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Contact between Native Americans and Europeans can be examined following models from medical anthropology and archaeological studies (McElroy and Townsend 1996; Silliman 2005). Using evidence from both physical and social landscapes through analyses of mortuary contexts from Native American archaeological sites, anthropologists have applied such models to characterize the nature of cultural and biological continuity and change following European contact and in subsequent periods (Ferris 2009; Nassaney 2004; Panich 2013; Rodning 2011; Silliman 2005).

1.2.1 Models from Medical Anthropology

Anthropologists studying cultural contact in the medical context have discussed the dynamics of interaction between distinct cultural groups. When two or more population groups encounter one another, stress episodes may occur, especially in cases where the dynamics of contact are defined by intrusion of one group into the territory of another or in cases where groups have distinctly disparate technologies (McElroy and Townsend 2008). Group survival is often at stake, as contact episodes can have drastic epidemiological, environmental, and social consequences. McElroy and Townsend (2008) modeled contact in five distinct stages: pre-contact, early contact, acculturation, assimilation, and revitalization. Epidemiological and social trends are observable in each of these stages (McElroy

and Townsend 2008). While evident in ethnohistorical reports, however, reconstructions of the epidemiological and social processes associated with culture contact may not be as easily identifiable in the archaeological and bioarchaeological contexts due to a lack of written accounts and the nature of archaeological and osteological samples, especially in early stages of contact (Silliman 2005). For example, the spread of certain disease pathogens such as measles and smallpox are not distinguishable osteologically as these are acute diseases that kill the host rapidly, and in the absence of written records these would not be distinguishable archaeologically from other mass mortality events (Warrick 2003).

It is important to emphasize that archaeologists have critiqued these types of approaches. Terms such as acculturation and assimilation are essentialist and deny the important nuances of social agency of indigenous communities (Ferris 2009; Rubertone 2000). Defining contact into a series of predictable stages also emphasizes that these models view assimilation and decline as almost inevitable consequences of colonialism, when it has been documented archaeologically, that maintenance of local traditions occurred among Native American groups along with the incorporation of new technologies, religion, and migration associated with European colonialism (Ferris 2009; Panich 2013).

1.2.2 Archaeological Modeling: Native Lived Colonialism

Historical models of contact and colonization in North America have focused primarily on the perspective of rapid decline of indigenous peoples and dependency on Europeans, and until recently historical archaeology was viewed as a discipline which sought to echo a-historical narratives of the indigenous past, rife with assumptions and modern western biases (Ferris 2009; Rubertone 2000; Panich 2013). Panich (2013) emphasized that historical archaeology has had a tendency to reinforce acculturation narratives of the past through research agendas that were narrowly focused on demographic, cultural and technological changes during the colonial period. Change has been conceptualized through interpretive frameworks such as acculturation, which ties indigenous cultures to static, externally defined lists of cultural traits (Rubertone 2000; Panich 2013). While change did occur with the onset of colonialism, the archaeological and historical approaches that equated change with loss fostered the idea that extinction of indigenous cultures was an inevitable consequence of colonialism, effectively ignoring the presence of modern indigenous groups with their own histories who negotiated contact and colonialism through myriad means (Panich 2013).

Ferris (2009) has emphasized that the role of archaeology in colonial narratives should not be merely a ‘handmaiden to history’ but rather focus local and detailed contexts to provide deep meaning to patterns over time, viewing change and continuity in the past as an interconnected whole. Archaeologically imagining the past involves piecing together patterns from a fragmented collage of data rather than the reconstruction of one broad, singular truth (Binford 1975). The archaeological record, by its very nature as a collection of material culture, settlements, burials etc., can accommodate multiple interpretations and emphases of continuity and change, making

archaeological presentation an essential element to illustrate indigenous histories (Ferris 2009). Panich (2013) emphasized that this recent approach to indigenous pasts challenges terminal narratives and considers the multiple ways in which native peoples actively negotiated social institutions and identity during the colonial period, which resulted in the persistence of native communities that still exist in many forms today. The approach of viewing contact as an interconnected whole of continuity and change in which human agents actively negotiated new material culture and peoples, and meanwhile persisted with their own traditions leaves researchers with many open areas of interpretation. The shift in theoretical perspective within the field from simple acculturation narratives to changing continuities allows researchers to place colonialism within the context of indigenous histories (Ferris 2009; Panich 2013). This leads to an archaeological exploration of how Native Americans drew on their own cultural institutions to negotiate the presence of a new power (Panich 2013).

This new approach to colonialism within archaeology is grounded in several tenets of archaeological theory (Ferris 2009, Panich 2013). Ferris (2009) drew upon Bourdieu’s (1977) concept of practice theory and the construction of habitus. Habitus represents the durable dispositions and attitudes that people have about themselves and the world around them works, or rather, concepts of “knowing and doing”. These dispositions operate underneath daily living and represent cultural conventions and assumptions around the way in which the world is ordered, passed on through generations via enculturation (Bourdieu 1977, Ferris 2009). New experiences, such as contact, are negotiated through embedded practices such as class, gender, labor and authority, and are thereby naturalized into the existing cultural framework (Ferris 2009). This theoretical approach does not, however, view existing cultural patterns as static entities, as these are interactive with lived experience, daily practices, and dispositions that are in constant re-negotiation. New experiences and unpredictable circumstances under this view thus trigger a reinforcement of existing habitus (continuity) or a greater paradigmatic revision (change). Giddens (1982) further explained that societal structures and agency are interconnected through an ongoing process of maintaining one another, with agency being a continuous process of cultural practices.

Through these theoretical frameworks, interpretive archaeology then focuses on social processes such as power, identity, and gender (Ferris 2009). Material culture is the framing of agency through which practice emerges as technology operates through a sequence of dynamic processes that reflect the culturally and historically specific contexts of interaction, meaning, and choice. A material object in an archaeological context is viewed as a medium through which a range of social actions are negotiated, such as procurement of materials, division of labor and craft specialization, purchasing or trading, as well as the function and link to the social status of the person using the object (Ferris 2009; Sørensen 2000, 2006). The goal of archaeology of the colonial period is then to bridge the gap between pre-contact and post-contact archaeology by focusing on the material dimensions of lived life via multiscalar investigations of the daily lived experience of indigenous people to see beyond the historical “otherness” over Native Americans and into the historical context of lived experiences of people in their own time (Ferris 2009; Sassaman 2000).

Material culture is the medium through which archaeologists may understand this interaction (Ferris 2009). Silliman (2005) stated that histories of interaction are a continuum of contexts and recursive social processes. In relation to colonialism, there was continual exchange between local and widespread indigenous communities as well as Europeans (Silliman 2005). Past archaeological investigations of contact and colonialism focused on trait lists of material objects in which the appearance of European made goods was interpreted as a sudden, wide-scale adoption of European lifeways and social alteration (Ferris 2009; Rubertone 2000). This approach ignores how indigenous interest in and use of European objects was selective and that these items would have operated inside pre-existing Native American conceptions of material culture (Ferris 2009; Lightfoot 2015; Panich 2013). Holistic analyses of material assemblages may focus on the fact that the social meaning of European goods is not directly transferred and adopted into an indigenous social structure as the objects themselves were subject to interpretation within the worldview of indigenous peoples rather than foreign to it (Ferris 2009; Panich 2013).

Thus the critical way in which archaeologists may examine contact, interaction, and social practice is through investigations of social processes such as gender or subsistence-settlement patterns. Ferris (2009) emphasizes that subsistence-settlement strategies represent how the world was negotiated in everyday living, through which meaning and cultural structures operate. Multiple factors accounted for in subsistence decisions become translated as social choices or priorities that are weighed differently from community to community. Such practices of daily living are shaped by economic, social, and ritual dimensions of human experience and contribute to defining group and individual identity (Ferris 2009; Lightfoot 2015). Changes or continuities in subsistence settlement patterns over time indicate how colonialism was lived and experienced by indigenous populations. For example, even into the colonial period, the Ojibwa of the Great Lakes maintained seasonal movement patterns and subsistence well into the 1840’s, despite Europeans encroaching on their traditional lands. While European made goods were used and adopted by the Ojibwa, their use and meaning was incorporated into existing social and cultural processes (Ferris 2009). This type of evidence rejects the omnipresent historical narrative of decline and assimilation, and demonstrates the myriad ways in which indigenous peoples co-existed and maintained local traditions (Ferris 2009).