Claimed by many to be the most frequently documented artifact in
American archeology, Dighton Rock is a forty-ton boulder covered in
petroglyphs in southern Massachusetts. First noted by New England
colonists in 1680, the rock's markings have been debated endlessly
by scholars and everyday people alike on both sides of the
Atlantic. The glyphs have been erroneously assigned to an array of
non-Indigenous cultures: Norsemen, Egyptians, Lost Tribes of
Israel, vanished Portuguese explorers, and even a prince from
Atlantis.
In this fascinating story rich in personalities and memorable
characters, Douglas Hunter uses Dighton Rock to reveal the long,
complex history of colonization, American archaeology, and the
conceptualization of Indigenous people. Hunter argues that
misinterpretations of the rock's markings share common motivations
and have erased Indigenous people not only from their own history
but from the landscape. He shows how Dighton Rock for centuries
drove ideas about the original peopling of the Americas, including
Bering Strait migration scenarios and the identity of the "Mound
Builders." He argues the debates over Dighton Rock have served to
answer two questions: Who belongs in America, and to whom does
America belong?