Fort Laurens was erected on the banks of the Tuscarawas River in Ohio in the fall of 1778 as the planned first step to secure the Western Frontier in the Revolutionary War. This book is the first complete account of the fort's history, drawing on all the documentary evidence available and placing it in the context of the larger struggle for independence.

Presenting examples from the fields of critical race studies, cultural resource management, digital archaeology, environmental studies, and heritage studies, Trowels in the Trenches demonstrates the many different ways archaeology can be used to contest social injustice. This volume shows that activism in archaeology does not need to involve radical or explicitly political actions but can be practiced in subtler forms as a means of studying the past, informing the present, and creating a better future. In case studies that range from the Upper Paleolithic period to the modern era and span the globe, contributors show how contemporary economic, environmental, political, and social issues are manifestations of past injustices. These essays find legacies of marginalization in art, toys, houses, and other components of the material world. As they illuminate inequalities and forgotten histories, these case studies exemplify how even methods such as 3D modeling and database management can be activist when they are used to preserve artifacts and heritage sites and to safeguard knowledge over generations. While the archaeologists in this volume focus on different topics and time periods and use many different practices in their research, they all seek to expand their work beyond the networks and perspectives of modern capitalism in which the discipline developed. These studies support the argument that at its core, archaeology is an interdisciplinary research endeavor armed with a broad methodological and theoretical arsenal that should be used to benefit all members of society. Contributors: |Christopher P. Barton | Stephen A. Brighton | Tiffany Cain | Stacey L. Camp | Kasey Diserens Morgan | Yamoussa Fane | Daouda Keita | Nathan Klembara | Ora V. Marek-Martinez | Christopher N. Matthews | Bernard K. Means | Vinod Nautiyal | Kyle Somerville | Moussa dit Martin Tessougue | Kerry F. Thompson | Joe Watkins | Andrew J. Webster

Told from the viewpoint of the Indians, this account of Indian-white relations during the second half of the eighteenth century is an exciting addition to the historical literature of Pennsylvania.From the beginning, when the white traders followed the first Shawnee hunters into Pennsylvania, until the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, the region's history was the history of the relationship between the Indians and the whites. For nearly half a century the Indian maintained a precarious hold upon Western Pennsylvania by playing one white faction off against the anther, first the French against the British, then the British against the Americans.