County Historical Commission).
I teach other courses providing general introductions to North American Indigenous Studies and the archaeology of Indigenous North America, and more advanced courses on colonialism and cultural entanglement, Northeastern archaeology, and text-aided/historical archaeology. In the past, I have offered hands-on training courses in archaeological excavation and laboratory analysis that tapped into the rich archaeological resources of the Finger Lakes region; these sorts of classes will not be offered again until I take up another field project.
I have delivered public talks on the Indigenous archaeology and history of the region to audiences in Bath, Canandaigua, Geneva, Ithaca, Liverpool, Lodi, McLean, Montezuma, Montour Falls, Port Byron, Salamanca, Tyrone, Trumansburg, and Waverly.
Research Focus
Research Interests: Haudenosaunee Archaeology and History; Colonialism, Cultural Entanglement, and Indigenous Autonomy; Political Economy; Collaborations between Archaeologists and Indigenous Communities; Combining Indigenous Community Knowledge with Western Scholarly Perspectives; Shell Bead Wampum; Red Pipestone and Red Slate
Publications
Books:
2022 The Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫɁ People in the Cayuga Lake Region: A Brief History. Ithaca, NY: Tompkins County Historical Commission Publication 5.
2008 The Seneca Restoration, 1715-1754: An Iroquois Local Political Economy . Gainesville: University Press of Florida and the Society for Historical Archaeology. Paperback edition issued February 2011.
Co-Authored Book:
Warren Allmon, Marvin Pritts, Peter Marks, Blake Epstein, David Bullis, and Kurt Jordan
2021 Smith Woods: The Environmental History of an Old Growth Forest Remnant in Central New York State. Second edition. Ithaca: Paleontological Research Institution Special Publication No. 59. First edition published in 2017.
Selected Articles:
2023 Departing and Returning: Haudenosaunee Homeland Contexts for the Iroquois du Nord Villages. In Robert von Bitter and Ronald F. Williamson, editors: The History and Archaeology of the Iroquois du Nord. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press and Canadian National Museum of History, pages 33-51.
2022 Small and Under-recorded Sites as Evidence for Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫɁ (Cayuga) and Onöndowa'ga:' (Seneca) Regional Settlement Expansion, circa 1640-1690. In Tsim D. Schneider and Lee M. Panich, editors: Archaeologies of Indigenous Presence. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, pages 242-264.
2018 From Nucleated Villages to Dispersed Networks: Transformations in Seneca Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Community Structure, circa AD 1669-1779. In Jennifer Birch and Victor D. Thompson, editors: The Archaeology of Villages in Eastern North America. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, pages 174-191.
2018 Markers of Difference or Makers of Difference? Atypical Practices at Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Satellite Sites, ca. 1650-1700. Historical Archaeology 52(1): 12-29.
2016 Categories in Motion: Emerging Perspectives in the Archaeology of Postcolumbian Indigenous Communities. Historical Archaeology 50(3): 62-80.
2014 Enacting Gender and Kinship around a Large Outdoor Firepit at the Seneca Iroquois Townley-Read Site, 1715-1754. Historical Archaeology 48(2): 61-90.
2014 Pruning Colonialism: Vantage Point, Local Political Economy, and Cultural Entanglement in the Archaeology of post-1415 Indigenous Peoples. In Neal Ferris, Rodney Harrison, and Michael V. Wilcox, editors: Rethinking Colonial Pasts through Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pages 103-120.
2013 Incorporation and Colonization: Postcolumbian Iroquois Satellite Communities and Processes of Indigenous Autonomy. American Anthropologist 115(1): 29-43.
2010 Not Just "One Site Against the World": Seneca Iroquois Intercommunity Connections and Autonomy, 1550-1779. In Laura L. Scheiber and Mark D. Mitchell, editors: Across a Great Divide: Continuity and Change in Native North American Societies, 1400-1900 . Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pages 79-106.
2009 Colonies, Colonialism and Cultural Entanglement: The Archaeology of Postcolumbian Intercultural Relations. In Teresita Majewski and David Gaimster, editors: International Handbook of Historical Archaeology . New York: Springer, pages 31-49.
2009 Regional Diversity and Colonialism in Eighteenth Century Iroquoia. In Laurie E. Miroff and Timothy D. Knapp, editors: Iroquoian Archaeology and Analytic Scale . Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, pages 215-230.
2004 Seneca Settlement Pattern, Community Structure, and Housing, 1677-1779. Northeast Anthropology 67: 23-60.
2003 An Eighteenth Century Seneca Iroquois Short Longhouse from the Townley-Read Site, c. A.D. 1715-1754. The Bulletin: Journal of the New York State Archaeological Association 119: 49-63. [Reprinted in Jordan E. Kerber, editor: Archaeology of the Iroquois: Selected Readings and Research Sources (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2007), pages 234-250.]
Selected Co-authored Articles:
Kurt A. Jordan and Peregrine A. Gerard-Little
2019 Neither Contact nor Colonial: Seneca Iroquois Local Political Economies, 1670-1754. In Heather Law Pezzarossi and Russell N. Sheptak, editors: Indigenous Persistence in the Colonized Americas: Material and Documentary Perspectives on Entanglement. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pages 39-56.
Peregrine A. Gerard-Little, Amanda K. Moutner, Kurt A. Jordan, and Michael B. Rogers
2016 The Production of Affluence in Central New York: The Archaeology and History of Geneva’s White Springs Manor, 1806-1951. Historical Archaeology 50(4): 36-64.
Peregrine A. Gerard-Little, Michael B. Rogers, and Kurt A. Jordan
2012 Understanding the Built Environment at the Seneca Iroquois White Springs Site using Large-scale, Multi-instrument Archaeogeophysical Surveys. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(7): 2042-2048.
Christopher N. Matthews and Kurt A. Jordan
2011 Secularism as Ideology: Exploring Assumptions of Cultural Equivalence in Museum Repatriation. In Reinhard Bernbeck and Randall H. McGuire, editors: Ideologies in Archaeology . Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pages 212-232.
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