Discovering Enfield Falls: A community initiated archaeological heritage project in Ithaca, New York

Abstract

ABSTRACT Discovering Enfield Falls differs from many academic-managed heritage programmes that are top-down projects initiated by archaeologists. In it, planning originated with stakeholders determined to create a public history of a hamlet in New York (USA) which the state had demolished (in the early twentieth century) to create a park. This nineteenth-century hamlet had been both a commercial centre for farmers and a regional scenic tourist destination. Contemporary stakeholders did not need archaeologists to help them discover their history or to realize the heritage value of Enfield Falls. They needed archaeologists to collaborate with them to reveal the cultural landscape and history buried in the park to larger communities, both local and in the surrounding northeast region of the United States and Southeast Canada. This case study describes collaborations undertaken from 1998 to the present (fieldwork, museum exhibits, and more) by archaeologists, community members, and Cornell University archaeology service-learning students.