Westin Archaeology acknowledge that Stone Ridge, New York, is located on the ancestral homelands of the Esopus people, a Munsee-speaking band of the Lenape (Delaware) Nation. For thousands of years before European colonization, the Esopus lived, farmed, hunted, and built community along the waterways and fertile lands of what is now Ulster County, including the Esopus Creek and Rondout Valley. We recognize the violence, displacement, and broken treaties that forced the Esopus and other Lenape peoples from their homelands, including the Esopus Wars of the 1600s. Today, their descendants live on as members of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community in Wisconsin, the Delaware Nation and Delaware Tribe of Indians in Oklahoma, and Munsee communities in Ontario, Canada.

As a company dedicated to the practice and preservation of cultural heritage and as an archaeologist studying culture, this acknowledgement holds particular significance. The material record of this land and all lands—its artifacts, settlement sites, and landscapes—is not simply data to be excavated and interpreted; it is the tangible heritage of living peoples with ongoing connections to this place. Archaeology has a complicated history of studying Indigenous pasts without Indigenous consent or collaboration, treating ancestral belongings and even human remains as objects of science rather than as heritage. Acknowledging whose land this is reminds us that the deep history embedded in this region belongs first to the descendants of those who made it, and that ethical archaeological practice requires partnership, consultation, and respect for Indigenous knowledge and sovereignty over their own cultural heritage.

This acknowledgement is offered with respect and gratitude. Westin Archaeology is committed to honoring the enduring relationship between Indigenous peoples and this land, to educating ourselves and our community about its history, and to supporting Indigenous communities today.