Magunco Hill, Ashland, Massachusetts

The site at Magunco Hill in Ashland, Massachusetts was first discovered by the Public Archaeology Laboratory Inc. of Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1995. Subsequent excavations were carried out by the Center for Cultural and Environmental History (now the Fiske Center for Archaeological Research) between 1997 and 1998. These excavations revealed the remains of a dry laid, stone foundation that is believed to have supported a structure that served as the meeting house for the community. Contrary to documentary evidence that suggests that the Magunkaguog lands were abandoned by their Native inhabitants after the property was sold to Harvard College in 1715, archaeological evidence points to a continuing Native community until at least the mid-eighteenth. A mixture of European and Native manufactured items were recovered from the site. These include the remains of a Fulham stoneware jar and other ceramics whose manufacture dates cluster between 1675 and 1725. A large assemblage of metal artifacts was also recovered including furniture hardware and possible curtain rings, horse hardware, a collection of small thimbles, iron kettle fragments and a large number of iron tools.

The site also contains strong evidence of the continuing importance of Native lithic traditions such as the heating of quartz to extract crystals and the use of those crystals for cosmological purposes. The only hearth found on the site was found outside the foundation and quartz debitage recovered from the feature indicates that it was being used to heat quartz cobbles to extract crystals. Other evidence of the continuing importance of Native lithic technology comes in the form of flint and quartz gunflints that the late Barbara Luedtke analyzed. These gunflints exhibit evidence of fine edge retouch that Luedtke asserted was indicative of Native curation of prized materials that was not evident on European gunflints that she had examined.

Overall the results suggest that the site at Magunco Hill served as the meeting house for the community. The presence of European manufactured goods is interpreted as the material trappings retained by the Native inhabitants of Magunkaquag for the occasional visits of John Eliot or Daniel Gookin, while other items, such as the thimbles, suggest the dwelling may have also served as a school for the education of young Native women. Despite the presence of these items of European manufacture and their possible connection to attempts by Eliot and Gookin to educate the Natives of Magunkaquag in the ways of the English, lithic evidence points to the continuing power of Native identity in terms of technology and religion. The latter is supported by the recovery of quart crystals from three of the four corners of the foundation; a practice with deep roots in Native cosmology.