Building a Sustainable Community Archaeology in Black Appalachia

Abstract

Junaluska is a historically Black community in the southern Appalachian town of Boone, North Carolina. In 2020, we began a collaborative archaeology project with the community-based Junaluska Heritage Association to address two community concerns: (1) identifying unmarked graves at the Clarissa Hill Cemetery and (2) learning more about the nineteenth and early twentieth-century origins of Junaluska. Here we present our ongoing work on these heritage issues, including a survey of local residents, archaeological geophysics and excavation, and public outreach. We argue that community archaeology in Junaluska can be a model for collaborative heritage management and antiracist scholarship elsewhere in the US.