The following is an excerpt from the Provincetown Independent’s Sabina Lum article of July 18, 2020: Apparently the image on the town seal was inspired by Bradford’s accounting in Mourt’s Relation. “We know from the Indian Neck ossuary and artifacts that people lived here for 10,000 years,” says Jaffe, museum coordinator. “It’s important for us to learn about that.” The 23 artifacts in the case are just a small fraction of the museum’s collection, which includes about 300 items, all from Wellfleet. “What this tells us,” says Jaffe, “is that this place was very, very populated.”

The potential for a Wampanoag exhibit has long existed at the museum. “I noticed this glass case jumbled with artifacts,” Jaffe says of her first look around two years ago. “I didn’t know anything about them, but I could tell they weren’t well displayed. Archaeologists told me they were 2,000, 3,000, even 10,000 years old, and people started to get interested.”

A grant from Mass Humanities enabled the museum to hire a Wampanoag historian and an archaeologist.

The new exhibit goes beyond Wampanoag culture. It also examines the arrival of the pilgrims through a new lens, as 2020 marks the 400th anniversary of their landing and settlement. The broader goal, according to Jaffe, is to “bring a more enlightened perspective on the history of indigenous people of what is now Wellfleet.”

Read the full article in the Provincetown Indpendent here