Expeditions of the Eastern Region
Every year each office of The Archaeological Conservancy offers a tour that highlights this region’s unique history. In the Eastern region we have a long and complicated history, which includes Native American groups that have called this area home for thousands of years to the earliest European colonial settlements, to battlefields that defined the United States. Currently we offer three engaging and adventuresome trips that offer participants a taste of this landscape: Iroquoia tour, The Colonial Chesapeake tour, and the French and Indian War tour.
Our tour for this year is the much loved Colonial Chesapeake Tour. The tour is just around the corner now and we can’t wait to meet all this year’s participants. This excursion highlights all of the major colonial sites in Maryland and Virginia, including Historic Annapolis, Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, Mount Vernon, and more. In addition, we make sure to include as much archaeology as we can with a visit to Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory, where many of the artifacts from Maryland’s sites are curated and studied, and a trip to the site of the Kippax Plantation, now a Conservancy Preserve. The Chesapeake region is rich with historic and prehistoric sites and is considered the birthplace of the nation.
Our second tour takes participants to the Finger Lakes region of New York, the home of the nations that comprise the Iroquois Confederacy, or the Haudenosaunee, which is made up of the Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Mohawk, and the Tuscarora. In the past few years we have focused on preserving the remains of some of the great village sites associated with these groups, including sites like Smoke’s Creek, Power House, and Tram. On the Iroquoia Tour, we visit some of these Preserves as well as the National Historic site of Ganondagan which contains a completely reconstructed longhouse, and the Iroquois Indian Museum at Howe’s Cave. Other attractions include exhibits at the Rochester Museum and Science Center and the New York State Museum at Albany which contain artifacts from some of the state’s most well-known and significant archaeological sites.
Our third tour takes advantage of the many sites in the area connected to the French and Indian War. The trip takes us through New York, Pennsylvania, and just into Maryland to see the many forts associated with the conflict, including Fort Ticonderoga, Fort Pitt, and others. We also highlight the role of Native Americans in the conflict between British American and New France with visits to Ganondagan and Howe’s Cave Iroquois Museum.
In addition to these options, we are currently working on adding a new tour that would highlight the archaeology of southern Ontario and Quebec, as our neighbors to the north have no shortage of fascinating historic and prehistoric sites. This area contains a unique cultural landscape due to the interplay of Native, British, and French cultures.
These tours demonstrate that there is plenty for the history and archaeology lover to see in the East, and we hope to see some of you folks on our future tours!
More information about our current offering of tours, and fall tours are just around the corner!
