Indians of the Chesapeake

This Fall I will be teaching a course on Chesapeake Indians at Villa Julie College in Stevenson, Baltimore County, Maryland. I have taught a class in Historical Archaeology at Villa College each Spring for the past three years. This will be a new course...I'm currently putting it together. I expect to use Helen Rountree and Randolph Turner's (2002) Before and After Jamestown: Virginia's Powhatans and their Predecessors (University Press of Florida) as a text.

As several of us pointed out in Nancy McConaty's recent article in the Independent, we don't know a great deal about the Chesapeake region's indigenous populations at the time of Contact/Invasion. Hopefully, our research at Port Tobacco will contribute to that growing body of data, even if the deposits we examine predate the historic period by several centuries.

For readers in the northern part of Maryland who might be interested in the Villa Julie course, here are some of the specifics. For administrative details, visit the College's site: www.vjc.edu.

HIST-311-E1 Topics: Indians of the Chesapeake
Offered at Villa Julie College by Jim Gibb
Fall 2008
Wednesday, 7:00-9:50PM
Room TBA
Course Description
Indians in Maryland claim great antiquity. Archaeologists agree, documenting at least 12,000 years of aboriginal occupation of the greater Chesapeake region. This course surveys the extensive archaeological evidence, introducing students to the theories, methods, and findings of archaeological research. Students will develop analytical skills and knowledge of both the ancient past and the troubled present of local Native Americans.

Jim