Arrowheads, Native Americans, and Henry David Thoreau

A Mariposa Presentation by Duncan Caldwell

Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher, best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience", an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.  

During Thoreau's lifetime, the Native American population was well on its way to being reduced from 10 million to 300,000 in 1900. Scholars have made the case that Thoreau seems to have shared the demeaning views of Native Americans that characterized the dominant culture of his day. Prehistorian and Thoreau scholar Duncan Caldwell disagrees.

In this lecture evocative of Thoreau's own persuasive style, Duncan moves from an examination of Thoreau's life-long interest in prehistoric Native American artifacts to a demonstration of how collecting them affected his views of the  natural world, time, and Native American people. It reveals how "arrowheading," as Thoreau called his passion for artifact hunting, changed his opinion that the "American Race" was doomed to a belief that it would endure. The presentation will show that Thoreau died with a cry against the persecution of Native Americans on his lips.

Duncan Caldwell is known for his work on rock art, human evolution, Thoreau, and sub-contemporary African practices and history. His research has been published in RES: Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics (published by the Peabody Museum at Harvard and the University of Chicago Press), Antiquity, American Antiquity, African Arts (published by UCLA through the MIT Press), The Journal of Archaeological Science, Rock Art Research, Art Rupestre, Arts & Cultures (published by the Barbier-Mueller Museum), Préhistoire, Art et Sociétés, Anthropologie: International Journal of Human Diversity and Evolution, and other journals.

His current projects involve archeological research and conservation projects in France, Jordan, Korea, and New England.

Duncan also lectures annually in the doctoral module of the “Man, Nature and Society” Department of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in France, is the representative of the main association for the study of rock art in northern France (GERSAR) to the world federation of such researchers (IFRAO). He is a  fellow of the Marine and Paleobiological Research Institute in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts. 

For more information, please visit www.duncancaldwell.com