Our Hidden Landscapes

Book excerpt: Challenging traditional and long-standing understandings, this volume provides an important new lens for interpreting stone structures that had previously been attributed to settler colonialism. Instead, the contributors to this volume argue that these locations are sacred Indigenous sites. This volume introduces readers to eastern North America’s Indigenous ceremonial stone landscapes (CSLs)—sacred sites whose principal identifying characteristics are built stone structures that cluster within specific physical landscapes. Our Hidden Landscapes presents these often unrecognized sites as significant cultural landscapes in need of protection and preservation. In this book, Native American authors provide perspectives on the cultural meaning and significance of CSLs and their characteristics, while professional archaeologists and anthropologists provide a variety of approaches for better understanding, protecting, and preserving them. The chapters present overwhelming evidence in the form of oral tradition, historic documentation, ethnographies, and archaeological research that these important sites created and used by Indigenous peoples are deserving of protection. This work enables archaeologists, historians, conservationists, foresters, and members of the general public to recognize these important ritual sites. Contributors Nohham Rolf Cachat-Schilling Robert DeFosses James Gage Mary Gage Doug Harris Julia A. King Lucianne Lavin Johannes (Jannie) H. N. Loubser Frederick W. Martin Norman Muller Charity Moore Norton Paul A. Robinson Laurie W. Rush Scott M. Strickland Elaine Thomas Kathleen Patricia Thrane Matthew Victor Weiss