Uncovering the Lake George Battlefield

Speaker: Siobhan M. Hart, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Chair Anthropology Department, Skidmore College
Location: Rye Free Reading Room, Rye, NY (Virtual)
Date: April 17, 2025
Time: 6:00 pm to 7:15 pm

The Lake George Battlefield State Park (Warren County, New York) contains the remains of twenty-five years of military action and encampment spanning the French and Indian War through the American Revolution. Within the park are the intact remains of notable battles and evidence of the daily life of soldiering in the 18th century. In 1776, the area became home to the largest smallpox hospitals in the American colonies, with several thousand smallpox patients brought and cared for here. This presentation will discuss past and current archaeological research at the Lake George Battlefield State Park and a shift towards the use of non-invasive geophysical techniques, limited excavation, and existing collections research.

Siobhan Hart (she/her) is an anthropologist and professor at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Her work is concerned with using material culture, place, and community collaboration to address inequities in the world today. As an anthropological archaeologist, she is interested in what we know about the past, how we know it, and how it matters to people today. She is curator of the Skidmore Archaeological Collection and author of the book Colonialism, Community, and Heritage in Native New England (2019, University Press Florida).