Research :: ARCHAEOLOGY LABORATORY :: Current Research :: Penelope Drooker

Two views of a 17th century smoking
pipe made of European metal,
probably by a Native American,
in a shape that echoes some
pottery pipes of the period.
NYSM A-1785.
Dann site (Seneca),
Monroe County, NY.

During the past two decades, I have been investigating late prehistoric, protohistoric, and early historical interaction patterns in eastern North America, with a particular emphasis on changes instigated by the early European presence on the continent. Some important findings to date have included:

The pivotal role of the central Ohio Valley in sixteenth and seventeenth century exchange networks originating as far afield as the St. Lawrence Valley and the Carolina-Florida coast;
An apparent change in regional social organization in the central Ohio Valley during the protohistoric period, from a relatively independent community-based system to a multisettlement alliance or confederacy;
Evidence that the residents of at least two protohistoric Fort Ancient sites in southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky interacted directly -- and peacefully -- with Iroquoian peoples of western New York and southern Ontario during the late sixteenth century, in stark contrast to little contact immediately previous and to hostile relationships recorded during the following two centuries; and conversely,
Evidence that the residents of an Iroquoian site in southwestern New York around A.D. 1600 were part of that same exchange network, with strong social relations to people living up to hundreds of miles to their southwest, northwest, and east.

Selected Publications

Drooker, Penelope B.
1995 Asking Old Museum Collections New Questions: Protohistoric Fort Ancient Social Organization and Interregional Interaction. Museum Anthropology 19(3):1-16.

Drooker, Penelope B.
1996  Madisonville Metal and Glass Artifacts: Implications for Western Fort Ancient Chronology and Interaction Networks.  Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 21(2):1-46.

Drooker, Penelope B.
1997  The View from Madisonville: Protohistoric Western Fort Ancient Interaction Patterns. Memoir 31. Museum of Anthropology Publications, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Drooker, Penelope B.
1998  Zoom-In to Madisonville. CD-ROM to accompany The View from Madisonville: Protohistoric Western Fort Ancient Interaction Patterns. Memoir 31. Museum of Anthropology Publications, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Drooker, Penelope B.
1999  Exotic Ceramics at Madisonville: Implications for Interaction. In Taming the Taxonomy: Toward a New Understanding of Great Lakes Prehistory, edited by Ronald F. Williamson and Christopher M. Watts, pp. 71-81. Eastend Books, in association with The Ontario Archaeological Society, Toronto.

Drooker, Penelope B.
2000   Madisonville Focus Revisited: Reexcavating Fort Ancient from Museum Collections. In Cultures Before Contact: The Late Prehistory of the Ohio Region, edited by Robert Genheimer. Ohio Archaeological Council, Cincinnati.

Drooker, Penelope B., and C. Wesley Cowan
2001  The Dawn of History and the Transformation of the Fort Ancient Cultures of the Central Ohio Valley. In Societies in Eclipse: Archaeology of the Eastern Woodlands Indians, A.D. 1400-1700, edited by David S. Brose, C. Wesley Cowan, and Robert C. Mainfort, Jr., pp. 83-106. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D. C.

Drooker, Penelope B.
2002  The Ohio Valley, 1550-1750: Patterns of Social Coalescence and Dispersal. In Early Social History of Southeastern Indians, edited by Robbie Ethridge and Charles Hudson, pp. 115-133. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson.

Drooker, Penelope B.
2004  Pipes, Leadership, and Interregional Interaction in Protohistoric Midwestern and Northeastern North America. In Smoking and Culture: The Archaeology of Tobacco Pipes in Eastern North America, edited by Sean M. Rafferty and Rob Mann, pp. 73-123. The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

Drooker, Penelope B.
2007 European Trade Goods. Chapter completed for volume on the Ripley site, Chautauqua County, New York, edited by Sarah Neusius. New York State Museum Publications, Albany, New York.

Drooker, Penelope B.
2007  Notes on Two Noded Pipes from West Virginia. West Virginia Archeologist 54(1&2):47-50 [for 2002].

Maslowski, Robert F., and Penelope B. Drooker
2009  Fort Ancient Adaptations in the Mid Ohio Valley. For planned special volume of Virginia Archaeology Quarterly Bulletin, edited by David N. Fuerst (under review).