Can archaeologists determine what the first Thanksgiving probably looked like, in terms of tables, chairs, plates and utensils?
Unfortunately, our earliest archaeological and documentary evidence for Plymouth comes from the 1630s. Therefore we have to use our imaginations about what happened in 1621. The only knowledge we have of the 1621 harvest event comes from a letter that colonist Edward Winslow sent back to his friends in England. It describes a good harvest where the governor sent four men out to hunt fowl. The group of surviving colonists was joined by 90 Wampanoag men, who hunted enough deer to feed the whole group. That’s about all we know. Knowing that only one ship had arrived from England, there probably was not a large amount of furniture. They’d only been here 10 months or so. The colonists probably improvised furniture out of barrels and boards. We know from later probate inventories that they had dishes made of earthenware, wood, and pewter. We’ve found early spoons and knives, but forks do not turn up in records or on sites until the early eighteenth century. Describe the clothing worn by Pilg
