Reassessing the Hallowes Site: Conflict and Settlement in the Seventeenth-Century Potomac Valley

Abstract

The John Hallowes site in Westmoreland County, Virginia, was excavated from 1968 to 1969 No report of the excavations was completed at that time, although an article summarizing the findings was published in Historical Archaeology in 1971 The artifacts from the site were not systematically cataloged until the 1980s, and it was not until 2010–2012 that an integrated study comparing the artifact data with site features, site history, regional archaeological findings, and regional history was completed Benefiting from nearly 50 years of advances in Chesapeake archaeology, the reanalysis has challenged accepted dates for the site’s initial occupation, resulted in new interpretations of John Hallowes’s role in the Maryland conflict known as Ingle’s Rebellion, traced political alliances formed during that rebellion that led to the creation of the Potomac River community of Appamattucks, and examined changing ideas about military masculinity on the Chesapeake frontier.