Resituating the Hand site (44SN22): A collections-based reassessment of a Woodland principal town in Southeastern Virginia

Abstract

This paper describes the results of a multi-year reassessment of the Hand site (44SN0022) archeological collection. The Hand site, located on the Nottoway River in southeastern Virginia, was intensively excavated in the 1960s, revealing a complex Native American settlement at least three and a half acres in size. While prior researchers emphasized the site's ties to colonial actors and suggested the site's primary occupation dated to the turn of the seventeenth century, this reexamination instead demonstrates the site's primary components date to the Middle Woodland II (800–900 CE) and the Late Woodland (1200–1300 CE). Rather than a place of colonial encounter, this paper suggests the Hand site is better understood as a prominent Middle to Late Woodland principal town, where domestic and civic-ceremonial life regularly intersected.