The National Park Service today announced the decision by its Keeper of the National
Register of Historic Places that Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts is eligible for listing
in the National Register for its significance as a traditional cultural property and as a
historic and archeological property.
The Keeper made a determination that the Sound is
eligible based on:
- its associations with the ancient and historic period Native American exploration
and settlement of Cape Cod and the Islands, and with the central events of the
Wampanoags’ stories of Maushop and Squant/Squannit; - its association with Maushop and Squant/Squannit;
- being a significant and distinguishable entity integral to Wampanoags’ folk life
traditions, practices, cosmology, religion, material culture, foodways, mentoring and
narratives; and - the important cultural, historical and scientific information it has yielded and/or
may be likely to yield through archeology, history and ethnography about access to
resources, patterns of settlement, mobility and land use prior to and after 6,000 years
ago as a result of the inundation of the Sound. It is also important for the
significant information it provides and can provide about the cultural practices and
traditions of the Native Americans of Cape Cod and the Islands in relationship with
other peoples since ancient times.