Abstract
In the mid-eighteenth century, the Mohawk River Valley was the colonial frontier in New York, and different social, political, and cultural groups were creating their identity through action and material culture, including the built environment. Two houses, built in 1749 and 1750, are compared in relation to identity and social position of their owners. The landscape was investigated using archaeogeophysics and targeted excavation to determine how the houses and their landscapes expressed cultural identity in colonial New York. The houses and landscapes reveal how specific identities were created by the owners of the houses as part of their efforts to improve their social, political, and economic standing on the frontier while also providing a defensive structure in the face of potential French raids into the region.
Highlights
In the eighteenth century, the central Mohawk Valley was New York’s colonial frontier (Venables, 1967: p. 7)
Dutch colonists from the Hudson River Valley and eastern Mohawk were moving west away from British dominion (Kammen, 1975: pp. 149-151), and Palatine Germans seeking land were being placed as a buffer against French invasion by the British colonial government (Kammen, 1975: pp. 177-178; Otterness, 2004: p. 71)
To investigate the landscape of the houses, a combined archaeogeophysical (Gaffney & Gater, 2003; Rogers, 2011) and excavation strategy was employed to gain a better understanding of this aspect of the creation of cultural identity on New York’s colonial frontier
Summary
The central Mohawk Valley was New York’s colonial frontier (Venables, 1967: p. 7). Colonial Houses and Cultural Identity in New York State’s Mohawk River Valley. The second was Fort Klock, built by Johannes Klock, a German-Dutch trader Both structures were stone, fortified houses, built to display a specific status in this mixed social context, and served as strong points for defending the residents and neighboring settlers in case of attack. The presentation of identity was crucial in this contested environment, and was not an extension of a static ideal from the Old World For both William Johnson and Johannes Klock, they actively presented an identity they wanted other people to see, and their houses were part of that construction. The archaeological study initiated in 2009 had the goal of exploring the use of space around these two houses to discover what was done in this arena of the built environment related to the construction of cultural identity on the frontier. To investigate the landscape of the houses, a combined archaeogeophysical (Gaffney & Gater, 2003; Rogers, 2011) and excavation strategy was employed to gain a better understanding of this aspect of the creation of cultural identity on New York’s colonial frontier
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
