New Books In Native American Studies

In The Place of Stone: Dighton Rock and the Erasure of America’s Indigenous Past (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Douglas Hunter examines the history of meanings, affinities, and petroglyph studies of Dighton Rock. First noticed by colonists in 1680, by the nineteenth century Massachusetts’ Dighton Rock was one of the most famous and contested artifacts of American antiquity. This forty-two ton boulder covered in petroglyphs has been the subject of endless speculation denying its Native American origins. Interpretations have included Vikings, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Lost Tribes of Israel, visitors from Atlantis, ancient Freemasons, and (today) the lost Portuguese explorer, Miguel Corte-Real. Hunter dissects almost four centuries of Dighton Rock’s misinterpretations to reveal its larger role in the colonization and the conceptualization of Native Americans. This sprawling study brings a fresh perspective to scientific racism, the rise of American archaeology and anthropology, the intellectual weapon