Living Stonework
VENI Grant | Project Leader: Dr. Eric Johnson | 2025-2028. The project 'Living Stonework: Indigenous Ceremonial Landscapes, Colonial Palimpsests, and Transatlantic Collaborative Archaeology', a collaboration with the Ramapough Munsee-Lenape Nation of New Jersey, will use recent advancements in LiDAR technology to help identify and preserve ceremonial stone landscapes. The project will also examine Dutch and American colonial archives for valuable context while rethinking the heritage of New Netherland today.
For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples of eastern North America have used stone landscapes for ceremonial purposes. However, since the beginning of European colonization, many sacred stone constructions have been destroyed, repurposed, or forgotten. As a result, archaeologists are only now beginning to recognize the significance of these important sites.