Since its 2010 inception, SIAP has holistically pursued study of all human activity on a largely undeveloped 60-acre island in Bermuda and its surrounding waters to better understand this significant Atlantic colonial outpost's history. SIAP's 25+ sites reflect famous "firsts" as well as historically fugitive peoples and activities. This talk surveys how SIAP's widely ranging sites facilitate a better understanding of Bermudians' early settlement and continuous adaptation to change across more than fourteen generations. SIAP's agricultural, maritime, commercial, medical, military, and industrial sites speak simultaneously to intimate multiracial dynamics and global integration, the benefits and costs of intense maritime engagement, and human transformations of marine and terrestrial environments. As a well-preserved microcosm of larger Bermuda, Smith's Island's archaeology tests and expands upon broad historical studies through architectural and material evidence and a longue duree approach to multiracial and multicultural ethnogenetic evolution in England's oldest colony,

Bermuda’s settlement occurred at the dawn of 17th century English colonization of the Atlantic world. This paper elaborates on findings at Smallpox Bay on Smith's Island from excavation between 2013 and 2024 focused on Moore’s Town, Bermuda’s first but short- lived 1612 capital. Material uncovered at this site situates Bermuda’s inception at the intersection of colonial, architectural, and trans-Atlantic histories. Analysis of recently recovered architectural features and building material sheds light on how colonizers cultivated a creolized, built environment. Evidence reveals contrasts in building techniques to those used at contemporaneous English settlements such as Jamestown. I argue that this marks the genesis of distinctly Bermudian architectural forms – resulting in a vernacular hybridity that deeply reflects, and indeed relies on, Bermuda’s unique natural resources.

In 1612, Virginia Company settlers erected the first houses in Bermuda using traditional English wattle and daub construction techniques. SIAP archaeologists’ recent recovery of exceptionally hard early daub in a 1690s context suggests that these early structures survived far longer than in other colonies. This paper reviews how and why Bermudian daub was exceptionally durable: Bermuda’s limited supply of clay and abundance of limestone led builders to create mortar-like daub. In their haste to quickly erect houses, their ‘daub’ included lime clasts, reminiscent of Roman concrete, which similarly imparted self-healing properties. Through analyzing SIAP samples and reverse-engineering them mechanically and chemically using Bermudian materials, we have deduced the approximate formula that early settlers used and performed modern testing on trial samples. We plan an experimental archaeology firing of a limekiln (the first in 40 years) to better understand traditional Bermudian building materials and early settlers' construction methods and architecture.

Named for a primitive oven cut into bedrock, Oven Site is demarked on Richard Norwood’s 1616 and 1663 surveys of Bermuda as the home of the captain of nearby Smith’s Fort. The household was abandoned soon after 1707, when a probate inventory was taken of Captain Boaz Sharpe’s possessions. Between 2010 and 2017, excavations revealed the lost history of the century-long occupation of one of Bermuda’s earliest sites, focusing on the mansion’s detached kitchen. The two phases of kitchen occupation provide material evidence of an enslaved Native American family, their domestic activities, and exploitation of marine resources. Excavation of an adjoining water cistern in 2017 revealed evidence of an earthfast building and extensive deposits of late 17th-century faunal and domestic artifacts. A 2023 ground penetrating radar survey (among the first in Bermuda) has identified clusters of geological anomalies that suggest the main household’s location and orientation for future excavation.

During the 19th century, the Smallpox Bay site was utilized as a location to separate healthy soldiers of the British Regiment from those infected by an outbreak of yellow fever. An analysis of the material culture left behind by these soldiers and their family members sheds light on their lives in quarantine and their roles within the army. Additionally, letters from the Bermuda Archives detail how people understood health and the transmission of disease. The study of this site provides a unique perspective on how an epidemic response was formulated based on the understanding of disease during that time.

Public participation and accessibility have been a key component of the Smith's Island Archaeology Project since 2012. The importance of Bermudian volunteers goes far beyond merely recruiting extra sets of hands. Partnering with the Bermuda National Trust, SIAP employs multiple strategies of public participation; ranging from real-time blogging, hosting school tours, and training local volunteers in field and lab work. Involvement in researching Bermuda's past has encouraged locals to explore their own heritage. Because many Bermudians are not formally taught their own history in school, SIAP has become an important constituent of Bermudian self-discovery. SIAP has inspired at least three participants to pursue archaeology careers, and can serve as a model for multi-fronted community heritage engagement.

There are few places in the early-modern Atlantic World where humans encountered an entirely new ecosystem. The isolated, uninhabited mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda is one such rare case. Accounts from sixteenth-century Iberian sailors who first visited Bermuda describe an environment veritably teeming with life, and the Virginia-bound settlers shipwrecked there in 1609 similarly marveled at nature’s bounty. Thanks to high rates of preservation, SIAP has uncovered vast amounts of animal remains that provide a unique window into Bermuda’s biosphere from the early 1600s onwards. Archaeological evidence from the Moore’s Town and Oven Sites can chart the ecological changes wrought by Bermuda’s first settlers and their descendants. Assemblages from two large pits filled in the 1690s reveal that Bermuda’s native fish then being caught were far larger and older than any today, and that marine animals constituted a far larger share of the Anglo-Bermudian diet compared with other Anglo-American colonial populations.