Mansion Inn is a well-known Native American cremation burial site in Wayland dating back to circa 3,500 years ago. As part of her dissertation research, Dena Dincauze, a Concord native and graduate student in Anthropology at Harvard University, took on the formidable task of studying the artifacts and materials recovered from this important site that was dug in a non-scientific way by avocational archaeologists and local residents. This seminal work began a remarkable career as an important authority in New England Archaeology.
Sponsored by the Wayland Historical Commission.
About the speaker:
Tonya Largy is an archaeological consultant specializing in the analysis of plant and animal remains from archaeological sites. She is also associated with the Zooarchaeology Laboratory, Peabody Museum, Harvard University.
Tonya has been active in Wayland archaeology since the late 1970’s and was a co-founder of the Wayland Archaeology Group, an arm of the Wayland Historical Commission of which she is a member. Tonya has been involved in numerous excavations in the Sudbury/Assabet/Concord River basin since that time. She also has extensive field experience in the broader northeast with the National Park Service. As a staff member of the Zooarchaeology Laboratory at Harvard, she also worked at the ancient site of Harappa in Pakistan.
Tonya holds a B.A. in Anthropology from UMass Boston, an M.A. in Anthropology from UMass Amherst, and an M.S.W. from Fordham University in New York.