The Archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast 9781487587970

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PRAISE FOR THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE ATLANTIC NORTHEAST

“In this book, Betts and Hrynick take a much-needed historical processual approach to the archaeology of the North Atlantic. Bringing together cross-border research, their work illustrates effectively how people, objects, and ideas were integrated over this vast landscape without losing sight of the region’s cultural diversity and local histories. In critically evaluating models of cultural discontinuity, the authors are willing to challenge entrenched archaeological narratives. Importantly, Betts and Hrynick take seriously the implications of archaeological research for Wabanaki peoples today.” – Katherine Patton, University of Toronto

“The Archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast is a seminal contribution to the field of archaeology. This comprehensive volume should be the foundation for continuing efforts to build on large anthropological questions, while acknowledging local variation in the past of the Atlantic area. This will be an important resource for teaching archaeology in the region and should also be of interest to amateur archaeologists and others.” – Mikael Haller, St. Francis Xavier University

“This book offers a remarkable synthesis of the North Atlantic coastal region. It presents much-needed information on regions such as the Quebec Lower North Shore, PEI, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, while tying these areas together with Labrador, Newfoundland, and the Gulf of Maine. The authors make a compelling case for longterm cultural connections throughout all of these regions. In short, it is a remarkable achievement.” – Jess Robinson, University of Vermont and State Archaeologist of Vermont

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THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE ATLANTIC NORTHEAST MATTHEW W. BETTS and M. GABRIEL HRYNICK

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press 2021 Toronto Buffalo London utorontopress.com Printed in the U.S.A. ISBN 978-1-4875-8795-6 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4875-8794-9 (paper)

ISBN 978-1-4875-8796-3 (EPUB) ISBN 978-1-4875-8797-0 (PDF)

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written consent of the publisher – or in the case of photocopying, a licence from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: The archaeology of the Atlantic northeast / Matthew W. Betts and M. Gabriel Hrynick. Names: Betts, Matthew W., 1974– author. | Hrynick, M. Gabriel, 1988– author. Description: Includes index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200409255 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200417150 | ISBN 9781487587956   (hardcover) | ISBN 9781487587949 (softcover) | ISBN 9781487587963 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781487587970  (PDF) Subjects: LCSH: Atlantic Provinces – Antiquities. | LCSH: Atlantic Coast (Canada) – Antiquities. | LCSH:   North Atlantic Region – Antiquities. | LCSH: Québec (Province) – Antiquities. | LCSH: Maine – Antiquities. |   LCSH: Atlantic Provinces – History. | LCSH: Atlantic Coast (Canada) – History. | LCSH: North Atlantic   Region – History. | LCSH: Québec (Province) – History. | LCSH: Maine – History. Classification: LCC FC2011 .B48 2021 | DDC 971.5/00909 – dc23

We welcome comments and suggestions regarding any aspect of our publications – please feel free to contact us at [email protected] or visit us at utorontopress.com. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders; in the event of an error or omission, please notify the publisher. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

CONTENTS List of Illustrations   vii List of Text Boxes   xi Artist Statement   XIII melissa labrador

Foreword  xv

donald soctomah

Foreword  XVII david black

Acknowledgements  XIX CHAPTER 1: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE ATLANTIC NORTHEAST   1 CHAPTER 2: THE CHANGING ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE OF THE ATLANTIC NORTHEAST   24 CHAPTER 3: THE FIRST PEOPLES OF THE ATLANTIC NORTHEAST   41 CHAPTER 4: THE PALAEOINDIAN PERIOD (CA. 13,000 TO 9000 CAL BP)   51 CHAPTER 5: THE EARLY MARITIME ARCHAIC PERIOD (9500 TO 5500 CAL BP)   83 CHAPTER 6: THE LATE MARITIME ARCHAIC PERIOD (5500 TO 3500 CAL BP)   107 CHAPTER 7: THE TRANSITIONAL ARCHAIC AND EARLY WOODLAND PERIODS (4000 TO 2200 CAL BP)   144 CHAPTER 8: THE ARCTIC CULTURES OF NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR (4200 TO 500 CAL BP)   170 CHAPTER 9: THE BOREAL WOODLAND (CA. 3000 TO 550 CAL BP) AND MIDDLE MARITIME WOODLAND PERIODS (CA. 2200 TO 1300 CAL BP)   189

CHAPTER 10: THE LATE MARITIME WOODLAND (1300 TO 550 CAL BP) AND LATE BOREAL WOODLAND PERIODS (1400 TO 550 CAL BP)   214 CHAPTER 11: THE PROTOHISTORIC PERIOD (CA. 500 TO 350 CAL BP)   251 CONCLUSION  280

Glossary  299 Bibliography  303 Index  371

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ILLUSTRATIONS 1.1 Map of the Atlantic Northeast  2 1.2 The massive Glidden Oyster Midden on the Damariscotta River, Maine  9 1.3 George Frederick Matthew in his office, Saint John, New Brunswick, ca. 1904 11 1.4 Excavations of a shell midden at Quarry Island, Merigomish Harbour, Nova Scotia, 1914  14 1.5 A river and lake system in Malay Falls, Nova Scotia, during a water draw-down 16 1.6 Alex Morrison, from Bear River First Nation, holds a projectile point while surveying for eroding Mi’kmaw sites on the South Shore of Nova Scotia, 2019  17 1.7 A chrono-cultural framework for the Atlantic Northeast  19 2.1 Map of terrestrial ecoregions in the Atlantic Northeast  26 2.2 Change in extent of glacial ice in the Atlantic Northeast over time  30–31 2.3 Relative sea level (shoreline elevation) on the Maritime Peninsula since deglaciation 34 2.4 Rates of relative land subsidence and uplift in Newfoundland and Labrador 35 3.1 An early twentieth-century Mi’kmaw basket  46 3.2 Donald Soctomah, the Passamaquoddy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, sharing knowledge about the Machias Bay petroglyphs  48 4.1 Key Palaeoindian sites and locations  54 4.2 Excavations in the Debert Palaeoindian site in Nova Scotia, 1960s  55 4.3 Sequence of biface forms from the Palaeoindian period  58 4.4 A representative fluted-point Palaeoindian toolkit from the Bull Brook site  60 4.5 A representative fluted-point Palaeoindian toolkit from the Debert site  61 4.6 Pièces esquillées from the Debert Palaeoindian site in Nova Scotia  63 4.7 The Manley fluted point, from the relict margin of the Champlain Sea in Vermont 69 4.8 Excavations of the Taxiway site, a Michaud/Neponset aged site in Auburn, Maine 73

4.9 Unifacial scrapers and bifaces from the Late Palaeoindian period Varney Farm site in Maine  77 5.1 Key Early Maritime Archaic sites and locations  85 5.2 A stratigraphic profile from excavations at the Bringham site, 1985  88 5.3 Early Maritime Archaic toolkit 1  89 5.4 Early Maritime Archaic toolkit 2  90 5.5 Ground nephrite spear point recovered by the vessel Muktuk, offshore from Little River, Nova Scotia  94 5.6 Artifacts from the L’Anse Amour burial mound  99 5.7 Map of the Aillik 2 site in Hamilton Inlet  102 6.1 Key Late Maritime Archaic sites and locations  109 6.2 Late Maritime Archaic longhouse structure at Aillik 2, Labrador  112 6.3 The Ramah chert quarry site from the air  113 6.4 A large flake from the Ramah chert quarry site  114 6.5 Late Maritime Archaic artifacts from the Rattlers Bight Complex  115 6.6 A Late Maritime Archaic longhouse feature at the Nulliak Cove site, Labrador 116 6.7 Port au Choix 3 burial objects from Locus II  123 6.8 Artifacts from the Cow Point cemetery  128 6.9 Late Maritime Archaic ground stone woodworking gouges and celts from Howland Reservoir, Maine  129 6.10 Slate semi-lunar knife  134 6.11 Unilaterally barbed bayonet  135 6.12 Whale effigy and semi-lunar knife from lower Mersey River  136 7.1 Key Transitional Archaic and Early Woodland sites and locations  145 7.2 Various “broadspear” bifaces from the Hirundo site in north-central Maine  146 7.3 Susquehanna axe collected from lakes to the west of Millinocket, Maine  147 7.4 Susquehanna drills collected from lakes to the west of Millinocket, Maine 148 7.5 Terminal Archaic artifacts from intertidal sites in the West Isles, New Brunswick 152 7.6 Vinette I ceramic sherd recovered from Sebago Lake, Maine  161 7.7 Burial objects from the Augustine Mound  164 7.8 The Bristol-Shiktehawk biface cache  166 8.1 Key Paleo-Inuit and Inuit sites and locations  172 8.2 Generalized Groswater artifact assemblage from Phillip’s Garden East site  176 8.3 Phillip’s Garden West site, looking northeast  177 8.4 Groswater artifact assemblage from Phillip’s Garden West site  178

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8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 8.9 8.10 8.11 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9 9.10 9.11 9.12 9.13 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 10.8

Dorset bifaces from Phillip’s Garden  180 Dorset microblades from Phillip’s Garden  181 Dorset scrapers from Phillip’s Garden  182 Dorset endblades from Phillip’s Garden  183 Tiny Dorset soapstone polar bear effigies from Shuldum Island, Labrador  184 Inuit hunting technology from Labrador  186 Inuit semi-subterranean house floors at Double Mer Point, near Rigolet, Labrador 187 Key Middle Maritime Woodland and Boreal Woodland sites and locations  190 Large Middle Maritime Woodland processing midden at Port Joli, Nova Scotia 192 Small Middle Maritime Woodland near-interior shell midden at Port Joli, Nova Scotia  193 A Middle Maritime Woodland period house floor  194 Middle Maritime Woodland processing midden at Port Joli, Nova Scotia  195 Middle Maritime Woodland ceramic assemblage from Port Joli, Nova Scotia 200 Probable Middle Maritime Woodland lithic bifaces from Reversing Falls, Maine 201 A Middle Maritime Woodland bone harpoon head from Reversing Falls, Maine 202 Incised pebble found at Holt’s Point, New Brunswick  203 Middle Maritime Woodland clay-lined clam shells, or spark holders, from Port Joli, Nova Scotia  204 Middle Maritime Woodland sweathouse at Port Joli, Nova Scotia  205 A Boreal Woodland lithic artifact assemblage  209 Dentate ceramics from the Gould site  211 Key Late Maritime Woodland and Boreal Woodland sites and locations  217 The western end of a section through the Central Mound at the Weir site, Bliss Islands, New Brunswick  222 Late Maritime Woodland ceramics from Port Joli, Nova Scotia  230 A Late Maritime Woodland projectile point assemblage from Port Joli, Nova Scotia 232 A Late Maritime Woodland lithic assemblage from Port Joli, Nova Scotia  233 A Late Maritime Woodland scraper assemblage from Port Joli, Nova Scotia  234 In situ Washademoak multi-coloured chert at a quarry location, Washademoak Lake, New Brunswick  235 The Cape Porpoise dugout canoe, dating to approximately 660 cal BP  236

ILLUSTRATIONS

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10.9 A plan view of a Late Woodland period dwelling feature at the Devil’s Head site in Downeast Maine  237 10.10 A contemporary wigwam based on traditional knowledge, built by Todd Labrador (Acadia First Nation)  238 11.1 Key Protohistoric period archaeological sites and locations  252 11.2 One of the ship petroglyphs from Machias Bay, Maine  253 11.3 An early twentieth-century fishing stage in Newfoundland, similar to those used in the Protohistoric period  257 11.4 Beothuk pendants from the island of Newfoundland  260 11.5 Sixteenth-century copper pot from the burial of a young adult woman at Northport, Nova Scotia  269 11.6 A blue Protohistoric period trade bead recovered from the Devil’s Head site along the St. Croix River, Maine  270 11.7 A beaver mandible with European copper on a gravel and comminuted shell feature edge from the Protohistoric component of the Devil’s Head site  271 11.8 Protohistoric biface assemblage from Port Joli, Nova Scotia  273 11.9 Mi’kmaw women in front of their wigwams in Sydney, Nova Scotia, ca. 1857 279 12.1 A now-eroded archaeological site in Nova Scotia  288 12.2 The Pierce-Embree Palaeoindian point, recovered from an eroding context in southern Nova Scotia  289 12.3 Students and faculty measure the erosion of an archaeological site in Downeast Maine  290 12.4 Cultural resource management archaeological field work in the Atlantic Northeast 291 12.5 George Frederick Clarke, ca. 1960, holding one of the bifaces from the Bristol-Shiktehawk site, New Brunswick  296

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TEXT BOXES 1.1 Natural History Societies and the Archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast 10 1.2 Washed Out to Sea  12 2.1 Wabanaki Oral History, Post-glacial Environmental Change, and Two-Eyed Seeing  33 3.1 NAGPRA and Human Remains  44 4.1 Fluting a Projectile Point  52 4.2 The Term Palaeoindian 56 5.1 Relationships with Collectors and Avocational Archaeologists  92 5.2 The External South: The Early and Middle Archaic Neville-Stark Complex 96 6.1 Technology, Effigies, Teeth, and Late Maritime Archaic Identity and Spirituality 130–131 7.1 The Birchbark Canoe  150 10.1 Men’s and Women’s Spaces  239 11.1 From Canoe to Shallop  275–276

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ARTIST STATEMENT I have always had a connection to my surroundings. Whether I am in the forest beneath the Elder trees, or along the Ocean with the memories of time splashing against the shore. It is in that connection that I feel the memories of my Ancestors. When I walk on the land and come across a place that was used by my Ancestors, the voices of my Elders fill my ears. I can recall the stories shared, traditions passed down, and knowledge gathered through the years that can be found in these places. I can almost hear my Ancestors. From historic eel weirs, encampments, foot trails, and canoe routes, being near these places strengthen that connection. To know that the very soil I walk on or the water I paddle across was used in the same way by my Family, my People, my Ancestors many moons ago; that is an amazing thing. I was raised immersed in the traditions and culture and stories. I try to reflect those things in the work I do, whether it is with raw materials or acrylics on canvas. For our next generations, capturing that knowledge and sharing it, passing it along is as important as the preservation and protection of artifacts and culturally significant sites. Living in the district of Kespukwitk and knowing the history we have here, a continuation of time periods not broken up, gives me a sense of pride. We have such a culturally rich landscape, full of memory that through stories must be told. The background of the painting I have created for the cover of this book represents both the sunrise and sunset. The circle of days that are never-ending as they are life. The figure is loosely based on the petroglyph images of the female (the tear-drop shaped head is my signature design when I do these images). I chose the female as the Mi’kmaq, like many Indigenous nations, are matriarchal, following the female line, but also looking to the females to carry on many of the traditions for the generations to come. Plus, I see her as a keeper of the spark of life ... the one who carries that spark/ember in a shell for the duration of a trip by canoe and on foot from the interior of Kejimkujik to the coastal lands of Port Joli, where these artifacts have been found. The honour and responsibility placed on her are both tiring and exhilarating. There are seven layers of land represented, using the sacred number of seven. They also represent the seven directions (north, south, east, west, sky, earth, and self ).

The layers of land show the plants above the first layer of soil and the root structures of plant life through time, the shifting of time as the land moves in a motion only controlled by the land, the layers of soil, the energy in the soil, the memories and artifacts it contains, the ancestors that lay beneath the surface who allow us a pathway so that we can mentally, physically, spiritually move forward. The female wears one feather. This represents the eastern direction, where the sun rises. This is the birth of knowledge’s direction. Where dreams begin, where curiosity grows from. The colours on the female figure blend with the earth colours (soil colors) as we are connected to the earth in so many ways. We are walking ancestors. Melissa Labrador October 2020

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FOREWORD We know the Northeastern part of Turtle Island (North America) as the land of the Waponahkik, the People of the First Light. The Northeast was one of the first areas to be impacted by the movement of the European colonizers, but it is the least understood when it comes to Indigenous life. The complexities of early life in the Northeast are directly related to the changes in the climate and peoples’ reactions to those changes. In order to survive in the land of changes, the technology had to change along with the change in the species of animals and their sizes. One of the biggest impacts on the land and to Native people was the retreat of the glacier – for us Native people this was called the time that Nipon (Summer) battled Puniw (Winter). Many of the major events that marked Wabanaki history can be heard in many of the old stories of the Wabanaki. The intricacies of these stories show that the people had a spiritual connection to the land and the Universe. These connections can be heard in many stories, such as the battle with the mega-animals like the Castoroides, the giant beaver. With archaeology, some of these stories come to light, such as the finding of one of the largest incisors of the giant beaver in North America along Passamaquoddy Bay, or finding evidence of the short-faced bear in the homeland of the Peskotomuhkati in New Brunswick, Canada. Today, the land of the Wabanaki is separated by the international border of Canada and the United States, and in the past the archaeological story stopped at the border of both these countries. In the past, Indigenous people’s input was not considered but The Archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast contains sections on Indigenous communities and Indigenous archaeology and removes the artificial border. Donald Soctomah Peskotomuhkati October 2020

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FOREWORD It is my fervent hope that the passion that Matt Betts and Gabe Hrynick feel for the archaeological history of the Atlantic Northeast – expressed so ably in this volume – infects the next generations of archaeologists (whether professional, student, or avocational) and interested members of the public (of all ethnic groups), in this region and beyond. (It feels odd to endorse contagion in the midst of a pandemic, but such are the times in which I write these words.) I was caught up in Matt’s and Gabe’s enthusiasms more than a decade ago, at a time when my career was in the doldrums. I am thankful for the kindness and generosity with which they included me in their research, Matt in his E’se’get Archaeology Project in Nova Scotia and Gabe in his Maine Quoddy Project. And I appreciate the gentleness with which they have treated my attempts to understand something of the Indigenous past of this place. This is the first text to attempt a synthesis of the archaeology of Indigenous cultures in the entire Atlantic Northeast over 13,000 years of human occupation. Thus, this volume marks and crosses a threshold in the maturity of archaeological research in the region. It is a testament to what can be accomplished by scholars who take seriously their ethical responsibilities to create and disseminate knowledge and who are willing to collaborate broadly within and beyond academia. This is crucial in an area where so many groups have interests in the past, and where the material evidence of the past is so rapidly being destroyed. The aspect of their synthesis that most appeals to me is that Matt and Gabe have made continuity the default position in their interpretations. This is an important and courageous stance in a domain where, too frequently, the Indigenous past has been interpreted in terms of marginality (“the far Northeast”), difference (Ceramic period vs. Woodland period; prehistoric vs. historic), geographic and political discontinuities (the Gulf of St. Lawrence; the international boundary), and temporal discontinuities (the Great Hiatus; the Little Gap). Matt and Gabe have employed a historical lens through which to view their material, developing a series of cultural histories that are partly sequential, partly concurrent, sometimes intersecting, and sometimes divergent. In so doing, they address some of the larger questions of anthropological inquiry: What happens when hunter-gatherers occupy a place not previously inhabited by

humans? How do ethnically different hunting-gathering societies relate to one another when they occupy the same territory? How does the adoption of horticulture relate to the development of permanent villages? How do local social groups participate in larger-scale exchange and interaction systems? The Canadian journalist and author of the Revisionist History podcast, Malcolm Gladwell, recently stated that “in history everything is constantly being unsettled.” In this, archaeological history is no different from other forms of history. I both expect and hope that some readers will be unsettled by the cultural histories that Matt and Gabe present here, that some will dispute the interpretations they present, and that others will find, in The Archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast, histories that resonate with their identities, their aspirations, and their efforts. David Black October 2020

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We dedicate this book to our teachers, supervisors, colleagues, collaborators, and students, who have taught, guided, inspired, and challenged us throughout our careers. We owe a special debt of gratitude to the Indigenous communities, Elders, and knowledge keepers who have trusted us to collaboratively explore their history, and who have changed the way we view the past. To our families, friends, and loved ones, we owe more than is possible to describe in the space an acknowledgement allows. We thank the Canadian Museum of History, the University of New Brunswick, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Harrison McCain Foundation, the Busteed Publication Fund, and the University of Toronto Press for supporting the writing and publication of this book. Erin Ingram drew the detailed illustrations, and Mallory Moran and Alexander Honsinger produced the numerous maps. Those who provided images are too numerous to recount by name here, but all deserve special thanks and are credited in the text. Others generously shared their research and thoughts. Of these, Arthur Anderson, David Black, Bruce Bourque, Kenneth Holyoke, Tobias Hrynick, Karen Ryan, Donald Soctomah, and Arthur Spiess read and provided comments on full chapter drafts. Several anonymous peer reviewers provided detailed and valuable comments that improved this book. Carli Hansen and Robin Studniberg (editors) provided limitless patience and encouragement while we wrote and revised the draft, and Emma Warnken Johnson (copy editor) and Judith Earnshaw (proofreader) took on the challenging task of refining our prose. Matthew W. Betts and M. Gabriel Hrynick October 2020

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CHAPTER 1

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE ATLANTIC NORTHEAST

Introduction The Archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast is, at its core, a book of history. It represents our attempt to weave together over 13,000 years of archaeological evidence left behind by the ancestors of Indigenous people, who still live on their land, into an integrated and comprehensive cultural history. We view this project as a duty, one that we have increasingly felt compelled to perform as we have worked side-by-side with Indigenous collaborators, academics, and the general public. We define the Atlantic Northeast as an area encompassing the Canadian Atlantic provinces (Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick), Maine, and the Quebec Lower North Shore (figure 1.1). This geographically broad scope is unique in works that summarize the culture history of this area. Typically, archaeologists have tended to treat the Maritime Peninsula (most of Maine, the Maritimes, and the Gaspé Peninsula) as geographically and culturally separate from Newfoundland, Labrador, and the Quebec Lower North Shore. Furthermore, researchers have often perceived differences between Maine and the Maritime provinces (New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia, collectively). Until recently, there have been good reasons for this separation. The first is that, historically, the region is substantially underexplored compared to others, and in some locations the culture history (the who, what, when, and where of cultural occupation) is still being determined. In such a situation, it is more effective to separate cultural entities by place until a large dataset exists for comparison. The second reason is that the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and, to some extent, the Canadian/American border, have created a research divide as well as a political divide. American researchers have tended to work only in Maine (or Labrador), while those working in the Maritime provinces have tended to stay south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. At the same time, those researchers working in Newfoundland and Labrador have tended not to stray south. The final

FIGURE 1.1  Map of the Atlantic Northeast.

Map by Alexander Honsinger and Mallory Moran

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reason is that university archaeology programs, which are often small in the Atlantic Northeast, have been inclined to focus on the states or provinces in which they are located. In fact, currently, only Memorial University of Newfoundland has a program that covers archaeology on both sides of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is ironic that a region with some of the longest history of archaeological exploration in North America has never had a comprehensive and integrated text written about it. This situation has created a two-fold problem for people who live and work in this region. The first is a knowledge vacuum for non-specialists and specialists alike. It has specifically impacted the Indigenous people of the region, who seek to know and disseminate their own archaeology for social, cultural, economic, and political reasons. It also has created challenges for researchers, governments, and the general public who cannot easily access information on archaeological data. As we discuss in the conclusion, we also believe this knowledge vacuum is partially responsible for unscientific collecting by individuals who have no other way to explore the archaeological history of the region. The second facet of the problem is the ability to effectively teach archaeological and Indigenous history. Without accessible and comprehensive reading materials, training and engaging students and others interested in the archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast is very difficult. The lack of accessible reference materials has certainly hampered the amount of scholarship occurring in the region, and, based on our own experience, it has directly impeded the ability of universities and colleges to develop archaeological training programs. We hope that this book makes the Atlantic Northeast – and the archaeological research potential here – more accessible to ­students who will study this region themselves. This book is our attempt to fill this gap in North American archaeological literature. In the following pages we will try to comprehensively, but concisely, document the archaeological history of the entire region from Labrador to southern Maine. The volume spans the time from the earliest Indigenous occupations of the area, more than 13,000 years ago, to the first few centuries of European occupation, ending approximately 400 years ago. It is primarily a book about Indigenous archaeology (see below) and documents the arrival of Europeans principally from the lens of its impact on the original Indigenous inhabitants of the region.

An Archaeological History as We See It: Theoretical Framework and Biases of the Authors In the following pages, we present an archaeological history of the modern Innu, Inuit, Wabanaki, and Abenaki peoples and their ancestors, as well as the Beothuk and Dorset, who have inhabited the Atlantic coastlines of North America from the earliest times. THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE ATLANTIC NORTHEAST

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In recent years, archaeologists have recognized that when they excavate and interpret archaeological evidence, they are creating a historical narrative. In North America, this is often a history of Indigenous people; frequently it is a parallel and supporting narrative to already rich oral histories, or sometimes it is a new narrative that helps fill gaps in oral histories that have been truncated by the social and cultural disturbances of colonialism. When archaeology engages in writing history, it can never be taken lightly. We feel this great responsibility as we write this book. This volume is rooted in our longstanding collaboration with Indigenous peoples, particularly the Mi’kmaq and Peskotomuhkati, in the exploration of their own pasts. In recent years, Indigenous peoples have called for their historical narratives to be written by their own scholars and communities, an initiative we vigorously endorse. For example, the Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative (Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs 2015:5) has recently stated the “Mi’kmaq are the true and rightful authorities on Mi’kmaw culture, heritage and archaeology…. Our stories must be told by us, shared in the Mi’kmaw language, and expressed in Mi’kmaw ways.” We acknowledge and enthusiastically support such goals, and our community-based archaeology collaborations have been designed to build archaeological capacity and share archaeological data with these very goals in mind. Yet as archaeologists of primarily European ancestry, raised in Maine and the Atlantic provinces, and trained in a Western education system, we cannot write this book from the perspective of Indigenous people. Nor would we ever advocate for non-Indigenous archaeologists to attempt to write from an Indigenous perspective. In the following pages, we present archaeological data, and our interpretation of it will necessarily be a history as we see it, from our Western perspective and innate world view. We accept these inherent biases and their limitations, and try to be explicit about them. As the first comprehensive book written on the archaeological history of this region, we hope that it will be a sounding board and reference for others to write their own histories, from their own perspectives. There could be no greater result for our work, and that of the myriad archaeologists whose work we cite herein, than to inspire such new, and potentially more relevant, histories to be written. We also recognize that our theoretical exposure, training, and predispositions will inherently influence the volume. While we see the advantage of trying to suppress theoretical approaches in introductory textbooks, we believe that all interpretations and inferences are inherently layered with such biases. Therefore, rather than attempting the impossible goal of a theory-free synthesis, we will present a theoretically ambitious archaeological history of the region. Our approach to archaeology explicitly stresses historical precedent and historical connection (e.g., Betts 2009; Pauketat 2001a, 2001b, 2007; Sassaman 2010), rather

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than discontinuity and difference. We also stress relational approaches to archaeology that prioritize human perceptions and interactions with the perceived natural environment. As we have published previously (e.g., Betts 2009; Betts et al. 2012; Betts et al. 2015; Hrynick and Betts 2014, 2019), such historical and relational approaches must be data driven, and therefore must present a comprehensive treatment of material culture, settlement patterns, zooarchaeological and palaeoethnobotanical data, and climate histories. After many years of fruitful paradigmatic exploration, archaeology is returning to its roots in inferential culture history, a location that we have argued may be its first best destiny (Betts 2019). However, with this return comes a rejection of outdated evolutionism, diffusionism, and transmissionism in favour of a theoretically modern conceptualization of historical development and cultural change (e.g., Sassaman 2010:xiv–xvi). This new(ish) paradigm is sometimes called historical processualism (e.g., Pauketat 2001a, 2001b). Historical processualism maintains (in fact, demands) large-scale critical data analysis, description, typologies, and databases, recognizing that such data are the accumulated archaeological traces of human practices, which are necessary to develop critical inferences about human history. Our appeal to a critical return to the culture historical narrative may be somewhat at odds with our peers who have embraced the new “historicism” in archaeology, but as we outline below, we believe the two approaches are compatible (e.g., Betts 2009, 2019). As discussed by Sassaman (2010:xv), traditional culture history, which views archaeological cultures as “self contained, internally homogenous, and self-replicating forms of human organization,” is “a liability.” The issue with this approach is that it equates typological and stylistic differences with “culture” and “identity” rather than looking at patterns of action and practice in environmental and social context. In short, it doesn’t deal with what Pauketat (2010) calls the “processes of history,” or traditions that develop through recurring practices (Thomson 2014:246). Historical processualism is advantageous for creating culture histories because it “preserves the rigorous search for long-term diachronic patterning” (Fowles 2013:183), which is sometimes abandoned in the post-processual archaeologies that focus on lived experiences. Historical processualism dispenses with two holdovers from the old culture ­historical paradigm that remain (sometimes tacitly) prevalent in processual archaeology. This first is a general rejection of “social typologies” in the classification of cultures and societies (e.g., simple or complex, specialized or generalized, band or state, etc.) in preference for contingent histories and social descriptions (Fowles 2013:183). The second, related issue is the presumed unidirectional evolution of societies toward increasing complexity, a form of social evolutionism (Fowles 2013:183). Historical processualism, in focusing on contingent histories, in which

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humans are the agents of transmission and change, cannot presuppose such evolution. The Indigenous history of the Atlantic Northeast, we propose in this book, is best understood through a framework that does not expect directional evolutionary progression. What we appreciate about this approach is that, like processual archaeology, it tends to be data driven and inferential rather than theory driven and expository, and, embracing some post-processual critiques of processual archaeology, it places people as active agents in the process of culture making. While the material environment may place limitations or challenges on human practices, humans are always creatively negotiating the environment (e.g., Cobb 2014:217). Humans therefore are the centre of the change, and not climate, or resource availability. Indeed, from this vantage, technological developments are always viewed as creative solutions that themselves place new capacities and limits on human lifeways. As a cultural historical exercise, our goal with this book is to describe the “historical patterns of practice associated with [each] period” (Pauketat and Emerson 2008:169). This keeps the focus of the volume on the history of people, not of the material conditions they live in. As Cobb (2014:317) states, this makes the material record “not just about technology, economic function, or ecological adaptation … [but] also about performance, hegemony, identity and cosmology.” These are the very social practices that create a human social life, and a social history that we hope to recreate in this volume. For hunter-gatherers, the day-to-day, season-to-season, and year-to-year replication of subsistence routines forms a substantial part of their existence. These (often unconsciously) routinized practices form a rhythm of living, shared at multiple scales by close family members, local communities, and even regional societies. As proposed by Bentley (1987:36), group identities develop through the recognition (again often unconsciously) of such shared routines. These recurring, shared experiences may be intimately tied to the material conditions of existence (e.g., Bourdieu 1977:164), but they are nevertheless experienced and enacted socially (that is communally, not individually). It follows, then, that social identities develop through participating in the largely routine practices of everyday life that are exclusive to unique material and social environments (Bentley 1987:33; see also Bourdieu 1977:78). Using the material record of these shared routines (e.g., patterns in archaeological assemblages), and how they are shared at multiple scales, allows us to track how affinities and identities might have been structured in the past. In short, by tracking shared and recurring practices, via archaeological patterning, we can build better culture histories, which are more sensitive to lived experience and can participate in a historical analysis that sees “cultures” as living groups of people with deep

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histories that they themselves have created. Instead of focusing on stylistic differences in artifact assemblages as being the only criteria for identifying cultural entities, we can instead focus on shared practices through time and across space. As we shall see, such an approach permits us to reify long-standing debates in the culture history of the Atlantic Northeast, and recognize important cultural connections and continuity through time and space. Finally, our approach to archaeology recognizes that hunter-gatherers often think relationally about their place in the natural world. Among many North American Indigenous societies, there is a continuity between the natural and social worlds. Animals, and other natural phenomenon, are often seen as “other than human persons” with the same potential for a spirit or soul as humans (Descola 2008; Turner 2009:19; Viveiros de Castro 1998, 2004). Maintaining proper relationships with the powerful subjects of the natural world is critical in hunter-gatherer cosmology, and those human-animal-environment relationships often play a role in how hunter-­ gatherers conceptualize and express their place in the world (e.g., Betts et al. 2012, 2015). We believe understanding this critical relationality between humans and their natural environment is crucial to building effective culture histories.

History of Archaeology in the Region As we outline below, some of the earliest scientific archaeology in North America was conducted in the Atlantic Northeast. It is therefore ironic that, as a region, it remains significantly underexplored archaeologically. As will be outlined in the following chapters, major gaps in our understanding of basic cultural history remain in this region. Compared to other regions in North America, this is remarkable; there are virtually no locations on the continent where a fine-grained understanding of the who, what, and when of the archaeological record has not been synthesized in detail. As others have suggested, we partially attribute the lack of research in the region to the small number of graduate level archaeological programs (see above, and Deal 2016:2). Only three archaeology-focused graduate programs exist in the region (University of Maine, University of New Brunswick, and Memorial University of Newfoundland), and only one of those has a PhD program (Memorial University of Newfoundland). As a result, relatively few graduate students have explored the archaeology of the region, let alone focused their thesis and dissertation research on it. Much of the research on the region has been conducted by a small cohort of active professors, provincial or state archaeologists, or contract (cultural resource management, or CRM) archaeologists. Most of these archaeologists – such as ourselves – completed doctoral studies outside the region.

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Another part of the problem lies in the poor preservation of sites (Deal 2016:2). The Atlantic Northeast’s acidic soils rapidly destroy all organic remains except in exceptional circumstances, making the record less attractive to some archaeologists. Furthermore, a perceived lack of cultural complexity and intensity in the region by some archaeologists (e.g., see papers in Nash 1983), a perception we categorically reject, has made the record less interesting to those who wish to explore models and theories of cultural evolution and complexity. In short, some archaeologists may not view the region as a good vantage from which to approach some of the big anthropological questions in archaeology. Whatever the reason for this research deficit, it has created a detrimental feedback loop that makes it difficult to entice researchers and students to study an archaeological record that is often seen as less complete and less dynamic than other regions. It is unfortunate that this situation has occurred because, as we shall see, the region has a complex and fascinating archaeological history that is as dynamic and compelling as any other region in North America – if not more so. Furthermore, knowledge gaps create opportunities for research; where else in North America can one engage in fundamental culture history with modern techniques and theoretical vantages? Furthermore, the lack of apparent activity in academic research masks the tremendous amount of high-quality excavation and research being conducted by a large and dedicated CRM community. Our review of the history of archaeology of the region follows three important sources (Deal 2016; Spiess 1985; Holly 2016), and those seeking more detail and insight than we can provide here would do well to consult them. Michael Deal (2016) envisions the history of archaeology in the Atlantic Northeast as occurring in three phases, consistent with Willey and Sabloff ’s (1974) review of the development of North American archaeology. Arthur Spiess (1985) defines essentially the same periods, though with a slightly different chronology. Following Deal (2016:2–22), we review these periods below. THE NATURALIST PERIOD (1800–1912)

Prior to the development of professional archaeology, early investigation of the history of Indigenous peoples in the region was undertaken by naturalists, who often envisioned Indigenous people living in an idealized state with nature, and often neglected prehistoric continuity between the archaeological record and living Indigenous peoples (Hrynick n.d.:25). The earliest naturalist reports merely described collections that had been found by landowners and those engaged in resource extraction (forestry, mining, etc.). One of the earliest, Gesner (1836, 1847), reported on finds in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, including the discovery of burials

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(Black 2008b). His knowledge of geology allowed him to identify potentially exotic (non-local) cherts in collections, the first evidence of long-distance trade in the region (Black 2008b). The establishment of the Peabody Museum at Harvard in 1866 was a great boon for systematic archaeological research in the region (Spiess 1985:102), although this continued to be undertaken largely by naturalists. In Maine, scholars had long wondered about the origin of massive shell middens such as at Damariscotta (figure 1.2), and if these were human-made, despite being impregnated with human material culture (e.g., Jackson 1839). However, systematic excavations did not take place in the Atlantic Northeast until the 1850s (Spiess 1985:104), when H.P. Chadbourne, a professor at Bowdoin College, undertook to determine the origin of the Damariscotta Middens. The artifacts he recovered from his excavation soon convinced him of their human origin (Chadbourne 1859). In the Maritime provinces, naturalists from the Nova Scotian Institute of Science undertook explorations of a shell midden at Frostfish Cove, in St. Margaret’s Bay, in 1863 and at Cole Harbour in 1864 (Deal 2016:3). The work at Frostfish Cove was published by Jones (1864) the following year, and his description of the midden clearly indicates that it was a Maritime Woodland period (see chapters 7, 9, and 10) midden

FIGURE 1.2 The ­massive Glidden Oyster Midden, one of a complex of very large shell middens that form the Damariscotta Oyster Shell Heap on the Damariscotta River, Maine.

Photograph courtesy M. ­Gabriel Hrynick

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BOX 1.1  NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES AND THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE ATLANTIC

NORTHEAST

In the Atlantic Northeast, archaeology was not a specialized pursuit until well into the twentieth century. Before that, Northeast archaeology was generally considered a part of natural history, alongside such topics as botany and geology. In the Maritimes, these pursuits often took place under the auspices of natural history societies: the Natural History Society of New Brunswick and the Nova Scotian Institute of Science (Connolly 1977; Davis 1998). Membership in these societies was dominated by educated professional men, including lawyers, soldiers, merchants, and physicians. Membership in such societies afforded opportunities to exchange ideas and collaborate on field research. Perhaps most crucially, natural history societies provided venues for the exchange of information through publication in society journals, presentations at meetings, and access to society libraries and specimen collections. Members also corresponded regularly with intellectuals in Europe and elsewhere in North America (Buhay and Miller 2010). Natural history societies conducted some of the most important nineteenth-century research in the Northeast. In an article that Trigger (1986:xv) viewed as the best nineteenth-century account of a

shell midden site, G.F. Matthew described a coastal archaeological site at the Bocabec River in New Brunswick’s Passamaquoddy Bay region (Matthew 1884) in the Bulletin of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick. This report included the identification of dwelling features, accounts of stratigraphy, and recognition of artifact changes through time. His acknowledgement, based in large part on food remains at the site, that Wabanaki lived on the coast in both warm and cold seasons proved prescient, but was not appreciated by professional archaeologists until almost a century later (see Hrynick and Black 2012). As Lelièvre (2017a) has noted, the influence of these societies was not always positive or even benign, and sometimes advanced intellectual currents that separated archaeological pasts from contemporary Indigenous groups or otherwise separated Wabanaki from their deep history in the Atlantic Northeast. Because some of the same professional class members of natural history societies served in colonial roles that attempted to assimilate, remove, or control Wabanaki people, these narratives were sometimes deployed as justification for such policies.

typical of many on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. Composed primarily of quahog and softshell clam, it contained abundant artifacts, including bone and stone tools and fragmented pottery, and a charcoal-rich layer with abundant artifacts that was likely a house floor (Jones 1864:370). Work by naturalists continued throughout the late nineteenth century, primarily on shell middens in Merigomish, Nova Scotia (Dawson 1978; Patterson 1883, 1890), Charlotte County, New Brunswick (Baird 1881), and Rustico and Rocky Point, Prince Edward Island (Fewkes 1896; Watson 1899a, 1899b). In an important revelation, Fowler (1870) recognized that erosion was responsible for the lack of sites on New Brunswick’s northern coast. In 1883, George Frederick Matthew (figure 1.3) conducted large-scale excavations at a shell midden in Bocabec Village and continued to excavate and report on sites for the next two decades (Matthew 1884, 1886, 1900; Matthew and Kain 1905). Significant work was also conducted in the Lakes Region of New Brunswick near the turn of the

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FIGURE 1.3 George Frederick Matthew in his office, Saint John, New Brunswick, ca. 1904.

Courtesy New Brunswick Museum, 1994.10.4

twentieth century (Bailey 1883, 1887; Kain 1901, 1905). Several important works were completed on extant collections or those discovered through commercial activities in the Maritimes during this period (e.g., Duns 1880; Miller 1887; Piers 1890, 1895, 1915). In Maine, Edward Sylvester Morse was a significant force in the early archaeology of the region. His first excavations were undertaken avocationally in Casco Bay in 1858 while on a camping trip. Though he was initially interested in the mollusks contained in shell middens, he eventually came to view them as significant records of human habitation (Morse 1868). Jefferies Wyman, director of the Peabody Museum, was also active during this period and his publications on shell midden sites in Frenchman’s Bay, Maine, and elsewhere, were important in determining that the sites were stratified with internal features (Wyman 1868a,1868b). Frederic W. Putnam replaced Wyman in 1874 and his guidance set the tone for archaeology in Maine for the next several decades (Spiess 1985:107). After several local discoveries, Putnam became interested in finely made and elegant stone tools found outside shell midden sites, often in interior fields near lakes and rivers. He hired Charles C. Willoughby, whose methodological rigour, and interest in burial sites, would elevate the discipline in Maine to a new era (Spiess 1985:107).

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BOX 1.2  WASHED OUT TO SEA In the nineteenth century, natural historians were already aware of the erosion of archaeological sites. David Black (2014) has tracked much of this intellectual history in the Quoddy Region, noting that after the Saxby Gale in the fall of 1869, Samuel Boardman, a Northeast naturalist, wrote to Spenser Baird, a Smithsonian curator, to describe 10 feet of erosion from the Simpson’s Farm site on Passamaquoddy Bay. The Saxby Gale – a tropical cyclone – and other storm events, such as the 1976 Groundhog Day Storm, would periodically severely damage coastal archaeological sites. At the same time, a gradual increase in sea levels was also eroding archaeological sites. After the retreat of the glaciers, land expanded as the weight of the glaciers dissipated, reducing sea levels, a process called isostatic rebound. Gradually, this changed and sea levels began to rise, accompanied by warming climates and melting ice. The result, however, is that places that were coastlines in the past began to be inundated, with the oldest occupations the first to be eroded and submerged – a process sometimes called “chronological shingling” (Young et al. 1992). Archaeologists know some of these places in the Atlantic Northeast were occupied because fishermen occasionally recover diagnostic early artifacts where coastlines used to be (e.g., Black 1997; Crock et al. 1993; Keenlyside 1984; Price and Spiess 2007). The process of chronological shingling is observable, too, in the artifact collections of long-time beach walkers,

with artifacts they have picked up from decades ago tending to be diagnostic of somewhat earlier periods than artifacts recovered from the beach more recently. Sea level rise and storms drive erosion of coastal archaeological sites. Unfortunately, both are becoming more severe due to climate change, precipitating a crisis in the rate of destruction of coastal archaeological sites in the Atlantic Northeast and globally. Attempts to prevent erosion through measures such as seawalls and rip-rap offer only temporary relief before being transgressed, and often redirect severe wave ­energy to other pieces of coastline; they are also expensive to construct and maintain (e.g., ­Ferguson and Turnbull 1980). Globally, the challenge of coastal erosion to archaeological sites has been likened to the burning of the Library of Alexandria, and the irreplaceable loss of historical records. Archaeological response may be limited to only being able to adequately rush in and recover a few books in this metaphor, but the question in the Atlantic Northeast and elsewhere is twofold: How can archaeological capacity for salvage be increased, and how can the most important sites be targeted for excavation before they are destroyed? In the Atlantic Northeast, the destruction of archaeological sites represents a heritage catastrophe, especially for Indigenous peoples whose sites are most impacted. Archaeological salvage should emphasize the priorities of these Indigenous communities, who are losing the most due to coastal erosion.

THE EARLY PROFESSIONAL PERIOD (1913–1960)

The professional period of archaeology in Maine began nearly two decades before it took root in the Maritime provinces. Charles Willoughby was backed by the Peabody Museum, and his employment there ranks him as one of the first professional archaeologists in the region. His standard of excavation was far above that of most naturalist scholars of the day, which permitted him to make detailed inferences about economy, trade, and culture history (Spiess 1985:110; Willoughby 1980). His interest in culture history led to his definition of three time periods for the region: the Pre-Algonquian, the Early Algonquian, and the Later Algonquian (Willoughby 1909). Like cultural classifications of today, he based his typology on the absence of pottery in the first period, and then changes in pottery styles during the second and third periods.

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During the following years, much archaeological work in Maine was undertaken by university professors such as Frederic Loomis and J. Tyler, who investigated shell middens on Sawyer Island (Loomis and Young 1912), or students, such as Bates and Winlock, who produced a bachelor’s thesis on the Golden Cove site (Bates and Winlock 1912). Importantly, as noted by Spiess (1985:111), these students seem to have introduced “the term ‘The Red Paint People’ in reference to the red ochre and artifact assemblages similar to those excavated by Willoughby.” William K. Moorehead (1913, 1922) used this terminology in his exploration of what we now know are Late Maritime Archaic cemeteries found in Maine, formally defining the culture as the “Red Paint People,” a name which has persisted into modern considerations of the period (e.g., Bourque 2012:1). This is undoubtedly a testament to the quality of the culture history building during this early professional period, though Moorehead tended to overemphasize the importance and scope of his red paint culture (Spiess 1985:116). Moorehead continued his interest in the region into the 1930s, though other archaeologists, such as Walter Smith (1926, 1929, 1930), began important explorations of material culture, tracking its relationship to site structure and artifact production (Spiess 1985:116). Spiess (1985:119) calls the period between 1930 and 1967 in Maine archaeology “The Doldrums,” when little academic or avocational work was conducted in the region. However, Douglas Byers and Wendell Hadlock did important work during this time, the former on a Late Maritime Archaic shell midden/cemetery at Nevin (Byers 1979), and the latter on several significant shell midden sites (Hadlock 1939, 1941). Drawing on his work at Nevin, and the Smith Farm site (Snow 1968a), Byers (1959) contributed an import overview of the Archaic of the Northeast during this period. In the Maritime provinces, a similar trajectory was building, though perhaps with less intensity. During the years 1913 and 1914, the first professional archaeological investigations in the Maritimes were undertaken by recent hires of the Geological Survey of Canada, Harlan Smith and William Wintemberg, at shell midden sites in Merigomish (figure 1.4) and Mahone Bay in Nova Scotia (Smith and Wintemberg 1929; Smith 1917). These collections formed some of the first archaeological material from the region incorporated into the national collection of what is now the Canadian Museum of History. Following these preliminary investigations, work in the region stalled. Wintemberg did undertake important research on the ceramics he had recovered, attempting to link the region to trends in the greater Northeast (Wintemberg 1937). However, it was not until the mid-1950s that significant excavation would begin again, sponsored by the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia museums. In New Brunswick, J.R. Harper undertook investigations of a burial site at Portland Point (Harper 1956, 1957). But the most prolific of the early professional archaeologists was John Erskine.

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FIGURE 1.4 Excavations of a shell midden at Quarry Island, Merigomish Harbour, Nova Scotia, 1914.

Photograph by Harlan Smith, courtesy Canadian Museum of History, 27771

A botanist and naturalist working for the Nova Scotia Museum, Erskine visited the South Shore of Nova Scotia in 1957, at the invitation of Thomas Head Raddall, who had explored some shell middens in the area. Though he had little formal archaeological training, he was a trained scientist. Erskine was so impressed by the deposits at Port Joli that he was prompted to undertake a two decades long reconnaissance of shell middens and other archaeological deposits across Nova Scotia (Erskine 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1986, 1998). His excavations, while lacking in methodological rigour by professional standards, resulted in a relatively comprehensive collection of artifacts and faunal remains from across the province, which he used to develop a culture history and rough artifact typology. Despite his lack of training, he was a keen scientific observer, and many of his inferences about site structure, subsistence, and artifact change are still valid today (e.g., Betts 2019a). THE MODERN PROFESSIONAL PERIOD (1960–PRESENT)

The establishment of university and government anthropology and archaeology departments, and the passage of heritage legislation throughout the region, brought a new rigour and increased activity to the region. Spiess (1985) and Deal (2016)

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provide detailed overviews of this time; the following chapters of this book review the pioneering and subsequent work of this period, and we do not summarize it here. However, two significant developments during this period are important to the modern understanding of the region’s archaeology. The first is the rise of cultural resource management archaeology, or CRM archaeology. In a response to the destruction caused by development and a variety of social movements including the civil rights movement, federal, state, and provincial governments expanded legislation throughout the 1970s to require developers to assess the impact of construction on archaeological heritage (see King 2013:16–32). This created a large and dynamic cultural resource management industry, or archaeologists who primarily survey, test, and mitigate for the potential loss of tangible archaeological heritage (figure 1.5). It is important to note that CRM archaeology represents, by many orders of magnitude, most of the archaeology that has taken place in the region in the last 30 years. The data CRM archaeology generates far outweighs that produced by research archaeologists, and while inferences from CRM archaeologists are often found in grey literature (e.g., permit reports and company documents), their contributions to the archaeology of the region have been noteworthy and substantial. In this volume, we attempt to incorporate as much of this grey literature into our modern reconstruction of the region’s prehistory as we are able. The second development is the rise of archaeological capacity within Indigenous communities (figure 1.6). Archaeological resources are increasingly becoming critical to Indigenous cultural and social movements and they have become especially salient to rights-based negotiations. For example, in Canada, recent court rulings have established that archaeological data are critical for establishing Indigenous land and resource rights (Lewis 2010:180; Martindale 2014; Supreme Court of Canada 2005, 2014). As noted above, the Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative in Nova Scotia has created an archaeological office, and it has released statements about the importance of archaeological evidence and the crucial requirement that Mi’kmaq tell their own narratives from it. Similarly, the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq has established an archaeological research unit devoted to exploring the Debert Palaeoindian site, and to building a museum and cultural centre devoted to the archaeology and culture of the Mi’kmaw people. Its scholarly publications have added substantially to both the intellectual and cultural narrative of the Palaeoindian (see below for a discussion of this terminology) occupation of the Debert site. In Maine, an important aspect of building archaeological capacity among tribes occurred with the establishment of the Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO) program in 1992. A direct consequence of amendments to the National Historic

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FIGURE 1.5 Cultural resource management archaeology is a crucial tool in preserving archaeological resources. CRM archaeologists often survey river and lake systems during water draw-downs in hydroelectric systems, such as in this photo from Malay Falls, Nova Scotia.

Photograph courtesy Natalie Jess-Fiene

Preservation Act, the THPO program is funded by the United States government. THPOs act in the interests of tribal sovereignty on a variety of important issues, such as Indigenous language conservation, education, oral history, and other important cultural activities (National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers 2006). In terms of archaeology, they monitor and protect sites, provide historical narratives for visitors, are “repositories for archaeological records … and cultural resource reports,” and conduct research on tribal archaeological sites (National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers 2006). The influence of these offices on the interpretation, research, and stewardship of archaeological resources cannot be overstated.

Chrono-Cultural Framework for the Volume This book presents a culture history of the Atlantic Northeast. Culture histories are concerned with documenting long-term cultural change, and chronological/cultural frameworks, which are based on observed cultural shifts, are critical organizing devices. In the greater Northeast, the history of pre-European societies is often divided into three broad periods, known as the Palaeoindian (see below), the Archaic, and the

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FIGURE 1.6  Participation in excavations and surveys is critical for training and building capacity in Indigenous communities to conduct their own archaeological research projects and preservation initiatives. In this photo, Alex Morrison, from Bear River First Nation, holds a projectile point she found while surveying for eroding Mi’kmaw sites on the South Shore of Nova Scotia in 2019.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, COASTAL Archaeology Project

Woodland. Though variations of it had been used for some time, this three-period scheme was formally proposed by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in their seminal Method and Theory in American Archaeology (1958). The 61-year-old schema has since been highly regionalized, with alternative terminologies and chronological differences, though the three-part periodization has persisted in most areas. The Atlantic Northeast is no exception, and while terminology, criteria, and associated chronological models have ebbed and flowed, the three-period organization has largely been maintained. Only within the last 25 years have major gaps in the sequence been filled in or explored in a basic manner (e.g., Betts 2019a; Deal et al. 2006; Murphy 1998). In some respects, this book represents our attempt to collate and make sense of the competing cultural historical models, and to integrate new data and suggest alternatives, when possible. We are also explicitly attempting to amalgamate disparate terminology and chronologies developed in adjacent regions (Newfoundland, Labrador, and Quebec versus the Maritime Peninsula), which to our knowledge has not been attempted in several decades. As we shall see, these chronologies are not as disparate as they may appear, either chronologically or culturally. In fact, our volume stresses the deep historical and cultural connections between the two regions. Each of these terms, as we outline in subsequent chapters, has both temporal and geographic

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FIGURE 1.7 (opposite) A chrono-cultural framework for the Atlantic Northeast. Major climatic events have been plotted for comparison (see chapter 2). All dates are cal BP. To convert these dates to BC/AC is very simple. For cal BP dates less than 2000 years old, add 50 to the cal BP date and subtract it from 2000 (e.g., 500 cal BP is 2000 – 550 = AD 1450). For cal BP dates older than 2000 years, subtract 1950 from the cal BP date (e.g., 3200 cal BP is 3200 – 1950 = 1250 BC).

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meaning that can be defined with various precision and may cover various spatial extents of the Atlantic Northeast. Figure 1.7 outlines the chrono-cultural framework we use in this volume. It represents the excavations of hundreds of sites and stands on the shoulders of myriad archaeologists who have analyzed and scrutinized millions of artifacts. We outline the chronological ranges of these periods in the following chapters, but we introduce the terminology and system we use below. Throughout the book, we use calibrated years before present, or cal BP, when discussing absolute dates. Before present is measured before the year 1950, a date chosen by archaeologists because it occurs just prior to the massive fluctuation in radiocarbon isotopes in the nuclear (or modern) era. It is useful because of its specificity (it avoids “years ago,” which is imprecise, and increasingly inaccurate the longer the book sits on the shelf ). Also, it is directly comparable to calibrated radiocarbon dates that are used by archaeologists. We prefer not to use calibrated dates BC/AD, or BCE/CE, in a book written primarily about Indigenous archaeological history. The first time period we call the Palaeoindian period, and it can be divided into three sub-periods: Early, Middle, and Late. We struggled with the use of the classic terminology in our text, because the term “Indian” is often considered pejoritive. Yet, unlike other terms we revise in this book, the Palaeoindian period has archaeological validity in a culture historical sense, and is broadly used throughout the Northeast as the most prevalent term for the region, even in Indigenous-led publications (e.g., Bernard et al. 2011). Palaeoindian refers to a widely shared series of cultural traits over a remarkably large area within a particular period of time. Unlike other terms (see below) that we feel should be revised on ethical or culture historical grounds (e.g., Intermediate or Recent Indian) or that appear to have widespread social support for a replacement by descendent communities (e.g., the use of Paleo-Inuit instead of Palaeoeskimo), we do not feel qualified to attempt to devise a replacement for this term. A full discussion of our approach to the term Palaeoindian appears in box 4.2, in chapter 4. The next period, the Maritime Archaic, is divided into three sub-periods, the Early, Middle, and Late Maritime Archaic. As described in chapters 5 and 6, our use of the term Maritime Archaic follows the scheme proposed by Tuck (1975a) and others. Nevertheless, it is important to point out that in our usage, we are explicitly promoting the theory that a unified, but regionally diverse, culture existed throughout the Atlantic Northeast during this period (e.g., Tuck 1975a). The Transitional Archaic period, as envisioned here, represents the influx of a new culture and people into a region that may have been partially depopulated. In Labrador and Newfoundland, this period also sees the arrival of new people from the Canadian Arctic, and while

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they are not related to Maritime Archaic peoples, their impact on the region persists for thousands of years. The post-Archaic period in the Atlantic Northeast is highly complex, and numerous terms have been used to describe the period depending on the region and academic training of those who proposed the terminology. Two competing chronocultural typologies have been proposed for the time period ca. 3000 BP to 500 BP, and have been adopted to varying degrees by local archaeologists. One typology was proposed by David Keenlyside (1983; see also Turnbull and Allen 1988:251) and was most recently refined by Black (1992, 2002). In this taxonomy, the “Woodland” period terminology employed commonly throughout the Northeast is retained, while the regional characteristics are “qualified” with the addition of the preceding adjective, “Maritime.” This “Maritime Woodland” terminology accepts the similarities in development and manifestation of a regional material culture, especially the use of ceramics, while acknowledging the innate marine orientation of subsistence in the region, and the appearance of some unique subsistence technologies. The second typology explicitly rejects the concept of the “Woodland,” primarily on the grounds that one of the hallmarks of the Woodland, horticulture/agriculture, was apparently not adopted on the Maritime Peninsula. Instead, the term “Ceramic Period” is used, in recognition of the fundamental technological development at the beginning of this period, ca. 3000 BP. First proposed by Bourque (1971), and adopted by others thereafter (Sanger 1979c; Tuck 1984), it became more widely popular after the publication of Petersen and Sanger’s (1993) seminal ceramic typological sequence for the Maritime Peninsula. The sequence was meant as a relative dating tool, but its periodization (e.g., Ceramic Period 1, Ceramic Period 2) has become widely employed as a culture historical typology throughout the region. The use of each terminology has tended to follow national boundaries, with American researchers preferring the Ceramic Period terminology, and Canadian researchers, especially those who work in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, preferring the term Maritime Woodland. However, following Black (1992:10), we see ceramic terminology as redundant for three reasons: (1) temporally, it precisely matches the Woodland terminology it supposedly rejects; (2) Woodland is widely used in other regions where horticulture was not adopted, indicating that it was always meant to suggest a wider array of economies; and (3) it implies disconnected cultural links between the Atlantic Northeast and nearby regions, which is frankly unsupported by the archaeological evidence. A connection to Woodland cultures is clearly present throughout the Northeast based on a range of archaeological and ethnographic data (see chapters 7 to 10). For

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these reasons, we prefer to use Maritime Woodland to describe this period. The use of the Maritime Woodland terminology also implies a connection between the Atlantic Northeast and all other Woodland cultures in North America, while being specific about the exact nature of the differences (e.g., the almost complete lack of agriculture, and the marine focus of most cultures). Maritime Woodland terminology thus permits a precise, and indeed more nuanced, exploration of this period. Parallel with the Maritime Woodland on the Maritime Peninsula is a regionally specific chronology used for First Nations ancestors in Newfoundland and Labrador. The “Intermediate and Recent Indian Periods” have been used to describe a new group of Indigenous people who arrived in Newfoundland and Labrador after the decline of Maritime Archaic. As we outline in chapter 9, we propose a new terminology for this period, which recognizes the undeniable ties to Woodland and Maritime Woodland populations to the south, and which also removes the pejorative term Indian. Essentially, we propose that the “Intermediate and Recent Indian” are, essentially, the Maritime Woodland without ceramic technology, in the unique ­environment of Newfoundland and Labrador. We call this cultural period the “Boreal Woodland,” a name that more accurately reflects the cultural connections apparent in artifacts and practice, as well as the unique environment in which these people lived. As outlined in chapter 8, several northern cultures move into Labrador and the island of Newfoundland, some overlapping with First Nations groups within the same environments. Two broad cultural groups are known, ancestral Inuit, and an earlier group, seemingly culturally and genetically unrelated to Inuit, known as the PaleoInuit. We note that the term “Palaeoeskimo” is still often used in archaeological writing, but following recommendations of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (2010) and the rationale outlined by Friesen (2015), we use the term Paleo-Inuit to refer to Palaeoeskimo and Arctic Small Tool Tradition cultures in Newfoundland and Labrador. We note that the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia have proposed their own sequence, which, chronologically and culturally, follows the three-level Palaeoindian, Maritime Archaic, and Maritime Woodland scheme we use here (Lewis 2006a, 2006b). However, their timeline uses Mi’kmaw terms derived through consultation with communities and Elders, and which are sensitive to Indigenous conceptions of the past. In order they are: Saqiwe’k L’nuk (ancient people, Palaeoindian), Mu Awsame Saqiwe’k (not so recent people, Maritime Archaic), Kejikawek L’nuk (recent people, Maritime Woodland), and Kiskukewe’k L’nuk (today’s people, Protohistoric Mi’kmaq). We ­recognize this terminology as an important step in Indigenous engagement with and reclamation of their archaeological record. Unfortunately, we cannot adopt it here as

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our book covers a very broad geographic region representing many Indigenous tribes and bands. Adopting a terminology meant only to describe the Mi’kmaw history of Nova Scotia would be insensitive to the non-Mi’kmaw Indigenous peoples whose history is also tied to the long-term archaeological record of the region.

Continuity versus Discontinuity As will become clear in later chapters, archaeologists in the region have tended to “pigeon-hole” their cultural history, meaning that they are inclined to propose many independent archaeological cultures throughout the Atlantic Northeast. This is especially prevalent north and south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and, in general, there has been little recent effort placed in attempting to re-evaluate the relationships between the two. One notable exception is the recent work of Bruce Bourque (2012), who has scrutinized the relationship between Late Maritime Archaic cultures in Labrador and Late Archaic complexes in Maine. He has identified important stylistic and economic differences between the two regions, despite broad similarities in material culture and practice. This viewpoint has been endorsed over many years by researchers in Maine and elsewhere and so prominent is this divide that Sanger (2002:6) termed it an “intellectual fault line.” We believe that such an approach to cultural and historical continuity has its roots in the trajectory of the development of archaeological research in the region. Interpreting archaeological entities as separate cultures was a logical approach in a region where so much was still unknown, and major hiatuses or gaps in the record exist. However, while there is much still to be learned about the culture history of the Atlantic Northeast, we believe that enough data has now emerged that significant connections can be made, and that a coalescence of archaeological cultures (and terminology) can take place throughout the region. Furthermore, our approach stresses historical continuity of cultures; we believe the record in most instances indicates cultural, if not genetic, throughput from very early times to the modern day. Such a proposal was originally made by James Tuck (1975a), and while some recent evidence has suggested the record is potentially more complex than he envisioned, and that some discontinuities did occur, we believe that there is evidence of long-term cultural continuity. Our rationale for this will become clear in the following chapters. Synthesis, we believe, of archaeological information is a valuable tool for building culture history because it necessarily examines the archaeological record in a broad way. Accordingly, syntheses consider interactions over larger areas than other kinds of archaeological studies do and with deeper historical context. By virtue of our careers – one of us is a museum curator and the other a professor – we are often given the

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opportunity to try to share information with students and the public, building from our specific knowledge at the site and assemblage level to a general narrative of what life was like in the past. Ironically, while we are routinely privileged as archaeologists to be the first humans to touch an artifact or feature in thousands of years, we sometimes are more struck by the humanity of the bigger picture – questions about who knew whom, the organization of the family, and how people travelled or traded to get things. This also is the scale at which the public and our students form their questions. We have found that as we work through such questions, we frequently illuminate holes in our knowledge or assumptions we find difficult to support with data. Culturehistorical synthesis, therefore, provides a test of sorts on archaeological interpretations and highlights areas of research to further explore or breakdowns in explanatory theory. Synthesis, moreover, by nature of its scale, can apprehend some of the most meaningful actions, interactions, and choices that humans make, and indeed those that led to the diverse Indigenous nations and communities that still exist today. In this book, we hope to build upon the rich research in the Atlantic Northeast by pulling it together to talk about how people made their history.

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CHAPTER 2

THE CHANGING ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE OF THE ATLANTIC NORTHEAST

Introduction Around 13,000 years ago, the Atlantic Northeast was just emerging from the grips of the last great glaciation, known as the Wisconsinan: portions of the coast of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick had emerged from the ice, and large portions of Maine and New England were ice-free after tens of thousands of years of being covered in glaciers several kilometres thick. Temperatures were warming rapidly, but ca. 12,900 cal BP, the warming suddenly stopped. A rapid and major reversal occurred, and for the next 700 years, colder, glacial conditions returned to the Atlantic Northeast (Mayle and Cwynar 1995; Mott and Stea 1993). Palaeoclimatologists debate what caused the event. Some believe a massive asteroid impact on the Laurentide Ice Sheet (the enormous glacier that covered North America) may have been responsible (Firestone et al. 2007). Others suggest it was a natural collapse of the ice sheet, which caused large proglacial lakes to drain billions of litres of cold, fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean (Murton et al. 2010). Whatever the cause, this sudden turn to colder conditions is known by climate scientists as the Younger Dryas event, and it is the quintessential abrupt climatic reversal. However, some archaeologists also call it the Clovis Impact event, or the Clovis event (Firestone et al. 2007), for its remarkable co-occurrence with the arrival of the earliest Indigenous people in continental North America. In fact, as we will see in subsequent chapters, these unique climatic and cultural coincidences occur again and again in the archaeological record of the Atlantic Northeast, suggesting climate, environment, and culture were inextricably linked in this region. It is important to note that we do not see climate as a determinant of cultural change, and we believe that only human actions, which are creative negotiations with both natural and social environments, are responsible for the changes we see in the

a­ rchaeological record. Simple, direct correlations between climate and culture change do not exist. Rather, for humans, everything is parsed through culture – identity, belief, technology, economy, social organization, and above all, practice. Climate change is just one of myriad subtle and/or catastrophic external and internal stimuli that can trigger cultural change. Regardless, we believe it is a very important variable, and humans, especially those who have relational ontologies, do not live separately from nature. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the modern physiography and environment of the region, as well as a model for changes in climate and environment over the last 13,500 years. The Atlantic Northeast is a diverse physiographic region that spans an enormous geographic area. As conceived for this book, it includes the entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, the Quebec Lower North Shore, and Maine. We also consider the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Gulf of Maine, and coastal areas of the continental shelf, including the Labrador Shelf, the Scotian Shelf, and the Grand Banks (and all the islands therein) as part of this region. The total area, including oceans, spans more than 1,000,000 km². While its landscapes are as varied as its seascapes, the people who lived there were, for the most part, generally integrated culturally, economically, technologically, and spiritually, almost from the time it became deglaciated. In other words, understanding environmental diversity is crucial to this synthesis because, through time, and especially space, there is a risk of interpreting adaptations to specific environments as cultural discontinuities rather than similar cultures in different ecological settings. This cultural continuity and connection, despite geographic and environmental diversity, forms a major focus of our book. Climate is important for understanding the visibility and preservation of the archaeological record, too. For instance, the region’s highly acidic soils prevent the routine preservation of organic materials unless unique conditions (e.g., moisture extremes, neutralizing agents) enhance preservation conditions. Freeze-thaw cycles also impact site preservation, along with bioturbation, ice rafting, and myriad other processes. Changing sea levels were factors for coastal occupation in the past, and now have eroded or threaten to erode virtually all coastal sites. In a very real way, the environment and how it changes shapes what archaeologists can know about the past.

Modern Physiography and Climate The landmass of the Atlantic Northeast encompasses four vast terrestrial ecoregions. At the southern frontier, in Maine, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island (PEI), is the Eastern Temperate Forests ecoregion (figure 2.1). This area is defined by a mixed deciduous and boreal forest dominated by balsam fir, red spruce, red and white pine,

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FIGURE 2.1  Map of terrestrial ecoregions in the Atlantic Northeast.

Map by Alexander Honsinger and Mallory Moran

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hemlock, yellow birch, and sugar maple adapted to the region’s acidic, humic soils. The land is heavily forested, and precipitation is very high, which feeds abundant post-glacial lakes and ponds. The climate here is generally cool, with snowy winters and slightly more generous precipitation in the summer months (Boone 1997; van Groenewoud 1984; Ireland 1997), which can be described as humid and continental, especially away from the coast. Most of Nova Scotia, except for the Minas Basin, in the northwest of the province, is part of the Northern Forests ecoregion (figure 2.1). The island of Newfoundland, southern Labrador (and the area surrounding Lake Melville), and the Quebec Lower North Shore are also part of this expansive ecosystem. The forests in this region are primarily a boreal plant community dominated by relatively small black and white spruces and firs, and white birch, with abundant shrubs, such as pin cherry, blueberry, alder, and willow. Soils are highly acidic, and swamplands are common in low-lying areas. Temperatures tend to be moderate in summer and cold in winter in Nova Scotia and PEI, with generous snow in the winter and rain in other parts of the year. Despite being an island, most of Newfoundland has a continental-like climate, with cool but humid summers. Winters can be cold and snowy, though eastern portions of the province can have moderately cold, but windy, winters. Central Labrador is part of the Taiga ecoregion (figure 2.1), an area characterized by sandy, acidic soils with low amounts of organic material. These low productivity soils support mossy, lichen-filled coniferous forests, with low canopies. Ponds, rivers, and lakes are abundant as evaporation is reduced in the cool climate. Here small jack pine, black spruce, alder, and willow dominate in wet areas, while white spruce, white birch, balsam poplar, and balsam fir can be found in drier areas. Finally, northern Labrador is part of the unique Arctic Cordillera ecoregion. This region is characterized by a frigid and, contrasting with the rest of the Northeast, dry climate with average temperatures generally below the freezing point. Soil development is limited and vegetation is reduced to lichens and mosses in upland regions, and low hardy shrubs and plants such as willow, heather, and saxifrage in southerly or sheltered regions. Geologically, the Atlantic Northeast is highly diverse. South of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on New Brunswick and Nova Scotia’s northern shores, a long low plain rises from a coastline punctuated by shallow bays, lagoons, and marshes. This topography also characterizes much of Prince Edward Island, but northern portions of the coast are characterized by large beaches and sand dunes. On the Maritime Peninsula (excluding PEI), uplands, the eroded and denuded remnants of the formerly massive Appalachian Mountains, rise from these plains moving westwards and southwards from the coast. In fact, much of the inland of the Maritime

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Peninsula, except for the border between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, is higher than 200 m in elevation. However, along the Bay of Fundy, steep rocky shores can be as high as 150 m. The South Shore of Nova Scotia is characterized by long but shallow bays and extensive foreshore flats and beaches, though in the extreme southwest, small coastal islands are common. In Maine, cliffs and gravel beaches predominate, and small offshore islands are frequent. Newfoundland is a complex landform, with a coastline dominated by deep embayments, islands, and cliff faces. Beaches occur only in sheltered areas and are dominated by gravels and cobbles. Like the Maritime Peninsula, the mountains of Newfoundland are an ancient and eroded extension of the Appalachian chain. Rolling uplands, steep hills, ridges, and plateaus are common in the central part of the island and rise to form a 670 m (average) mountain chain on the Northern Peninsula, the Long Range Mountains. These uplands form an extensive rolling plateau that extends to the northeast of the island; along its edges, it rises from a narrow coastal plain in the west, and from cliff faces and rugged coastline in the south. Labrador is perhaps the most geomorphologically diverse area of the entire Atlantic Northeast. Geologically, it represents the easternmost part of the Canadian Shield. The southern region is characterized by high upland areas and rolling terrain, with abundant lakes, ponds, and rivers. The interior of Labrador is a low saucer shape, fenestrated by numerous lakes and rivers. The coastline is generally steep and rugged, and is punctuated by very deep arms and bays, fjord-like in many instances, and innumerable large and small islands. Hamilton Inlet dominates the central portion of the coast. It is a large fjord-like extension of Groswater Bay, and its massive tidal arm, known as Lake Melville, penetrates more than 250 km into the interior. This massive estuary drains a large portion of the freshwater system in central Labrador and is highly productive. In Labrador’s north, a vast chain of mountains dominates, known as the Torngat Mountains, which rises to a maximum height of over 5,000 m, and extends to the ocean with its deep bays and fjords.

The Modern Ocean The oceans of the Atlantic Northeast have high phytoplankton production that in turn promotes very productive marine ecosystems and some of the world’s most important commercial fisheries (Loder et al. 1998:107). In general, the waters in this region are considered cold but temperate and thus span “a wide range of oceanic conditions” (Bernier et al. 2018:8). Two main current systems dominate the oceanography of the region. The first is the cold southerly flow of the Labrador Current, which hugs much of the coastline from northern Labrador to the Gulf of Maine. The

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current creates subpolar conditions on much of the Labrador and Newfoundland Shelves. The second is the Gulf Stream, a warm water current that passes along the margins of the Scotian and Newfoundland shelf system on its way to the middle North Atlantic. It mixes with subpolar waters, which overlay the shelf, and creates a massively productive, though generally temperate, marine ecosystem. The Atlantic Ocean in our study region contains three bioregions, defined by oceanographers based on shared “ocean conditions and depth” (Bernier et al. 2018). The first of these includes the Gulf of St. Lawrence, an area bounded by the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia northern shores, Cape Breton, the Quebec Lower North Shore, and the western shore of Newfoundland. The Gulf of St. Lawrence is so completely bordered that it is essentially an inland sea. The southern portion of the Gulf of St. Lawrence is a shallow shelf, in contrast to the very deep northern portion off the Quebec shore and Newfoundland. These waters are very cold but can be moderated by warm Gulf Stream inputs and fresh water from the St. Lawrence River. Regardless, Gulf of St. Lawrence waters are generally subpolar, due to the impact of the Labrador Current. The Scotian Shelf is part of the continental shelf, which covers an area west and south of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. The shelf averages ca. 75 m in depth, and water conditions are subpolar with direct inputs from the Labrador Current, which generally flows equatorward in this region. To the southwest, the Scotian Shelf forms Georges Bank, a highly productive sub-ocean plateau that has been a major source for commercial fishing for over 400 years. Scotian Shelf waters feed into the Gulf of Maine and contribute to upwelling that creates a very productive ecosystem. The Gulf of Maine is “a tidally energetic semi-enclosed shallow sea encompassing the Bay of Fundy and Georges Bank” (Loder et al. 1998:107). It is formed by four deep basins in the Scotian Shelf, including, from north to south, the Grand Minas, Jordan, Georges, and Wilkinson basins. The Gulf of Maine is generally cold, getting much of its input from the Scotian Shelf, and the extreme tides are responsible for substantial mixing. Combined with deep basins and narrow shallow ledges along the coast, the Gulf of Maine is one of the most productive marine ecosystems in the study area. Finally, the Newfoundland and Labrador Shelves occupy a region surrounding the entirety of the southern, eastern, and northern coast of Newfoundland, as well as the entire Labrador coastline. To the extreme east, this also includes the Grand Banks, a famously productive ecosystem and historical target of commercial fishing. The Newfoundland and Labrador Shelves form a highly productive ecosystem, but unlike many areas of Atlantic Canada, they are subject to persistent seasonal sea ice and extreme polar waters influenced directly by the Labrador Current.

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FIGURE 2.2  Extent of glacial ice in the Atlantic Northeast at ca. a) 18,000 cal BP; b) 12,000 cal BP; c) 11,000 cal BP; and d) 8000 cal BP.

A

Data from Dyke et al. (2003); map by Alexander Honsinger and Mallory Moran

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C THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE ATLANTIC NORTHEAST

B

D THE CHANGING ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE OF THE ATLANTIC NORTHEAST

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Deglaciation and Sea Level Change The maximum glacial ice extent in the region was reached prior to 23,500 cal BP, during the end of the Late Wisconsinan Glacial Episode. At that time, the ice was between 250 and 2,500 m thick, with the thinnest ice closest to the coastline (Ives 1978:47). Rapid thawing saw the glacial ice retreat from maximum coverage to practically ice-free in less than 12,000 years. By 23,500 cal BP, the ice sheets extended to the edge of the continental shelf, over present-day Georges Bank (southeast of Nova Scotia) and as far east as the Grand Banks (southeast of Newfoundland), which were already partially deglaciated along their eastern margin (Shaw et al. 2006:Fig. 8). By 21,000 cal BP, calving retreat began at the ice/ocean margin off northeastern Newfoundland, the present-day Gulf of Maine, and southwestern Nova Scotia. A major drainage channel, known as the Laurentian Channel, formed in a shelf trough that is now in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Laurentian Channel accounted for much of the ice calving activity during the early phases of deglaciation. Ice began to retreat into the Gulf of Maine, and large portions of the eastern Grand Banks were exposed. At that time, none of the present-day land mass was exposed, except for the highest peaks in the Torngat Mountains in northern Labrador (Ives 1978). By 19,000 cal BP, a major ice calving embayment had formed in the Gulf of Maine, which continued to be a prime mover of deglaciation in the region. Almost the entire Grand Banks was exposed dry land during this period (figure 2.2). By 16,800 cal BP “massive disintegration of the ice sheets was under way” (Shaw et al. 2006:2071) and no grounded ice existed in the Bay of Fundy (figure 2.2). Significant land on Georges Bank had been exposed, and deglaciation off Nova Scotia continued via melting, rather than ice calving, a trend that would only increase from this point onward. Parts of the present-day landmass near Yarmouth, Halifax, and Port aux Basques were beginning to be exposed to the air for the first time. A massive glacial fjord opened in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with icebergs so numerous that they sometimes blocked the outlet. The Newfoundland icecap was necessarily starting to become isolated at this time. By 14,800 cal BP, coastlines were beginning to emerge all over the region. Georges Bank was almost fully exposed and much of the central Maine and northern New Brunswick coasts had emerged from the ice. Large portions of the Newfoundland coast now lay exposed. Many separate ice caps began to form over their respective landmasses. By 14,000 cal BP, ice was retreating rapidly across the entire region. Sea levels were very low, and coastlines were much different than they are today. While much of Maine and New Brunswick were deglaciated by this time, large meltwater lakes dominated much of their landscape. Cape Breton, northern Nova Scotia, and the eastern portion of PEI were still covered in ice, as was much of central

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BOX 2.1  WABANAKI ORAL HISTORY, POST-GLACIAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE, AND

TWO-EYED SEEING

The massive physiographic and ecosystem changes that occurred in the Atlantic Northeast after the last glaciation have been documented by physical geographers, palaeoclimatologists, archaeologists, and palaeobiologists (see sections in chapter 2), but detailed histories exist of that time that have been passed down from generation to generation through Wabanaki oral histories. Mi’kmaw oral histories speak of a time of a great flood, when water levels were rising rapidly and islands were forming, very similar to the post-glacial period between 11,000 and 10,000 cal BP as glaciers melted and sea levels rose rapidly (Silvy 1980). According to the oral history, a man and woman survived by building a canoe, and a beaver, who wished to help, attempted to build an island on which they could live. However, the beaver tragically drowned in the torrent of water before the island was finished. A muskrat completed the task, and the man and woman lived there until the waters receded again, leaving the coastline seen today. This oral history evocatively speaks to humans and animals adapting to the sea level rise after the last glaciation and conveys how Mi’kmaq and animals had close reciprocal relationships that developed in tandem after this time. Mi’kmaw oral histories also preserve knowledge of the rapid decline in megafauna evident in the fossil record of the region after deglaciation. As discussed above, Mi’kmaw oral histories recall megafauna such as the giant beaver (Castoroides ohioensis), which was about the size of a black bear, and which lived in the region during Palaeoindian times. According to the oral tradition, Mi’kmaq found the animals too

large and fierce to hunt easily, so Kluscap, a central figure in Mi’kmaw oral history, reduced the size of the megafauna, by “lovingly petting them.” He then instructed the animals to serve humans and not cause them to be afraid (Mi’kmawey Debert Project 2014b, recounted by Clifford Paul). In another oral history (Mi’kmawey Debert Project 2014a, recounted by Gerald Gloade), Kluscap fought an epic battle with the giant beaver. Kluscap defeated the beaver by throwing five piles of mud at him to drive him away. These heaps of mud became the Five Islands, which still exist today in the Minas Basin of Nova Scotia. Not only does this oral history recall a megafaunal species, the giant beaver, but it accounts for the formation of islands during postglacial times. When oral history and Western scientific approaches are combined, an enriched narrative can be produced. Elder Albert Marshall calls this approach two-eyed seeing, which is “to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous ways of knowing, and to see from the other eye with the strengths of Western ways of knowing, and to use both of these eyes together” (Bartlett et al. 2012:335). Two-eyed seeing provides a unique window into Mi’kmaw perceptions of their relationship to animals, plants, and landscapes in the past and can be a key means by which Indigenous perspectives can inform archaeological interpretation. Reciprocally, archaeological data can enrich oral history by providing physical evidence of the histories, and by revealing the depth of Indigenous relationships with the ecosystems in which they have lived for millennia.

Newfoundland. However, for the first time, the Labrador coast began to emerge from under the ice. During the last phase of deglaciation, ca. 13,000 to 11,000 cal BP, relict ice sheets existed throughout the region. Early in this period, much of Newfoundland was still covered by ice, and Nova Scotia had at least four large glaciers, centred on upland areas. Much of northern New Brunswick, Maine, and the Gaspé Peninsula were glaciated, but the coastline was ice free. Just a thousand years later, by 12,000 cal BP,

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FIGURE 2.3 Relative sea level (shoreline elevation) on the Maritime Peninsula since deglaciation (cal BP).

Adapted from Barnhardt and colleagues (1995:319)

glaciers had disappeared in Nova Scotia and PEI, though a large ice sheet persisted at the end of the Appalachians in Maine and New Brunswick. Newfoundland was still substantially glaciated, though all coastlines and the entirety of the Avalon Peninsula were accessible. Ice persisted on the Island of Newfoundland until just before 9000 cal BP, but by this time major portions of Labrador were deglaciated. The post-glaciation history of sea level change is crucial to understanding the modern physiography and archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast (figure 2.3). Although there was some regional variation, sea levels fell rapidly after initial deglaciation, ca. 13,500 years ago, but stabilized around 10,000 cal BP as “rates of isostatic rebound and eustatic sea level rise were in equilibrium” (Stea et al. 2001:41). This created a large, low ­shoreline and an expansive marine ecosystem with very slow rates of sea level rise, until about 8300 cal BP, a period known as the “slow-stand” (Kelley et al. 2013:4). After this time, sea levels began to rapidly rise again, a process of both eustatic sea level rise and bedrock subsidence. After ca. 4500 cal BP, the sea level began to stabilize, and rose slowly to present levels (Stea et al. 2001:41–44). Sea level rise measured from Halifax over the bulk of the twentieth century indicates that current sea level rise is ca. 3.6 mm per year (Shaw and Forbes 1990), which is higher than the average rate over the last 5000 years.

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FIGURE 2.4  Rates of relative land subsidence and uplift in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Adapted from Batterson and Liverman (2010:Fig. 2)

Sea level change in Newfoundland and Labrador is complex, with implications for archaeologists and the people who inhabited those areas in the past. While most of Newfoundland is subsiding, a small section of the Great Northern Peninsula is rebounding (figure 2.4). Similarly, while most of Labrador is rebounding, small sections of the outer coastline are subsiding (Batterson and Liverman 2010:Fig. 2). In Eastern Newfoundland, sea level rise is less pronounced, averaging ca. 2.5 mm per year over the

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last several thousand years (Catto et al. 2000:56). However, in western Newfoundland and Labrador, large portions of the coastline are rebounding, resulting in high-elevation relict beach ridges on which ancient archaeological sites and landforms can be found.

Major Post-glacial Climatic Events in the Atlantic Northeast Reconstructing climatic fluctuations and their impacts in a region so vast is a daunting challenge. The resolution of climate records can be highly variable, and discerning multi-year oscillations is often difficult at the scale of a single area, let alone a region. As a result, we have chosen to describe the climatic and vegetation history of the region through the lens of major climate events that occurred post-deglaciation, and that tend to have occurred on a continental, if not global, scale. Not only does this approach simplify the vastly idiosyncratic and complicated climatic histories compiled for numerus regions, sub-regions, and localities, but it also provides a simple model for comparison to major cultural periods and transitions that we will present in subsequent chapters (see figure 1.7). It is not meant to be an exhaustive account of climatic events, and significant regional and sub-regional deviation should be expected. YOUNGER DRYAS (CA. 12,900–11,600 CAL BP)

Evidence of a terrestrial impact that may have caused the Younger Dryas remains controversial (e.g., Surovell 2009). The weight of evidence suggests the most plausible explanation was an influx of cold freshwater into the Atlantic Ocean from glacial Lake Agassiz, a massive proglacial lake that covered what is now Manitoba, western Ontario, eastern Saskatchewan, and portions of Minnesota and North Dakota. This resulted in a major reversion to cooler conditions throughout the Atlantic Northeast, ca. 12,900–11,600 cal BP (Spooner et al. 2002; Teller 2013). The cooling effect was so severe that local glaciers and ice caps began to grow and recover to Wisconsinan states (Spooner et al. 2002:639). There is good evidence for the Younger Dryas event throughout the entire Atlantic Northeast (Anderson and Lewis 1992; Anderson and Macpherson 1994; Grant 1994; MacDonald and Spooner, 2001). Cooler conditions were associated with increased marine productivity in the North Atlantic (Yasuhara et al. 2014), creating a very rich marine ecosystem. At the beginning of the Younger Dryas, ca. 12,900 cal BP, open woodland forests had begun to penetrate into southwestern Nova Scotia and some northerly coastal areas, while herb and shrub tundra dominated the remainder of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and northern Maine (Mott 2011:Fig. 15). So sudden was the onset of cooler conditions,

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that just 200 years later “spruce and poplar/aspen trees were decimated, [and] ­woodland returned to shrub tundra environments and shrub tundra communities reverted to herbaceous tundra …” (Mott 2011:50). In upland areas, snowfields and glaciers were common just prior to the Younger Dryas event, but the colder and wetter conditions during this time greatly enhanced these features, which began to dominate in some areas (Mott 2011:50). Following the Younger Dryas event, temperatures again began to rise rapidly and arboreal taxa recolonized tundra zones. Glaciers and snow fields retreated completely on the Maritime Peninsula, though persisted in Newfoundland and Labrador for many millennia. By ca. 11,000 or 10,500 cal BP, forests had covered nearly the entire Maritime Peninsula and the average temperature began to approximate modern values (Mott 2011:50). “8200” CAL BP EVENT (CA. 8400–8100 CAL BP)

Around 8400 years ago, as the Laurentide Ice Sheet was in its final stages of deglaciation, proglacial lakes Agassiz and Ojibway again suddenly drained into the Arctic Ocean, probably through Hudson Bay (Murton et al. 2010). This resulted in another massive influx of cold freshwater into the North Atlantic. Just like the Younger Dryas event, this seems to have resulted in rapid and substantial cooling, when temperatures declined as much as 4°C globally (Spooner et al. 2002). At the same time, a massive discharge of icebergs into the North Atlantic was partially responsible for increased cooling and sea ice cover in many areas (Wiersma and Jongma 2016). In the North American Northeast, cool, dry, and windy conditions were the primary characteristics of this event (Lennox et al. 2010). Wetland communities decreased throughout the region as total annual precipitation was much lower than it is today (Almquist-Jacobson and Sanger 1995; Lennox et al. 2010; Neil and Gajewski 2019). However, in Maine and Nova Scotia, white pine–dominated forests prevailed during this time and did not appear to be significantly impacted by this cooling (AlmquistJacobson and Sanger 1995; Neil and Gajewski 2019). In fact, in the mid-Atlantic Ocean, this event is associated with increased marine productivity and upwelling (Peros et al. 2017), and in the North Atlantic the increase in both surface and deepwater marine productivity is also clear (Yasuhara et al. 2014:962). HOLOCENE CLIMATIC OPTIMUM (CA. 8100–6000 CAL BP)

Following the 8200 cal BP event, a climatic, or thermal, optimum was rapidly established in the region, and temperatures reached their warmest in the entire Holocene (Neil and Gajewski 2019). This condition persisted (though with some variation) until ca. 6000

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cal BP (Kaplan and Wolfe 2006:226). Temperature peaked twice during this time frame, first at ca. 7250 cal BP, and then again at ca. 6000–5800 cal BP, when it reached its maximum (Neil and Gajewski 2019:Fig. 2.3). In Nova Scotia and Maine, pollen records indicate a vacillation between white pine and hemlock forests during this period (AlmquistJacobson and Sanger 1995; Neil and Gajewski 2019). This was likely because precipitation was variable on the Maritime Peninsula during this period, but generally the conditions during the Holocene Climatic Optimum were relatively dry. In the north, the Labrador Current weakened and became warmer during this time (Gajewski et al. 2000). NEOGLACIAL (CA. 5800–3000 CAL BP)

After ca. 5800 cal BP, intermittent periods of substantial cooling occurred in the Atlantic Northeast, lasting for several thousand years, until approximately 3000 cal BP (Richerol et al. 2016; Neil and Gajewski 2019:21). This period is known as the Neoglacial. During these cooling periods, tundra vegetation advanced southward in Labrador (Gajewski et al. 2000), and ice and polar desert conditions were established in this region. Substantial seasonal sea ice was present around Newfoundland (Solignac et al. 2011), much like today. On the Maritime Peninsula, wet and cool conditions dominated, with a maximum cooling event occurring around 3000 cal BP (Lennox et al. 2010). Despite the cold, the marine ecosystem was highly productive at this time, and was relatively stable, until warming began ca. 3500–3300 cal BP (Richerol et al. 2016:55, Fig. 10) or perhaps slightly earlier (Solignac et al. 2011). Whenever the warming began, there was a precipitous crash in marine productivity at the end of the Neoglacial (Yasuhara et al. 2014). After 3500 cal BP, sea ice cover decreased, and along with it, salinity, a trend enhanced by the increased precipitation during this period. In Nova Scotia, the beginning of this period is dominated by hemlock forests, but is soon replaced by white pine, which remains high during the entire Neoglacial, only to be rapidly replaced by spruce and birch forests around ca. 3000 cal BP (Neil and Gajewski 2017:Fig. 2.2). In Maine, the forests tended to remain hemlock dominated, with high percentages of white pine (Almquist-Jacobson and Sanger 1995). On the Maritime Peninsula, total annual precipitation remained low during the Neoglacial, but suddenly shifts to wetter and warmer conditions around 3000 cal BP (Neil and Gajewski 2019:Fig. 2.3). ROMAN WARM PERIOD (CA. 3000–1500 CAL BP)

In the Atlantic Northeast, a period of global warming known as the Roman Warm Period appears to have taken hold between ca. 3000 and 1500 cal BP (Richerol et al. 2016). The effect is variable in the region, and sea surface temperature and sea ice cover vary wildly (Richerol et al. 2016:Fig. 10). There were significant changes in the

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oceanic current off Labrador at the beginning of this period, which saw Labrador coast waters shift from the influence of warmer North Atlantic and Labrador Sea currents to one dominated by the polar water of the Labrador Current (Richerol et al. 2016). As introduced above, marine productivity severely declined during this period, reaching a low point ca. 2000 cal BP. Between 2000 and 1500 cal BP, marine productivity again rapidly increased, but quickly declined again after 1200 cal BP, a pattern that appears to be confirmed in the Gulf of Maine through ancient shell analysis (Wanamaker et al 2009:26). On the Maritime Peninsula, a regime shift in vegetation occurred during the Roman Warm Period. The dominant pine and/or hemlock forests of the preceding 5000 years were rapidly replaced by spruce, birch, and beech dominated vegetation ca. 3500–3000 years ago (Almquist-Jacobson and Sanger 1995; Neil and Gajewski 2019). This was associated with an increase in total annual precipitation and, of course, average annual temperature. Labrador experienced substantial changes due to these shifts, with boreal forests in the southern part of Labrador opening and becoming dominated by arboreal taxa from southern climes (Richerol et al. 2016:57). MEDIEVAL CLIMATIC ANOMALY (CA. 1250–650 CAL BP)

The Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA) was a period of global climatic instability, often associated with increased warming (it is often referred to as the Medieval Warm Period). While its effects were variable in North America, in the Atlantic Northeast, evidence suggests that significant warming occurred between 1150 and 650 cal BP (Cronin et al. 2003; Alonso-Garcia et al. 2017). Around 1200 years ago, sea surface temperature reached a peak off Nova Scotia, after which it cooled substantially, only to increase again ca. 1000 cal BP (Keigwin 1996; Keiwgin et al. 2003:Fig. 5; Wanamaker et al. 2008, 2011). In the Northern North Atlantic (i.e., Newfoundland and Labrador), the warming may have begun earlier, ca. 1250 cal BP (Ogilvie et al. 2000). Sea ice appears to have been substantially reduced throughout the region as far north as Labrador and Greenland (Ogilvie et al. 2000:43). Air temperatures during the MCA were high throughout the Atlantic seaboard, seemingly centuries earlier than the MCA occurred in Europe (Cronin et al. 2010). On the Maritime Peninsula, the MCA was related to an increase in precipitation and temporary increases in pine forests (Neil et al. 2014). While temperatures warmed, the largest impact on the productivity in Maritime Peninsula coastal waters was a reduction in seasonal oceanic temperature differences (Wanamaker et al. 2011:50). This was likely due to less vertical mixing (Wanamaker et al. 2011:50), which in turn likely indicated decreased oceanic productivity, especially in the Gulf of Maine (Wihsgott 2019; Yentsch and Garfield 1981). In Newfoundland and Labrador, oceanic

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productivity decreased precipitously as well (Richerol et al. 2016:Fig. 10). In Labrador, arboreal taxa, especially pine, spruce, and birch, increased rapidly during this interval, while tundra vegetation declined (Richerol et al. 2016). LITTLE ICE AGE (CA. 600–250 CAL BP)

Following the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, both sea and air temperatures remained high for centuries, but by ca. 600 cal BP, sea surface temperatures and air temperatures dropped dramatically, and remained low for the next 350 years, a period known as the Little Ice Age (Keigwin et al. 2003:Fig. 5; Wanamaker et al. 2008, 2011). At this time, oceanic productivity may have increased due to increased vertical mixing of surface waters (Wanamaker et al. 2011), and the records of European explorers to the region remark on the almost unbelievable productivity of the oceans in this region during this time (Williamson and Skelton 1962). Spruce and fir pollen increased rapidly during this time on the Maritime Peninsula, and along with the rapid temperature decline, total annual precipitation increased radically (Neil and Gajewski 2019:Fig. 2.3). Arctic-derived ice increased in the Labrador Sea (Alonso-Garcia et al. 2017). In Labrador, upland glaciers began to grow again; they reached a maximum extent ca. 300 cal BP and began to retreat after this time (Way et al. 2015). Similarly, pollen from herbaceous and shrub tundra plant communities increased during this time period, while most arboreal taxa declined (Richerol et al. 2016:Fig. 6).

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CHAPTER 3

THE FIRST PEOPLES OF THE ATLANTIC NORTHEAST

Introduction While our focus in this book is on the past, history is fundamentally inseparable from the present, where it is written and interpreted. Any archaeological account, then, becomes to some degree about the present and the dialogue that develops between it and the past in archaeological interpretation. The Indigenous peoples of the Atlantic Northeast today descend from those this book is about and are directly connected to the archaeology we describe. Today, travelling east from the Saco River, one enters the Wabanaki homeland, with the Penobscot reservations at Indian Township, and Maliseet (Wolastoqiyik) and Micmac (Mi’kmaq) communities to the north in Aroostook County. At the far eastern coastal edge of the state are the Passamaquoddy reservations at Sipayik (Pleasant Point) and Indian Township. While the Passamaquoddy are federally recognized on the American side of the border, Passamaquoddy just across the St. Croix River remain unrecognized by the Canadian government at the time of this writing, though this may soon change. Here, on the eastern edges of North America, the Wabanaki derive the name of their confederacy, which translates to “people of the dawn.” Along the Saint John River, which divides northern Maine and New Brunswick before turning east near Woodstock, there are six Wolastoqiyik (or Maliseet) communities, who take their name from their name for the river, the Wolastoq or “beautiful river.” Six Mi’kmaw communities live along the northeast and eastern edges of the province, and today another is recognized in Newfoundland. In Nova Scotia, 13 Mi’kmaw First Nations dot the province from northeast to southwest. Innu, Cree, and Inuit communities are also found in Quebec, along with Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, Abenaki, and Iroquois (Haudenosaunee). Envisioning these communities in terms of contemporary reserve lands constrains the dynamic and mobile history of Indigenous peoples in the Atlantic Northeast, and risks ignoring the thousands of Indigenous people who live off-reserve and in federally

unrecognized communities. The present arrangement of reserves infamously reflects a colonial legacy. More subtly, it obscures long histories of movement, place-making, and interaction over thousands of years (Lelièvre 2017b). Such processes are ongoing as Indigenous people in the Atlantic Northeast actively and visibly draw upon the past to contextualize the present and make the future. Recently, for instance, former Penobscot Nation chief Barry Dana built a birchbark wigwam to exhibit at the Hudson Museum at the University of Maine. Dana said, “the wigwam is a teaching tool from my ancestors” (Harrison 2010). In Washington County, Maine, in the Sipayik (Pleasant Point) and Indian Township Passamaquoddy reservations, which have recently struggled with opiate abuse and trafficking, community leaders have sought to, as Brenda Moore-Mitchell put, “bring back things that have been forgotten” to reinvigorate “a belief system” (French 2007). Processes such as these, in which meaning is drawn from or placed upon the past, are the focus of this chapter, because they are where archaeology most clearly articulates with contemporary life. The role of archaeology in portraying the past in the present is contested precisely because it is so important.

Collaborative and Indigenous Archaeologies in the Atlantic Northeast Relationships among archaeologists and Indigenous people in North America developed out of archaeology and anthropology’s colonial history, for which there is no sufficient excuse. Scholarly emphasis on discontinuity between the past peoples and present ones, static “othering” portrayals of Indigenous people, accounts rife with racial stereotypes, and a disregard on the part of archaeologists for the importance of human remains and sacred sites to Indigenous people are among the ways in which Indigenous people have been excluded from the studies of their history. Much work remains to be done on the part of archaeologists toward improving this relationship and the active decolonization of the discipline. Throughout the Atlantic Northeast, archaeologists are increasingly engaging in Indigenous or collaborative archaeologies. Definitions of what exactly constitutes Indigenous archaeology or various forms of collaboration vary, but they share an awareness that archaeologists must include descendent Indigenous communities in research as an ethical obligation and to gain more nuanced perspectives on the past (see Atalay 2012; Colwell-Chantophonh et al. 2010; Nicholas 2010). The benefits and ethical obligations of collaboration with Indigenous peoples extend across the increasingly varied archaeological practice of the Atlantic Northeast, where increasingly the vast majority of archaeological fieldwork is cultural resource management (or CRM), carried out for clients who are obligated to identify and mitigate adverse effects to archaeological resources to comply with local or national laws (see conclusion).

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Some collaborations between archaeologists and Indigenous communities are to comply with formal requirements mandated by law or by institutions. In the United States, Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act mandates consultation with Indigenous groups, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) extends federal protection to Indigenous human remains and associated artifacts from many contexts, providing for their repatriation if “cultural affiliation” can be established. In Maine, progressive legislation termed the “Maine Indian Bones Law,” in place since the 1970s, had already mandated that human remains be returned to “appropriate” Indigenous communities. Dynamic histories and complications of identifying descent based on historical or anthropological grounds make establishing the affiliation between past items or remains and contemporary communities challenging under NAGPRA’s guidelines. In Maine, contemporary Wabanaki communities formed the Wabanaki Repatriation Committee to manage repatriation collectively, but a meeting of Maine archaeologists in the 1990s set cultural affiliation as applicable only to the last 1000 years, despite disagreement among the archaeologists consulted (Newsom 2008). Museums and other organizations in practice often extend collections or repatriation policies well beyond the NAGPRA mandate (e.g., Ranco and Clark 2014). Canada lacks comparable federal legislation to NAGPRA, and similar legislation is largely at the provincial or institutional level, creating a legislative patchwork. Unlike in the United States, even artifacts found on private property in Canada are owned by the Crown. In New Brunswick, for instance, these are held “in trust” for First Nations, a phrasing that is uncomfortably paternalistic and also ambiguous. Similar variability extends to archaeological practice surrounding human remains, but absent unique collaborative relationships research on human remains is rare (e.g., Hanna 2005). Organizations in Canada and the United States call on archaeologists to work with Indigenous communities respectfully, including developing protocols for consultation, programs for disseminating research to community members, and support for training Indigenous scholars (e.g., CAA n.d.). Professional association and museums increasingly respond to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) calls to action to shift control of the archaeological record to descendent Indigenous communities. In recent decades, collaborative archaeology in the Atlantic Northeast has taken a variety of different forms and addressed unique local concerns. For instance, Indigenous homelands in the region are now sometimes split by the international border. Bernard Jerome and David Putnam (2006) describe an archaeological project in northern Maine where the international border contributed to ambiguity about consultation

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BOX 3.1  NAGPRA AND HUMAN REMAINS In November of 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Native American Graves Protection and ­Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). NAGPRA was similar to some state laws, such as the Maine Indian Bones Act of 1973. At its essence, ­NAGPRA requires agencies receiving federal monies to repatriate Indigenous human remains, grave goods, and other sacred items to descendent communities. Canada does not have comparable federal legislation. Establishing “lineal descent” and identifying sacred objects other than human remains both constitute challenges, which also plagued earlier laws ­(Talmage 1982). Repatriation under NAGPRA requires a determination of “cultural affiliation” based on a variety of forms of evidence, such as archaeology, oral tradition, historical accounts, and genetics. In Maine, the Wabanaki Confederacy ­manages repatriations collectively. The Maine Historic Preservation Commission and its Archaeological Advisory Committee has set a 1000-year cut-off for Wabanaki affiliation, reflecting a decision to repatriate items and remains covered under NAGPRA dating from the last 1000 years. Opinions among professional archaeologists in the region vary, with some archaeologists

accepting affiliation much deeper in time, or even accepting a general notion of continuity from the first peopling of the region. Many Wabanaki accept cultural affiliation in the region from time immemorial (see Newsom 2008). Legislated ethical steps also create challenges. Some archaeologists and Wabanaki communities ­observe that collaboration focuses on a “check-list” approach to collaboration (Cyr 2012) rather than ­building ­meaningful relationships. Another critique of NAGPRA is that it is complex legislation; King (2013:266) has argued that the complexity and interpretability of NAGPRA means that, more than serving as traditional ­legislation, there is a “vehicle for cooperation” and some basic standards for how archaeologists and ­museums should behave. Today, museums such as the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine, are working to “­decolonize” their collections and develop collections and ­research strategies that are not just compliant with federal laws, but strive to have a positive social ­impact in the present by sharing decision making with Wabanaki communities about how to manage and portray Wabanaki histories.

with Mi’kmaw and Wolastoqiyik communities. Out of resulting tensions about the archaeological project grew an opportunity to develop collaborative protocols for work in northern border areas, including sharing practices of Indigenous conflict resolution with members of the non-Indigenous community. In our own work in southern Nova Scotia, the E’se’get Archaeology Project included field schools for Indigenous youth, online dissemination of research, and the development of protocols surrounding incidental recovery of human remains. Most importantly, this project included regular meetings with the local band and council to identify community goals and needs surrounding the research. Broad theoretical statements about Indigenous archaeology offer places to start, but collaborative archaeologies necessarily recognize and respond to the local context from their inception. Ongoing research at the Debert Palaeoindian site complex in Nova Scotia (see chapter 4) serves as a model of Indigenous archaeological research for the deep past (see Bernard et al. 2011; Rosenmeier et al. 2012). Among the many positive outcomes of such collaborations are that the goals of Indigenous communities and archaeological communities are often congruous.

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Indeed, as much community-engaged archaeological research has shown in the Atlantic Northeast, incorporating the perspectives of community members yields crucial information about understanding the archaeological record (e.g., Sanger et al. 2006). Perhaps most importantly, they have brought to the forefront of archaeological p­ ractice in the region questions surrounding authority over the past (e.g., Betts et al. 2018; Loring 2008), a concern that is acute in practical, consequential ways, including the control of intellectual property resulting from archaeological and historical research (see Newsom et al. 2014). Archaeological and historical data are increasingly deployed authoritatively in debates and court cases surrounding treaty rights, and land, water, and resource claims (e.g., Supreme Court of Canada 2005, 2014; see Hogg and Welch 2017; Martindale 2014), including in the Atlantic Northeast (e.g., United States Court of Appeals 2017). The archaeological record we describe in this book, composed largely of the physical things of the past, is itself, of course, static. The things of the archaeological record did not, in many cases, disappear after European contact, nor did their meanings or use freeze. Things and traditions can be reinvented, reimagined, and deployed to resist colonialism, or to survive. For instance, at nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Maine tourist destinations, Wabanaki people sold wares to “rusticators” that were overtly Indigenous – items such as baskets, clubs, and taxidermy (Butler 1997; McBride and Prins 2009). Others served as hunting and tour guides, perhaps most famously Joe Polis, Henry David Thoreau’s Penobscot guide on his trip through Maine (Thoreau and Cramer 2009). In Nova Scotia, Mi’kmaw people such as Charlie Wilmot were paid by the Nova Scotia Museum to collect artifacts, excelling at it due to extensive understanding of the landscape and knowledge passed through generations of how and where his ancestors lived (Lelièvre 2017a:Ch. 2). These technologies and activities drew on traditional knowledge to persist against colonial power (MacDougall 2004).

Drawing on the Past to Make the Present In 1941, Florence Nicola Shay worried, “We have lost our customs, and are fast losing our language. There are very few Indians that speak the Penobscot Dialect, nearly all of our older members have passed on, and the only thing left to remind us of our heritage is Indian basketry. The present generation are basket makers, but after they are gone there will not even be basketry to tell us we are Penobscot Indians” (in Butler 1997:6–7). Despite her concern, the processes of using material items for cultural persistence continue today, and as her quote would suggest, Wabanaki basketry is among their most tangible manifestations (figure 3.1) (see Neptune and Neuman

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FIGURE 3.1  An early ­twentieth-century Mi’kmaw basket.

Photograph ­courtesy ­ anadian Museum of C ­History, III-F-1

2015). Neuman (2010:90) has noted that “many Wabanaki people … [view basketry] as a form of cultural preservation, revitalization, and education (connected to language acquisition) that makes a powerful statement about sovereignty that can be used as a tool for decolonizing.” Speaking to the importance of baskets to Wabanaki culture, Wabanaki baskets today may be utilitarian and robust large baskets are constructed from ash that has been split into thin splints (see Carter and Prins 1986). Fancy baskets are more delicate and smaller, and incorporate sweetgrass and various dyed materials to create patterns or images. Wabanaki baskets are frequently recognized at a national and international level as among the most finely made in the world. Organizations such as the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance unite basketmakers to promote Wabanaki baskets as an art form and to market baskets; they also work to protect access to the material and knowledge needed to continue this craft. As archaeological sites are threatened by erosion, development, and other anthropogenic factors, so too does development and private landownership affect Indigenous access to resources to practice traditional technologies (Ellis 2016). For instance, not only do development and access to the coast affect access to ash and sweetgrass for baskets, the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) has, due in large part to climate change, expanded to the Atlantic Northeast, killing ash trees that are essential for basketry and feature prominently in Wabanaki belief and stories. Wabanaki are leading the effort to abate the effects of the

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insect and are collaborating with a variety of initiatives. At the same time, they are exploring ways to adapt basket-making practices (see Costanza et al. 2017). To another of Shay’s concerns, Indigenous people in the Atlantic Northeast are also engaged in language revitalization. When Mashantucket Pequot built their museum, the Pequot language scripts were recorded by Wabanaki speakers, because their living language is closely related to Pequot, a language that no longer has native speakers. Wabanaki languages are living languages, still spoken today. Wabanaki peoples preserve, perpetuate, and modify them in myriad ways (see Perley 2011). One way is the preservation of stories and songs. The first ethnographic field recordings made were songs and stories in Passamaquoddy, recorded by Jesse Walter Fewkes and kept at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Today, these recordings have been digitally restored and preserved. Passamaquoddy Elders now meet to listen, translate, and interpret the recordings for future generations, and preserve this knowledge digitally on a Mukurtu platform at the Passamaquoddy Peoples’ Knowledge Portal/Kulasihkulpon yut Peskotomuhkati-pomawsuwinuwok Etoli-kisokehkimsultimok (passamaquoddypeople.com; see Fewkes 1890; Thorp 2019). As Indigenous people in the Atlantic Northeast engage in archaeology or deploy archaeological information, archaeology may become a similar force and one powerfully united with the traditional knowledge and ways of knowing held within Indigenous communities. Throughout the Atlantic Northeast, a variety of Indigenous-led initiatives work toward these goals, some of which are formalized. In the United States, Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (THPOs) such as Donald Soctomah (Passamaquoddy), Chris Sockalexis (Penobscot), Isaac St. John (Maliseet), and John Dennis (Micmac) manage historic preservation on tribally held land, and serve as advocates for Wabanaki history and the preservation of Wabanaki k­ nowledge. Many – such as Sockalexis and Soctomah – are also active historians or archaeologists. In the Maritimes, Wabanaki groups such as the Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn, or Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative, are active in the deployment and management of knowledge within Indigenous frameworks toward Indigenous goals. Museums, universities, and various other entities increasingly recognize the importantce of incorporating Indigenous perspectives and engaging in decolonizing initiatives (Lyons and Blair 2018). Though much work surely remains, these efforts are in large part due to the tireless advocacy of Indigenous heritage organizations, groups, and community l­eaders (see Blair et al. 2014).

Preservation for Interpretation The archaeological record does not speak for itself, but must be interpreted. Roger Lewis (2010:181), a Mi’kmaw archaeologist, notes, “Most Indigenous peoples have a significant interest in their history. In addition, many are willing to share their

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­traditional values, knowledge, and practices, their oral histories, and even their language, as well as mnemonic devices such as songs, chants, and prayers, if they are used in a constructive, respectful, and meaningful way. For their part, n ­ on-Indigenous archaeologists should be willing to reframe their investigative approaches and to collaborate with Indigenous populations to arrive at both a scholarly and Indigenous conclusion to their research investigations in keeping with this simple approach.” Today Wabanaki people continue to assert their rights to the past, and we cannot be strenuous enough in our reminder that this book is largely about the histories of living communities, through the particular lens of archaeological history. Our perspectives and those of other archaeologists in the region are not unanimous. Moreover, these perspectives speak to our particular outsider’s perspective on the Indigenous pasts of the region. We hope that this book is of use and value to Indigenous peoples, including those we have collaborated with in our own research and those who have shared information that we have incorporated into the book. We also recognize, however, that our ways of knowing and our perceptions of history are different, in some cases, than those of Indigenous peoples (figure 3.2). Fundamentally, the protection of archaeological resources, we think, remains essential. In our own collaborative work, responding to the acceleration of anthropogenic

FIGURE 3.2 Donald Soctomah, the Passamaquoddy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, sharing knowledge about the Machias Bay petroglyphs (see ­chapter 11). Indigenous experts share knowledge of the past of the Atlantic Northeast in formal and informal ways, preserving and interpreting the past for the future.

Photograph courtesy M. ­Gabriel Hrynick

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threats to archaeological sites and historic resources has been a starting place. In our assessment, the collaborative approaches outlined by Lewis and others (e.g., Betts 2019; Blair et al. 2014; Jerome and Putnam 2006) in the Atlantic Northeast moves archaeological practice toward frameworks that shift authority to Indigenous people and expand research capacity in the region, in large part through the training and empowering of Indigenous people, whose ancestral past comprises the vast majority of the region’s history.

The Role of Culture History This book is largely an exercise in culture history – situating and explaining the people, events, and things of the past in time and space. Our own theoretical biases are toward privileging explanations of the past that are rooted in how earlier peoples may have understood their own pasts and made themselves in light of that understanding. We have aimed to provide a synthesis of present archaeological understanding of a large region over a long time. This broad view, we believe, is necessary for making informed decisions about research priorities and for protecting particular sites. Fundamentally, nuanced culture histories form a baseline of useful information for a variety of goals. As development expands, climate changes, sea level rises, and storms increase, archaeological sites in the Atlantic Northeast are threatened to the extent that the region lacks the necessary capacity to conduct research before they are destroyed. As a result, where to focus research represents a crucial societal decision moving forward. These prioritization decisions should, we believe, rest first with Indigenous communities. Paradoxically, the destruction of sites at present is such that prioritization decisions drawing on filling gaps in the archaeological record, historical significance, and degree of threat benefit from information only the archaeological record can provide. There are a variety of initiatives in the Atlantic Northeast that are rising to this challenge. The Maine Midden Minders project, for instance, focuses on the problem of eroding shell midden sites (see conclusion), a class of site of which more than 2,000 probably exist on the Maine coast, and which were created by Indigenous people primarily in the last 3000 years. They are rapidly eroding. The Midden Minders unites Indigenous communities, archaeologists, scientists, and citizen scientists to monitor the erosion of these sites on a regular basis and report back to a central repository of information, to help inform decisions about which sites are most valuable and most threatened. The Canadian Museum of History is in the early stages of another initiative striving to build frameworks for prioritizing which eroding archaeological sites to salvage via shared authority frameworks between professional archaeologists and First Nations leaders and cultural experts.

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The version of this past we outline in this book is assuredly from our own perspective, but it is an understanding that has been inflected by what we have learned from collaborations with Indigenous archaeologists, experts, historians, Elders, and community members. These relationships have also challenged us to better recognize the importance of the past to contemporary communities. We know that they may disagree with some of our interpretations, but we also hope that this book is at least a useful resource for contemporary social goals. More crucially, we hope that it emphasizes the richness of this region’s archaeological record – part of a history that continues to be made.

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CHAPTER 4

THE PALAEOINDIAN PERIOD (CA. 13,000 TO 9000 CAL BP)

Introduction Almost 13,000 years ago, humans began to live in the Atlantic Northeast, arriving from the west. The environment they inhabited was profoundly different from ours now. The climate and the ongoing retreat of the glaciers (see chapter 2) resulted in an environment that, while generally cold, tundric, and dotted with remnant ice caps, was marked by glaciomorphological diversity and dramatic climate shifts through time. In particular, the Younger Dryas (12,900–11,600 cal BP) produced a prolonged cold, dry snap. The first inhabitants of the Atlantic Northeast are called Palaeoindians by archaeologists. In North America, a group of Palaeoindians termed Clovis people – closely associated with a kind of large projectile point with a longitudinal flake or flute driven off it – were the first substantive colonizers around the Americas. The archaeological record indicates that the first people in the Northeast were descended from Clovis Palaeoindians, who colonized North America in a matter of hundreds rather than thousands of years and exhibit remarkable cultural similarities across the continent. Accordingly, discussing the Palaeoindian period in the Atlantic Northeast requires attention to regional questions, and reliance on broadly defined notions of chronology and human practices. In a general sense, Palaeoindian studies try to form an impression of peoples notable for their distinctiveness and lacking good contemporary analogy, colonizing a North American landscape that was radically different from how it is today. Distinctiveness, along with the sense of exploration and “firstness” Palaeoindians invoke, helps to explain part of the archaeological and public fascination with them. The archaeological record of these people is sparse, and composed mostly of stone tools, some of which are unlike any others in the world, including large fluted points. These points were made on colourful, high-quality toolstone. Northeast Palaeoindians provide an important and – globally s­ peaking – relatively recent example of a continental-scale hunter-gatherer colonizing event.

BOX 4.1  FLUTING A PROJECTILE POINT Beyond being visually striking, placing a long flute longitudinally on a thin biface is difficult to do. ­Experimental archaeologists and avocational flintknappers have long emphasized recreating these uniquely Palaeoindian flutes with varying degrees of success – being able to make a fluted point is a rite of passage for many serious flintknappers (see ­Whittaker 1994:219). A variety of techniques are employed by knappers today to make fluted points. Some of these approaches require various accoutrements, most of which would not preserve in the archaeological record (cf. Frison and Bradley 1981). For instance, a biface can be held in a vise while the knapper applies pressure by leaning against a crutch (see Crabtree 1966), and some archaeologists have even suggested that lever devices or other instruments may have been used (e.g., Goodyear 2010; Sollberger 1985; see Whittaker 1994:236–237). Other knappers are partial to indirect percussion, a technique in which a biface is held in front of the knapper in a vise or simply using their feet for support, and a punch is held against the biface to be struck by a hammer, driving force along the biface to generate a flute and channel flake (Whittaker 1994:237–241). We may never confidently know how Palaeoindians fluted their points, but we suspect that simple indirect percussion approaches, such as striking a punch with a hammer to carefully drive force along the point, would have been the most likely tech-

niques. It is difficult for us to envision highly mobile Palaeoindian groups transporting or constructing apparatus to create fluted points; in select cases, such as Vail-Debert style points with deep basal concavities accompanying long flutes, some kind of simple device may have been employed (Goodyear 2010). Even the best contemporary knappers do not grow up with the cultural context of a stone-tool using society; it is probably difficult for us to even imagine the skill of Palaeoindian knappers, and we anticipate that while they surely sometimes failed to flute points successfully, their success rates were higher than those of contemporary knappers (see Ellis and Payne 1995). Why Palaeoindian peoples fluted their spear points may be the more intriguing question. Given the difficulty involved, and given that it was not functionally necessary to make a useful point, it is likely that it had some highly symbolic meaning, either socially or cosmologically, or both. At the Debert site, a tiny projectile point, with the same basal concavity as large fluted Debert points, was made from a channel flake. This suggests that the fluting itself was deeply connected to the point. Whatever their meaning, it is undeniable that the flutes acted as a symbol. They represented a way of life that endured for centuries and that connected peoples across vast territories. Even if it was unconsciously understood, it may have signalled, to all those who made it, a shared way of life and a reliance on a technology that was crucial to supporting it.

The Northeast ca. 13,000 cal BP was likely an appealing place for Palaeoindians. For one, Palaeoindians appear to have “high-graded” their toolstone, preferring very knappable, often visually appealing lithic materials, often transported hundreds of kilometres. Such stone can be acquired at prominent Northeast sources such as Munsungan Lake in northern Maine, and in the Minas Basin in Nova Scotia. Perhaps more importantly, the region was also likely ecologically appealing, with caribou herds that could be intercepted, especially as they moved from forest to tundra, and with glacial environments for much of the Palaeoindian period. More difficult to quantify is what appears to have been a human tendency for exploration across what was truly a New World, following the opening of previously glaciated areas to rapidly colonize

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most of North America. We suspect that the view of Palaeoindians as intrepid explorers is probably correct, if somewhat reductive. For our purposes, the Atlantic Northeast is encompassed by what Spiess and Wilson (1987) recognized as a loosely defined “New England-Maritimes Palaeoindian region” (figure 4.1) exhibiting economic and cultural similarity. Patterns of lithic material distributions, site types, and inferred site activities are similar throughout the region, despite local environments, suggesting similar lifeways for much of the Palaeoindian period. This is consistent with ethnographic analogies for groups that follow herds of caribou around large territories; plausibly, the region may have even been a “macroband territory” within which bands of Palaeoindians regularly interacted (Newby et al. 2005; Singer 2017; cf. Bradley and Boudreau 2006), although, as we discuss below, much remains to be understood about these early lifeways. Temporally, the Palaeoindian period likely can be considered in terms of Early, Middle, and Late. However, as we discuss below, archaeological understanding of the period is fraught with chronological challenges and taxonomic questions. Thus, in this chapter we consider Early and Middle Palaeoindian as “fluted-point Palaeoindian” and discuss them first, before turning to Late Palaeoindian, the relationship of which to both fluted-point Palaeoindian and subsequent Early Archaic peoples is ambiguous. Until relatively recently, little was known about Palaeoindians in the Northeast (figure 4.2). Modern development has led to CRM archaeology on the kinds of landforms that Palaeoindians seemed to prefer (e.g., Bernard et al. 2011). For instance, the construction of regional airports in Maine has led to CRM work on windblown sandy landforms (e.g., Hudgell et al. 2017; Spiess and Wilson 1987). Similarly, it has long been known that New Brunswick was home to Palaeoindians, because collectors and archaeologists had identified and reported a series of isolated finds of Palaeoindian artifacts (Turnbull 1974; Turnbull and Allen 1978), but the province’s forests may have limited the visibility of Palaeoindian site locations (Lothrop et al. 2016:221). CRM archaeology, driven by development in previously undeveloped areas, promises to identify more Palaeoindian sites in such areas, such as the Pennfield site recently identified in New Brunswick (e.g., Dignam et al. 2012, in press). Throughout this chapter it will be apparent that the Palaeoindian period is better known in Maine than in the Maritime provinces. We do not see any reason to suspect that this reflects true Palaeoindian patterning in any substantial way. Rather, we note that not until the 1970s were Palaeoindian sites in Maine identified, and not until the 1980s were they reported in detail (see Wilson and Spiess 1990:17). Archaeologists within the state have also had an ethos of reporting Palaeoindian research from avocational, CRM, and academic contexts (e.g., Spiess 2002:35). Similarly, fluted-point Palaeoindian sites have begun to be recognized in Quebec (Pintal 2012).

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FIGURE 4.1 Key Palaeoindian sites and locations mentioned in the text.

Map by Alexander Honsinger and Mallory Moran

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FIGURE 4.2  Excavations in the Debert Palaeoindian site in Nova Scotia in the 1960s, the first Palaeoindian site identified in the area.

Courtesy Canadian Museum of History, S71-1918

Who Were the First People in the Atlantic Northeast? Before we discuss Atlantic Northeast Palaeoindians in detail, it is necessary to briefly discuss the suite of loosely related “Pre-Clovis” theories of the first peopling of the Americas. At present, the most convincing of these theories places humans on the west coast of North America somewhat earlier than previously believed – likely on the order of 15,000 to 14,000 cal BP. While the first peopling of the Americas is an important archaeological topic, the major movement of people into and later settling into (sensu Meltzer 2013) North and possibly South America were Clovis and Clovis-related Palaeoindians. In effect, we agree with Amick (2017:126) that “the Clovis Cultural Phenomenon deserves the bulk of attention in understanding the early occupations of North America because of the enormous scale and speed of its success.” Groups slightly later than Clovis but still using fluted points similar to those characteristic of Clovis made the first substantive occupation of the Atlantic Northeast, despite environmental data showing glacial retreat from portions of the Northeast perhaps as early as 14,000 cal BP (Miller and Gingerich 2013:14). These people likely were migrants of “Clovis” groups who followed ice-free routes along the edges of glaciers into the mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley ice-free areas around 13,000 years ago, before trekking northward into New England and then the Maritimes, likely over the span of a few hundred years (Lothrop et al. 2016:220–221).

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BOX 4.2  THE TERM PALAEOINDIAN In this book, we have retained the use of the term Palaeoindian to refer to the earliest inhabitants of North America. Famously, the term Indian refers to Columbus’s mistaken notion of having landed in the East Indies. In Canada, this term is now rarely used, but persists, for instance, in some legislation to refer to First Nations people. Use of the term Indian or American Indian is more common and sometimes preferred among Indigenous people in the United States. The term Palaeoindian remains in widespread use through the Atlantic Northeast as well as the rest of North America, and we have continued to use it here, albeit with misgivings. Alternatives – such as Palaeoamerican or simply Palaeo – run the risk of implying that the first people in North America are not ancestral to contemporary Indigenous peoples in the Atlantic Northeast. They are, and this point bears emphasis in light of a long history of attempts to separate contemporary Indigenous peoples from their deep histories or to suggest European origins for prehistoric cultural traits such as large earthen

mounds. In a broad sense, we do not feel that it is our place to develop a new term, especially since archaeological views about the timing of first peoples in North America differ from some traditional Indigenous beliefs. Archaeologically, the term also retains taxonomic validity more clearly than later periods that have historically included Indian. Palaeoindian refers to a widely shared series of cultural traits over a remarkably large area within a particular period of time. Using a different term in the Atlantic ­Northeast at this juncture would, we worry, suggest that the ­Atlantic Northeast was not a part of the earliest ­cultural developments in North America. Some archaeologists and Indigenous communities in parts of the Atlantic Northeast have begun to use culture history terminologies that reflect Indigenous ways of reckoning ancestry, time, and the past. For instance, Donald Julien and colleagues (2008) outline the development of one such way of speaking about the past developed at the Mi’kmawey Debert Project, drawing on the wisdom of Mi’kmaw Elders.

Overturning this long-held view would require diagnostic “pre-Clovis” artifacts from securely dated contexts, and the vast majority of the pre-Clovis debate concerns areas outside the Atlantic Northeast (see B. Robinson 2012). Discussions of preClovis occupation in the region presently involve a suite of proposals that some bifaces resemble bipointed specimens from European Upper Palaeolithic cultures (Stanford and Bradley 2012). Indeed, the Atlantic Northeast has produced bifaces that are consistent, morphologically and contextually, with the kinds of points Stanford and Bradley (2012) have proposed indicate a pre-Clovis occupation of the mid-Atlantic coast by a colonizing population from Europe (Bradley and Spiess 2017). Such points are rare and their contexts less convincing than the already substantially contested proposals from the mid-Atlantic. Although this “Solutrean hypothesis” has received recent attention, it is worth remembering that archaeologists had long noted morphological similarities between Solutrean and some North American bifaces. The pioneering avocational archaeologist from Woodstock, New Brunswick, George Frederick Clarke (2016:98–101, 128), for instance, observed similarities between bifaces from a cache in Bristol, New Brunswick, and Solutrean forms. As Pelletier-Michaud (2017) observes, the Bristol-Shiktehawk cache has been omitted from many reviews of

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­ orphologically similar tools. However, such bifaces are also found in securely dated m contexts from the Terminal Archaic and Early Woodland periods. Accordingly, we do not think bifaces such as the Bristol-Shiktehawk cache and bipointed forms from other un-dated contexts in the region (e.g., Wintemberg 1943), or other evidence, support any pre-Clovis occupation in the region. In short, a preponderance of genetic, linguistic, and archaeological data suggests that the colonization of the Northeast was from the west by fluted-point-using Palaeoindians (see Lothrop et al. 2016:210–220 for a review of possible pre-Clovis sites from the greater Northeast).

Building Palaeoindian Chronology Archaeologists have long been aware that eastern North America has both a greater number of Palaeoindian fluted stone tools and a greater diversity of forms than elsewhere on the continent (Mason 1962) but, conversely, fewer of the radiocarbon dates on stratified sites or features that are the bread and butter of contemporary chronology building. Many sites also lack clearly diagnostic artifacts that can date them to specific times within the Palaeoindian period (e.g., Spiess and Mosher 1992). Due to this, the timing and tempo of the colonization remain unclear, in part because of a pervasive problem in Northeastern Palaeoindian studies generally: an absence of well-defined features or bone preservation at most sites, coupled with complex site formation processes (Bonnichsen and Will 1999), makes building nuanced radiocarbon chronologies difficult. Moreover, even well-associated radiocarbon dates during this period are plagued by pronounced plateaus, especially during the Younger Dryas. Ellis (2012), for instance, suspects that the Younger Dryas radiocarbon plateau accounts for apparent variability in Middle Palaeoindian toolkits, because ostensibly similar dates may in fact be from different ends of long “plateaus” in which there were abundances of atmospheric carbon-14, such as between 12,800 and 11,200 cal BP. Rapid increases and declines in atmospheric carbon-14 and -12 may even cause older and younger dates to occur in the wrong order (Fiedel 1999). As a result, the seriation of tools, the correlation of site locations to known geological events, and the development of new dating techniques may be especially important as archaeologists seek to refine the absolute timing and relative order of early occupations. For now – in a theme that returns again and again in Palaeoindian archaeology – temporal focus is primarily on fluted points, and how people changed their styles through time. Bradley and colleagues (2008) measured the length, thickness, and medial and basal widths of points from New England and the Maritimes and divided them into eight forms named for prominent regional sites featuring those forms. Accordingly, Early, Middle, and Late Palaeoindian times are conceived of largely by point types (figure 4.3)

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FIGURE 4.3 Sequence of Palaeoindian biface forms: (a) Kings RoadWhipple; (b) VailDebert; (c) Bull BrookWest Athens Hill; (d) Crowfield-related; (e) Ste. Anne-Varney.

Adapted from Lothrop and colleagues (2011:Fig. 6); illustration by Erin Ingram

(see Lothrop et al. 2016:210–211 for radiocarbon refinements). These point-based chronologies derive from point chronologies elsewhere but are refined in light of local radiocarbon dates and archaeological contexts. Fundamentally, they are likely derived from better-known Palaeoindian point forms from the west, such as Clovis, Folsom, and Plano, and draw on dates for similar point forms from surrounding areas: Early Palaeoindian (Clovis-like [Ellis 2011:387], 12,900–12,200 cal BP) Kings Road-Whipple Vail-Debert (possibly older than Bull Brook; Lothrop et al. 2016:210) Bull Brook-West Athens Hill Middle Palaeoindian (later fluted-point types, 12,200–11,600 cal BP) Michaud-Neponset (likely ca. 12,000 cal BP; Lothrop et al. 2016:210) Crowfield-related Cormier-Nicholas Late Palaeoindian (unfluted lanceolates, 11,600–9000 cal BP) Agate Basin–related Ste. Anne-Varney There are other possible typological indicators. For instance, Keenlyside (1991) has suggested that small, triangular, basally concave and thinned bifaces may be 58 

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i­ ndicative of the Late Palaeoindian period in the Maritimes, and a kind of transitional form between the Late Palaeoindian and Maritime Archaic period. Absolute dates for this form have not been attained, so the temporal assignation remains provisional (Bonnichsen et al. 1993; Doyle et al. 1985; Keenlyside 1991). In a projectile point chronology such as this one, Bradley and colleagues (2008) suggest that in situ culture change may be indicated when the patterning between forms begins to blur. At first glance, a clear change in Palaeoindian lithic technology occurred between Middle Palaeoindian fluted-point forms and Late Palaeoindian unfluted lanceolate and, potentially, triangular forms. In this chapter, we first consider the Early and Middle Palaeoindian periods – often termed in the aggregate as “fluted-point Palaeoindian.” We approach the Palaeoindian period this way for reasons that are culture-historical as well as practical. First, fluted-point Palaeoindian co-occurs with the Younger Dryas, creating a degree of environmental continuity and arguably the environment for which fluted points were ideally deployed: hunting caribou and other large mammals (Newby et al. 2005). A variety of culture traits we discuss below – mobility, technology, and settlement – also appear to be somewhat similar among Early and Middle Palaeoindians, although meaningful variability is detectable. Finally, our approach reflects a reality of the archaeological record: in the absence of good chronometric dates from many sites and due to the ambiguities of seriating among fluted points, associated debitage, and other tool forms, it is sometimes necessary to lump Early and Middle Palaeoindian together from a practical standpoint. Late Palaeoindian occurs in a more radically changed environment and cultural landscape.

The Fluted-Point Palaeoindian Toolkit Fluted-point Palaeoindians are imagined by archaeologists, museums, and the public as small groups of big game hunters ranging a barren, harsh environment, clad in furs, accompanied by dogs, and armed with spears. This general impression helps to capture their archaeological importance as a group of colonizers who had to explore and settle in to a new and, indeed, cold and dry place; portions of the Atlantic Northeast were still glaciated during the Palaeoindian period. Archaeologists know that Palaeoindians had a visually striking and distinctive stone toolkit (figures 4.4 and 4.5). Palaeoindians must have had a rich selection of non-stone tools, clothing, and shelter as they inhabited the Atlantic Northeast – but only occasionally do materials from this probable toolkit survive in the archaeological record, such as a rare piece of antler from the Neal Garrison Palaeoindian site in Maine (Kellogg et al. 2003). Because it is primarily the stone toolkit that preserves in the archaeological record, it comprises much of what we know about Palaeoindians. This toolkit had a variety of advantages for the people who made and used it, especially, as Ellis (2008) has pointed out, that in addition to THE PALAEOINDIAN PERIOD

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FIGURE 4.4  Photograph of a representative fluted-point Palaeoindian toolkit from the Bull Brook site. A is a Bull Brook fluted point; B, C, and I are forms of scrapers; E–H are drills; and D is a graver or perforator. Note that the tools are made on high-quality cryptocrystalline materials.

Photograph by E. Cooper of material at the Robert S. Peabody Institute and Peabody Essex Museum, reproduced with permission from Robinson et al. 2009

being portable, most of the tools in the lithic kit could have been made quickly and deployed to a wide variety of tasks, and tools could often be reused if broken. Fluted-point Palaeoindians appear to have preferentially used high-quality cryptocrystalline toolstones (Goodyear 1989), with the notable exception of large tools such as choppers, which were often fashioned on very coarse local materials, such as diabases or other igneous rocks (e.g., MacDonald 1968:104–107). Palaeoindians preferred to use materials that had been collected at the source, rather than deposited in secondary sources by natural processes; this is most strongly indicated by the appearance of quarry cortex on some Palaeoindian flaked stone (Burke 2004; Ellis 2011; Meltzer 1984; Spiess and Wilson 1989). For much of the Palaeoindian period, toolkits were characterized by fluted points, especially the highly diagnostic fluted forms. Fluted points were almost certainly used to dispatch large fauna (Meltzer 2006:247), but usewear analysis shows that fluted points often were put to a variety of other tasks, including as hafted knives (see Andrefsky 1998:192). However, other aspects of the Palaeoindian toolkit are more common if less diagnostic, and it is important to note that many fluted-point era Palaeoindian sites have not had fluted points recovered at them at all (e.g., Hudgell et al. 2013; Kellogg et al. 2003). These other aspects of the toolkit provide some insight into other activities Palaeoindians engaged in, but certainly leave much unknown. For

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FIGURE 4.5  Photograph of a representative fluted-point Palaeoindian toolkit from the Debert site. A–E are various sizes of fluted points with deep basal concavities; F is a probable knife preform; G–H are large bifaces, likely knives; I is a small fluted point made on a channel flake; J is a sidescraper; K and O are gravers or perforators; and L–N are endscrapers.

Courtesy Canadian Museum of History, adapted from 2008-0007-1926-DM

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instance, Hudgell and colleagues (2013) have tentatively assigned the Grand Lake Outlet site on the Maine–New Brunswick border to the Early Palaeoindian period based not on fluted points but on lithic debitage consistent with “Enterline” fluting of Early Palaeoindian points, in which the base of a point is ground and flakes are removed laterally on the point to “guide” the eventual channel flake (Witthoft 1952). Pièces esquillées (figure 4.6) – emphasized in the North American literature by MacDonald (1968:85–90; following Bardon and Bouysonnie 1906) at Debert – are bipolar cores that some researchers have suggested were used as wedges, probably to groove or split bone or wood. Following their inferred function, these artifacts are sometimes simply called “wedges” in the regional literature. Hayden (1980) has cautioned against conflating bipolar cores and wedges, specifically invoking the assemblage from Debert; the distinction is difficult to distinguish from a lithic technology standpoint because each form relies on the same technical approach to manufacture: striking one end of a stone with another, while the other end of the piece to be struck is against an anvil. In brief, Hayden argues that wedges and pièces esquillées are two fundamentally different types of artifact, and that the actual utility of the Debert pièces esquillées as wedges would be minimal compared to retouched flakes for grooving organic materials. To this end, Lothrop and Gramly (1981) attempted to distinguish bipolar cores resulting from the reduction of small cobbles through the only means possible – bashing them on one end with a hammer while the other end of the cobble is positioned against an anvil – from a tool form resulting from bipolar reduction, often through reworking spent tools of other forms. Either scenario is consistent with the idea of a highly versatile Palaeoindian toolkit, but we agree that the implications of each form are not the same – both in terms of what kind of lithic materials Palaeoindians were using and what they were using them for. Lothrop and Gramly’s straightforward approach of relying on the presence of cobble cortex to identify pieces used as bipolar cores and other criteria indicate that, at many Palaeoindian sites, bipolar reduction was applied to rework flaked stone tools. What does appear to be the case is that, whatever their purpose, they are found in contexts where toolstone was not abundant (Gramly 1982; MacDonald 1968; Meltzer 1988), suggesting bipolar reduction was a technique to maximize the utility of limited chert resources. Drills are recovered at many Palaeoindian sites, but in varying abundance. Notably, 56 drills were recovered at the Vail site, some of which were fluted on one or both sides. Spiess and Wilson (1987:68) suggest that flutes on drills such as those at Vail indicate that drills were hafted rather than twisted by hand – they may have been spun with a wooden bow. In general, drills are morphologically diverse among and within Palaeoindian assemblages (e.g., Gramly 1982:30–33). Their functions may also have been myriad, but Gramly (1982:31) envisions drills in tandem with a rich but poorly

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FIGURE 4.6  Pièces esquillées from the Debert Palaeoindian site in Nova Scotia. Note the step fracturing and crushing along the proximal and distal edges along with the large columnar fracture on the right, all of which are characteristic features of bipolar percussion. During use, the distal edge is held against the contact material and the proximal edge is struck with a hammer stone.

Photograph by Christopher Brouillette, courtesy ­Canadian Museum of ­History

preserved bone and wood tool technology: “Drills would have been needed to start holes in antler wrenches, make sockets in handles, and cut holes for lashing composite artifacts together.” Both drills and pièces esquillées are sometimes absent from Palaeoindian assemblages, possibly reflecting changes in the toolkit through time or seasonality of particular sites (see Spiess and Wilson 1987:66–68). Fluted-point Palaeoindians often made choppers, abraders, and scrapers as part of what Spiess and Wilson (1987:72) have termed a “rough stone industry.” These are made out of poor quality, local lithic materials, such as Christian Hill diabase or locally

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available cobbles. It is difficult to imagine a toolstone less like Munsungan chert than Christian Hill diabase, a chunky, granitic material that was available near the Auburn Maine Airport Palaeoindian site cluster. The resulting, fairly crude tools may have been used for various kinds of work on wood or to abrade or grind other materials. Palaeoindian assemblages also include unique unifacial lithic technology. Endscrapers are the most frequently recovered formal tool from eastern Palaeoindian sites and were likely used for various stages of hide scraping (Loebel 2013). For instance, they comprise over half of the unifaces from the Debert site. Many Palaeoindian endscrapers exhibit “spurs” in the form of protrusions at the corner of the sharpened edge (see Dickinson 2001), likely a result of sharpening and resharpening endscrapers while they were still hafted to handles. Alternatively, hide workers may have inadvertently created them as a result of inexperience or loss of physical strength, causing the tool to repeatedly drift left or right during use (Weedman 2002). Loebel (2013) argues that the ubiquity of endscapers at Palaeoindian sites attests to hide work as a “constant task” – although Palaeoindian hides are not preserved in the archaeological record, we suspect that they were important for clothing and shelter, and maybe even for boats. Usewear analysis of some endscrapers also suggest they may have been used on antler, bone, or wood (e.g., Kellogg et al. 2003; Spiess and Wilson 1987). Sidescrapers, characterized by retouch along at least one but sometimes both lateral edges, are usually made on flakes (e.g., Kellogg et al. 2003:106–107). They are often less curved than endscrapers (Ellis and Deller 2000:123–129) and were probably hand-held rather than hafted (Lothrop et al. 2016:227). Limaces are unifacial stone tools that get their name from slugs, the shape of which they are vaguely reminiscent. They occur at a variety of Northeast fluted-point Palaeoindian sites (e.g., Debert [Macdonald 1968:98–99]; Vail [Gramly 1982:37–40]; Bull Brook [Byers 1954:348]), and are generally interpreted as a hafted tool used to shave organic materials such as bone, wood, or antler into tool forms (Daniel et al. 2007; Grimes and Grimes 1985). CHANGES IN THE FLUTED-POINT PALAEOINDIAN TOOLKIT THROUGH TIME AND THE NORTHEAST

Lothrop and colleagues (2016) have highlighted possible synchronic and diachronic patterning in the Palaeoindian toolkit in the Atlantic Northeast, offering opportunities to consider variability in lifeways, economy, environment, or some combination of factors. Of the tool types we discussed above, twist drills are exclusively found in New England and the Maritimes, and limaces are exclusive to Maine and the Maritimes or the Eastern Great Lakes. Pièces esquillées are more common in the New England Maritimes than in much of the Northeast, an intriguing observation given how prominent they are in Early Maritime Archaic assemblages in the region. During the Early

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Palaeoindian period, people in the Atlantic Northeast and New England used more unifacial tools compared to bifacial tools – a ratio of about five unifaces to one biface in the Early Palaeoindian period and three unifaces to one biface in the Middle Palaeoindian Period – likely corresponding with the changing importance of unifacial-dominated activities like the processing of hides or other materials (Lothrop et al. 2016:227). This preference for unifacial tools and reduction continues into the Maritime Archaic period throughout the region.

Fluted-Point Palaeoindian Foodways Archaeologists have few direct food remains from Palaeoindian sites in the Atlantic Northeast – or most of North America, for that matter – due to preservation conditions. As a result, interpretation of foodways relies heavily on using environmental indicators to establish what plants and animals were available for consumption and on inferring the uses of stone tools. Both plants and animals in the region would have varied seasonally, and a lack of seasonal indicators at Palaeoindian sites as well as the possibility that only the interior portion of a coastal-interior settlement pattern is represented in the archaeological record complicates the inference of Palaeoindian diets. In general, fluted-point Palaeoindians appear to have heavily exploited large herd animals and, to some degree, smaller mammals and berries, perhaps on an encounter basis. As we mentioned earlier, the absence of coastal sites means that we do not know what sort of coastal resources they may have exploited. The abundance and preferences of plant consumption are largely unknown for Palaeoindians, a phenomenon related to difficulty establishing well-contextualized or well-preserved charcoal for wood identification (Asch Sidell 1999). Some Northeastern Palaeoindians may have exploited wetland plants, based on site location, and, at the Israel River archaeological site complex in New Hampshire, a water lily seed was found in a likely Palaeoindian context (Boisvert 2012; see caveats therein). There is a very small, and therefore difficult to interpret, number of seeds that have been recovered via flotation at Palaeoindian sites, including economic plants from the grape family (Vitis) and plausibly medicinal plants such as sarsaparilla (Aralia hispida) (Asch Sidell 1999). McWeeney (2013) argues that systematic flotation of Palaeoindian sites even from units not exhibiting visible features is needed to better address questions of Palaeoindian plant use. Considering eastern fluted point using Palaeoindians broadly, Gingerich and Kitchel (2014) use the limited plant remains that have been recovered from such sites, coupled with ethnographically derived optimization models, to suggest that easy-to-collect plant foods requiring minimal processing, such as berries, were likely the major plant resources consumed by fluted-point Palaeoindians.

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Burned cervid bone has been identified at a variety of Palaeoindian sites in the Northeast (see Lothrop et al. 2016:30). All of the cervid remains are either definitely or likely of caribou (Rangifer tarandus) but could conceivably be deer. Beaver remains were identified at Bull Brook (Robinson et al. 2009), and small animal remains such as fox, otter, and hare have been identified at Palaeoindian sites in the greater Northeast (Goodby et al. 2014; Storck and Spiess 1994). Some attempts have been made to determine what animals may have been killed by analyzing blood residues from stone tools. These techniques seek to compare blood proteins found on stone tools with those from the blood of contemporary analogues. This is theoretically possible because animals produce unique antibodies that react with specific proteins. The process of extracting residues can be done in the lab, and the resultant antigens theoretically analyzed to interpret what kind of animal blood was on the tool (Moore et al. 2016). We echo the skepticism of other scholars about the efficacy of this approach (e.g., Fiedel 1996; Vance 2011; F. Robinson 2012:199). For one, it is not clear that blood proteins from the Palaeoindian period would truly preserve in the Northeast, nor is it clear that the techniques employ effective analogues; overall, the technique is subject to “over interpretation” and “false positives” (Lothrop et al. 2016:234). The most effective studies (e.g., Moore et al. 2016) may require superior preservation conditions to the Northeast, nuanced recovery protocols, successful blind studies using known samples, improved access to antisera from contemporary analogues, use in tandem with microwear studies, and DNA validation (see Grayson and Meltzer 2015:181–182).

Knowing Fluted-Point Palaeoindians by Analogy The description we have just provided of fluted-point Palaeoindian material culture has clearly been spotty and focused on using tool forms to measure time. It is one thing to seriate stone tools, and quite another to try to use them to interpret how people truly lived. Developing valid analogies for Palaeoindians is difficult at the outset because there is no modern environment that is much like the peri-glacial Northeast, and surely no clear choice of ethnographic analogy that resembles colonizing such a place. Attempting to address this, a variety of analogies have been used to study Palaeoindians (Randall and Hollenbach 2007). The most employed analogies are drawn from the sub-Arctic, reflecting the richness of the sub-Arctic’s ethnographic record and the caribou hunting practices of tundra-residing caribou hunters of the North, such as the Innu. Loring (1997) has suggested that this may neglect differences in environment between the sub-Arctic and the transitional Pleistocene-Holocene Northeast, more subtle economic differences, and substantial cultural differences. Yet the ethnographic Innu pattern has other important parallels to Northeast Palaeoindians: lithic procurement across long distances and a sometimes underappreciated utilization 66 

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of coastal resources. Innu spirituality is complex and part of a cosmological system that emphasized relationships among humans and animals that permeated daily life (Tanner 1979). The Cree analogy compels archaeologists to consider non-caribou resources – such as marine ones – that Northeast Palaeoindians, like ethnographically known Innu, may have exploited, particularly at lean caribou times. It also encourages archaeologists to pursue the study of Palaeoindians from other-than-economic tracks. Speth and colleagues (2013) have further problematized analogous interpretations rooted in the subsistence practices of Palaeoindians and have called for explanations that emphasize social concerns. In their view, sacred cows – or sacred caribou – of Palaeoindian lifeways are complicated by a broad application of hunter-gatherer analogy. High quality toolstone might be acquired by trade, or small groups of people might make logistical forays to acquire chert at a faraway source in a journey imbued with ritual significance; these forays could further be complicated by the use of watercraft or dogs. The distributions of particular resources, such as fine toolstones, may not correspond to hunter-gatherer ranges or territories or other conceivable cultural organizations. Finally, to what degree were Palaeoindians really big game specialists – “at least in the sense that their subsistence was heavily dependent upon it” (Speth et al. 2013)? Our interpretation of the Palaeoindian occupation of the Northeast is inspired by the ambiguities Speth and colleagues (2013) have introduced, but we detect a trend in Northeast Palaeoindian studies that was already exploring these areas. In the sections that follow, we attempt to trace some basic themes of Palaeoindian studies in the Far Northeast. In most cases, we recognize that there are a variety of plausible interpretations. In the aggregate, these themes help to generate a sense of what the earliest people in the Atlantic Northeast did and offer a starting point to consider subsequent cultural traditions within the region.

Fluted-Point Palaeoindian Toolstone Procurement, Caribou Herds, and Mobility There are a variety of ways that hunter-gatherers can travel to procure a resource, and not all resources, of course, have equal allure or value. Residential mobility involves the movement of whole groups, while logistical mobility involves smaller, task-specific groups making forays to resources and then returning to base camps (Binford 1980). In practice, many hunter-gatherer groups practice economic mobility strategies somewhere on a continuum between the two. In the archaeological record, distinguishing between the two can be difficult but has dramatic effects on how we understand Palaeoindian lifeways in particular landscapes. In the Atlantic Northeast, this debate hinges on two key factors: 1) fluted-point Palaeoindians appear to have preferred high quality toolstone and have been willing to traverse great distances to get it; and 2) Palaeoindians ­throughout THE PALAEOINDIAN PERIOD

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North America were, to some degree, big game hunters. While the occasional mastodon kill in the Atlantic Northeast is not out of the question (but has not been identified, Lothrop et al. 2016:228), limited faunal evidence from the broader Northeast (e.g., Curran 1984; Robinson 2009; Spiess et al. 1985; Storck and Spiess 1994) and artifacts and site patterns (e.g., Gramly 1982) indicate that Northeast Palaeoindians were regular caribou (Rangifer tarandus) hunters. Caribou contain riches for hunter-gatherers, providing skins, food, fat, sinew, bone, and antler, which would have made them appealing for Palaeoindians, and likely integral not just for food but for many elements of material culture that will not preserve in the archaeological record. Caribou are migratory herd animals that often traverse long distances in semi-annual migrations. They mate in the fall, and then calve in protected areas. Probably, as among modern caribou, during Palaeoindian times caribou in the Northeast moved north in the spring to calve in isolated tundra that offers better protection from predators. They likely wintered in the south (Lemke and O’Shea 2017). For modern caribou, calving grounds are more consistent than wintering grounds through time (Spiess 1979). In their migrations, caribou tend to follow particular landforms, such as ridgelines and contours of hills, preferring to travel along natural features for a distance before crossing them. They also prefer to follow caribou trails created by earlier herd traverses. As a result, even though humans cannot routinely move quickly enough to follow a single migrating caribou herd, hunter-gatherers can intercept them at very predictable locales (Spiess 1979). A successful caribou hunt can still never be guaranteed; caribou can see movement, hear hunters, and smell humans. Herd sizes were probably larger in Palaeoindian times than today, somewhat increasing the odds of success (Lemke and O’Shea 2017). In ethnographic cases, caribou hunters deploy a variety of techniques to sneak up on caribou, such as camouflaging themselves and mimicking caribou or non-threatening animals. Other techniques may also have been employed, such as one hunter luring or scaring a caribou past another hunter (Spiess 1979). There is a distinction in herd size and range among tundra and Woodland caribou, which complicates the Palaeoindian case because the transitional Pleistocene-Holocene Northeast contained both environments, and woodland caribou occur in smaller groups and migrate over shorter distances. Models for Palaeoindian settlement do not require one or the other to be exclusive (e.g., Pelletier and Robinson 2005), and Palaeoindians may have varied their hunting strategies for local conditions or through time (Storck and Spiess 1994). Season is important to caribou mobility and to how useful they are to humans, so Palaeoindian exploitation – and reliance on – caribou probably varied throughout the year. Caribou skins tend to be brittle or contain holes in the winter and spring, and skins that are strong and covered with insulating hairs are found on caribou

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in the late summer and fall (Burch 1971). In ethnographic cases, hunters target males during the fall and females in the winter, responding to the amount of fat on the animal (Burch 1971), but again, comparatively large herd sizes during Palaeoindian times and local microenvironments may complicate the application of ethnographic analogies to determine seasonal preferences for hunting (Lemke and O’Shea 2017). The second dominant factor in interpretations of Palaeoindian mobility has been their predilection for using high-quality cryptocrystalline lithic materials, especially those from far away. Preferred materials throughout the Atlantic Northeast included Munsungan chert (Pollock et al. 1999), Minas Basin cherts (Black 2011), Pennsylvania jasper, Cheshire quartzite, and Normanskill chert. Mt. Jasper rhyolite, used in the White Mountains of New Hampshire by Palaeoindians, serves as a local exception. Some sources, such as Kineo rhyolite from the Kineo-traveller Mountain Range, is strangely absent from most assemblages. Some of these toolstones are not just present at sites hundreds of kilometres from their sources, but are very abundant (figure 4.7). Based on the exploitation of lithic sources, Palaeoindians travelled long distances compared to ethnographically known hunter-gatherers; over 20% of

FIGURE 4.7  Photograph of the Manley fluted point, a Ramah chert fluted point recovered by a collector from the margin of the Champlain Sea in Vermont (see Loring 2017:177–180). Ramah chert outcrops are in Labrador. Assuming that the technological and material attribution are correct, this point emphasizes the enormous range of Palaeoindians in the Northeast.

Photograph courtesy Stephen Loring, Smithsonian Institution

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­ aritimes-Northeast and Great Lakes sites reviewed by Ellis (2011) have round-trip M distances between sites and lithic sources in excess of 500 km. Reducing his sample to just Maine-Maritimes sources reduces this round trip distance to just over 350 km, which still suggests an enormous range. There are also diachronic changes in the data, with early Palaeoindians more likely to have sites associated with north-south movements and with lithic sources themselves, but decreasing ranges through time. Overall, Ellis concludes that this evidence may not suggest enormous ranges that were exploited by Palaeoindians, but does indicate areas through which Palaeoindians must have travelled and, accordingly, “must have had a rather different pattern of land use and distance mobility than that seen among most groups historically” (Ellis 2011:397); this is troubling news for applications of ethnographic analogies to understanding Palaeoindian mobility. Deciphering Palaeoindian mobility and a slew of related topics is dependent on using stone and caribou data together. Pelletier and Robinson (2005) have noted that, during the Younger Dryas, northern New England and the Maritimes were home to more ice patches in the form of remnant ice caps, while farther south there were more forested and grassy areas (see chapter 3). Munsungan chert, which originates in far northwestern Maine, is abundantly present at the Bull Brook site in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Working from this range across which Palaeoindians travel, Palaeoindians may have used each area in ways that were seasonally advantageous. To the south, they may have intercepted caribou herds as they predictably passed through restricted areas during the fall. Remnant ice patches in the north were likely places caribou would have used to stay cool in the summer, consume salt to prevent parasites, and avoid insects. North-south journeys by Palaeoindians, then, may also have been ways to exploit seasonally predictable and advantageous caribou herd behaviours. Lithic procurement is often believed to be embedded in a pattern of residential mobility that involved travelling long distances to intercept caribou. If this is the case, peoples would have moved residentially in pursuit of caribou and chert, with the latter embedded in the pursuit of food. An alternative view (e.g., Spiess and Wilson 1987) notes that there are a variety of cultural reasons people may have gone on specific forays for chert. Such possibilities are myriad, but certainly plausible. In many huntergatherer societies, a range of social activities may be related to forays to get lithic or other materials – in some cases, these journeys may need to be made in unique social permutations or alone in order to imbue lithic material with important cosmological properties (Speth 2016; Speth et al. 2013). Could these similar concerns have shaped Palaeoindian procurement? One can conceive, for instance, trips to far northwestern Maine in small groups as part of a coming-of-age ritual or a shamanic journey. Such journeys may have even been part of why exotic toolstone was so preferred by

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Palaeoindians. It is also possible to speculate about scouting functions that trips for chert might serve. A scenario in which small numbers of Palaeoindians made forays specifically to get distant cherts is also possible. Using historically known soldiers as an analogy, Speth (2016:253; see also Speth et al. 2013) has pointed out that Assuming a relatively modest load of 35 kg (77 lb), an adult male Paleoindian forager could easily have carried 600–1,200 Clovis points or 3,500 Folsom points, or their equivalent weight in raw material, plus his own personal gear over a distance of 300 km (186 mi) in just two weeks, assuming he travelled at a very modest pace of about 2.2–2.6 km/hour (1.4–1.6 mi/hour) and covered a distance of 20 km/day (12 mi/day).

In a typical year, Palaeoindians probably did not require much lithic material – p ­ robably closer to 10 or 20 kg but almost certainly not more than 50 kg (Speth 2016). This relatively small amount of chert leaves open the possibility, as well, that some lithic materials may have been exchanged (see Speth et al. 2013:19–20; cf. Meltzer 1989).

Fluted-Point Palaeoindian Settlement Beyond the procurement of resources, analyses of how fluted-point Palaeoindians used space – ranging from the scale of the single dwelling to the entire Northeast – has, in recent years, driven a vastly expanded idea of their social lives and cosmologies. Here, it is again essential to review the limits and potential of the archaeological record in the Atlantic Northeast, and the functional implications of settlement locations and site diversity before turning to either economy or the cosmos. Sea level today is ca. 50 m higher than it was for much of Palaeoindian times. This means that evidence for Palaeoindian coastal occupations would now be well underwater. Thus, most known Palaeoindian sites are from the interior, and would have been well inland during the Palaeoindian period. As a result, it is possible that most of what archaeologists know about Palaeoindian settlement is in fact only the interior portion of a coastal-interior pattern of some kind (see, e.g., Lothrop 2016:229–230). Site distribution evidence from Vermont now requires archaeologists to take seriously the possibility of a marine adaptation practiced by Palaeoindians. During the Palaeoindian period, there was an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean that formed the Champlain Sea in parts of Quebec, Ontario, New York, and Vermont due to a confluence of glaciers having depressed land levels, rising water levels, and incursion of Atlantic waters. Glacial retreat eventually caused lands to rise, known as isostatic

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rebound, blocking off the incursion of saltwater and causing the sea to drain. The same isostatic rebound has meant that the former shore of the Champlain Sea is – uniquely – an example of preserved Palaeoindian period marine shoreline. Loring (1980) observed that this ancient shoreline appeared to host many of Vermont’s Palaeoindian sites. Subsequent work (Crock and Robinson 2012; F. Robinson 2012; Robinson et al. 2017) has reinforced this pattern. It seems unlikely that a marine orientation, perhaps as part of a seasonal round, would be limited to the Champlain Sea, and extant shorelines would likely be correlated with Palaeoindian occupations. Even with limited and biased preservation, it is possible to begin to discern some diversity among fluted-point Palaeoindian sites (see Lothrop et al. 2016:221). The most common kind of sites appear to represent small residential areas, probably home to a family band. Such sites probably had small structures and fires, and people probably engaged in myriad activities at them. Among these the most direct evidence is for the processing of hides and the manufacture and maintenance of stone tools. Occasionally, there are groups of artifact loci in larger numbers, suggesting places where fluted-point Palaeoindians aggregated or periodically reoccupied (Spiess 1984). Archaeological work has also been conducted and is ongoing on quarries where Palaeoindians acquired stone to make tools (e.g., Payne 1987). Archaeologists have identified sites at which Palaeoindians cached stone tools for ritual or utilitarian purposes and, potentially, stone vaults for storing meat (Gramly 1988). Find spots or isolated finds of Palaeoindian points are fairly common, and probably represent kills, accidentally dropped points, or remnants of larger sites. Turning to areas where there are known sites, it becomes possible to conceive of an intriguing and repetitive pattern of fluted-point Palaeoindian use of the landscape throughout the Northeast. The nature and distribution of Palaeoindian sites is p ­ ersistent – reinforcing a notion of shared cultural identity throughout the Northeast – within sites, in the placement of sites around the landscape, and the clustering of sites. Patterns of aggregation are also evident. These are not just functional, though each element surely had functional implications. Palaeoindians, like other hunter-gatherers, almost certainly did not have a clear, dualistic view between the cosmos and the landscape. Dramatically different landscapes in the peri- and immediately post-glacial environment of the Atlantic Northeast means that Palaeoindian sites often occupy areas that are not intuitively good places for archaeological sites today. Watercourses that appear as small creeks today, for instance, may have been more substantive watercourses in the past. As a result, models for where Palaeoindian sites are located are different from those of some later sites (despite some convergence with Terminal Archaic site l­ocations [chapter 7]; see Spiess and Smith 2016). In general, Palaeoindian sites are shallowly buried and associated with sandy soils that were deposited by glacial runoff. When

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they were relatively unvegetated during the Younger Dryas, wind often moved these sands to create dunes that Palaeoindians may have found created appealing sheltered landforms. Such dunes may have shifted since occupation before being secured by vegetation (figure 4.8). However, sites such as Hedden have engendered caution in this model. The Hedden site was deeply buried, on gravelly sands capped by eolian sands rather than associated with them (Spiess et al. 1995). Palaeoindian sites were often located at places that afforded good vantages for hunting caribou, such as at the Debert site (Fitting 1965; Funk 1972:30; MacDonald 1968:116–117; Spiess et al. 1998). Varied strands of evidence point to some of the largest and most well-known Northeast fluted-point Palaeoindian sites being aggregations of people to hunt caribou as the animals likely shifted from forest, where they wintered, to tundra, where they would calve. These sites are often located overlooking plausible caribou drives. Rates of artifact disposal inferred from fluted-point Palaeoindian sites suggest contemporaneity among features at sites is within the parameters of Arctic ethnographic analogies (Spiess 1984) and stone tools sometimes refit among loci (Gramly 1982:48). However, the potential extent of Palaeoindian aggregation is most apparent at the Bull Brook site in Ipswich, Massachusetts, where the arrangement of dwellings in rings has been statistically supported (Robinson et al. 2009). How people live on the landscape and organize space at multiple scales is often deeply consequential for hunter-gatherer ontologies (e.g., Tanner 1979). Many Palaeoindian

FIGURE 4.8  Photograph of excavations of the Taxiway site, a Michaud/ Neponset aged site from the Michaud (Auburn Airport) site cluster in Auburn, Maine. Note the welldrained soils and stabilized dunic landscape typical of Palaeoindian site ­clusters in the Atlantic Northeast.

Photograph courtesy Northeast Archaeological Research Center, Inc.

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culture traits plausibly reflect functional adaptations, including site placement (Spiess et al. 1998:230). However, the organization of space at northeast Palaeoindian sites deserves attention, and a good place to pick up the story may be at two of the earliest known Northeast sites, each in the exclusive club of securely radiocarbon dated sites and type sites for fluted-point styles: the Debert site in central Nova Scotia and the Bull Brook site in northeastern Massachusetts. Although they are cited in the academic literature, especially for their dates and points, they are each large, not just by the standards of Palaeoindian sites, but by the standards of hunter-gatherer sites in general. Robinson and colleagues (2009) have made the case that Bull Brook represents an aggregation site of 36 loci arranged in a ring on a large landform, plausibly a seasonal aggregation of Palaeoindians related to communal caribou hunting. Debert, also located on a large, flat landform, remains enigmatic but probably represents a series of reoccupations separated by short enough intervals that are not easily resolved geologically or by radiocarbon dates (Rosenmeier et al. 2012:130), which parallels how Bull Brook was long understood (Byers 1959; Jordan 1960). This is illustrative, because both sites were essential to the development of how Palaeoindian sites came to be understood. Even though it now appears the sites are different in social context, they served as “templates” (B. Robinson 2011:136) by which archaeologists interpreted space at similarly aged sites. Bull Brook and Debert each exhibit loci that contain primarily debitage from stone tool production. In particular, fluting flakes are found in spatially isolated locales (Robinson et al. 2009:435). One possible implication of all of this, drawing on subArctic hunter-gatherer analogues, is that in communal hunting and/or aggregation scenarios Palaeoindians had gendered spaces, and that fluting – a high risk and functionally ambiguous act – was spatially isolated, possibly practiced by specialized practitioners or imbued with unique ritual potency (Robinson and Ort 2011). Indeed, the importance of the flutes themselves may be portended by the use of flute blades to make tiny effigy Palaeoindian points, at sites like Debert (MacDonald 1968). There, although more obscured in the archaeological record (see Rosenmeier et al. 2012), spatial patterning is similar to that of Bull Brook: isolated activity loci and likely seclusion of point-fluting. These loci likely represent individual houses. Palaeoindian sites in the Northeast rarely preserve formal features. As a result, architectural forms must be approached primarily by identifying clusters of artifacts that abruptly transition to artifact-free or poor areas. Occasionally, fire hearths may be visible archaeologically, and they sometimes contain burned bone, from which the most convincing radiocarbon dates are derived. Structures can be inferred from tightly constrained artifact clusters created as people carried out activities within walled tents. Dwellings, like many aspects of Palaeoindian life, have long been interpreted by analogy to subArctic dwellings (e.g., MacDonald 1968:130–134).

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Big social aggregations at singular locales might encourage spatial behaviours that are unique from those at mundane places (e.g., church vs. home, in a contemporary Western example). But aggregations of people may also enforce social behaviours to a greater degree than in smaller groups (Whitelaw 1991) – in other words, the amplification and tightening of norms that already exist. Architecture and space may, in such a scenario, serve not just as an outward reminder of who the people living in the space are, but the organization of space may serve as a reminder of how people should behave socially, “canonical signaling” in Blanton’s (1994) terminology. The spatial patterning profoundly exhibited by Bull Brook and Debert holds remarkably consistent at smaller sites, lending support to the notion that those sites were simply amplifications of broadly held norms. For instance, at the Tenant Swamp site in Keene, New Hampshire, four loci are similar in form and contents to the outer domestic loci at Bull Brook, which Robinson et al. (2009) posit as female space. Organization at Tenant Swamp is essentially the same as at Bull Brook, but at a smaller scale (Goodby et al. 2014). A limitation of this analysis so far has been that it has dealt exclusively with sites that are clearly defined spatially and which have contained dateable bone. But the patterning extends to other Palaeoindian sites and appears to hold true even at the most typical Palaeoindian sites in the Northeast. For instance, at the Lamontagne site, a member of the Michaud (or Auburn Airport) site cluster (see Spiess and Wilson 1987), the small site still exhibits apparent task differentiation, even though loci per se are not readily identifiable. Farther west, the Parkhill Early Palaeoindian site in Ontario exhibits similar patterning, perhaps also corresponding to gender (Ellis and Deller 2000:226, 246). Site clustering itself is a phenomenon, apparently occurring over many years, in which some factor, possibly shifting environments, leads sites to be placed in slightly different locations (Spiess et al. 2012). And although the materials contained in these sites may change, when it can be deduced, they exhibit similar spatial patterning. Archaeologists working at Palaeoindian sites in the Atlantic Northeast may expect to excavate apparently gendered or at least task-specific areas, with fluting areas occupying relatively secluded areas, which guides projects from their earliest stages. The Bull Brook and Debert sites certainly do serve as templates for archaeologists working in the region. Perhaps they also served as templates for Palaeoindians. Spatial ­patterning – involving gender, isolated ritual activity, task specificity – is shared somewhat by Palaeoindians throughout the Northeast and, perhaps, farther away. Sites like Bull Brook and possibly Debert and other big sites may have served to reemphasize a sense of shared spatial practices, and these appear among the spatial notions that defined Palaeoindianness. Indeed, this may be more significant and inseparable from ritual surrounding fluted points.

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At a larger scale, fluted-point Palaeoindians often produced site clusters. Clusters consist of multiple sites within a few kilometres of one another, such as the group of sites around the Auburn Airport in Maine, the Vail site, the Debert site, and likely the Hedden site (Spiess et al. 2012). Based on the lithic materials and point forms present at sites in the Auburn Airport cluster, Spiess and colleagues (2012) inferred that sites within the cluster were occupied asynchronously, perhaps over half a century. Not only did point forms change slightly at sites within the cluster, so did the proportions of the dominant lithic materials. The picture that emerges is one of slight changes in seasonal rounds or activities as people returned to the same area repeatedly. Likely, the main focus on intercepting caribou persisted, with surrounding activities changing slightly. The rapidly changing environment likely also meant that ideal areas to camp or conduct other activities changed slightly in short periods of time (Spiess et al. 2012). In this case, change is embedded within an overarching continuity. If a continent-wide – or at least Northeast-wide – idea of what a Palaeoindian was is manifest not just in fluting points but in the organization of space, this offers a starting point to consider subsequent organizations of space at multiple scales. Returning to the material presented earlier, this may mean that it offers an opportunity to consider how the world was structured to the region’s earliest inhabitants.

Late Palaeoindian So far, we have primarily discussed fluted-point Palaeoindians, essentially concomitant with the Younger Dryas chronozone. Around the end of the Younger Dryas, temperatures again began to warm. The dry, cold Younger Dryas mix of tundra in the Maritimes and northern Maine, dense forests in southern New England, and patches of coniferous forest in much of northern New England and portions of southern Nova Scotia had been favourable to large caribou herds migrating over long distances. This environment was rapidly replaced after the Younger Dryas by denser mixed forests throughout the Northeast. Caribou herds likely became smaller and localized their migration patterns in response, and animals like moose, deer, and small fauna probably thrived and migrated into the region from the south and the west (Newby et al. 2005). In this changing physical and social environment, Late Palaeoindian is well represented by sites in Maine. The Varney Farm type site in western Maine is unique as a large single-component Late Palaeoindian site (Petersen et al. 2000). Sites such as Blackman Stream (Sanger et al. 1992) or Brockway (Bartone et al. 1988) are multicomponent. Others are known from find spots (e.g., Doyle et al. 1985). On the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec, Late Palaeoindian is also fairly well represented, such as in the La Martre River Valley. The location of the sites in the La Martre River Valley, along

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what used to be a bay, led Chalifoux (1999) to suggest that the sites are likely consistent with a generalized hunter-gatherer strategy that included marine resources. The most visible way Late Palaeoindians changed their technology was by the production of points that lacked substantial fluting. Ste. Anne-Varney points are long, lanceolate points that exhibit collateral flaking. Other likely Late Palaeoindian points are triangular, and sometimes heavily basally reduced, or perhaps even retain a slight flute. The Late Palaeoindian toolkit was different in other important ways, too. Typically, Late Palaeoindian sites contain less and different high-quality exotic lithic material than fluted-point Palaeoindian sites. There are exceptions, such as at Varney Farm where essentially all the artifacts were made of Munsungan chert (Petersen et al. 2000), but Varney Farm lacks the lithic diversity that is typical of fluted-point Palaeoindian sites (figure 4.9). Tabular knives or tabular choppers are noted in

FIGURE 4.9  Composite photograph of unifacial scrapers and bifaces from the Late Palaeoindian period Varney Farm site in Maine.

Photographs and composite by Arthur Spiess, Maine Historic Preservation Commission

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a­ ssemblages from around the Champlain Sea, may be diagnostically Late Palaeoindian or Early Archaic and, according to Crock and Robinson (2012:66; Robinson and Crock 2006) may have been used to hunt marine mammals or fish, based on the association of these tool forms with fish remains in the Early Archaic. In addition to the hunting changes suggested by changes in point morphologies, a decreased reliance on caribou may be attested to in part by a dramatic decrease in the number of end- and sidescrapers from Late Palaeoindian sites in comparison to earlier Palaeoindian sites, and Late Palaeoindian assemblages are often biface dominated (Lothrop et al. 2016:237). Formal unifacial tools are absent from some assemblages on the Gaspé Peninsula (Benmouyal 1987). Bottle-shaped drills, likely for working bone or wood, are consistent with Late Palaeoindian assemblages, especially in Gaspesia (Dumais 2000). In the Northeast, there is at least one example of ritual caching of unused bifaces, occurring at the Thurman Station site in eastern New York State (F. Robinson 2011). Jess Robinson proposes that these artifacts suggest that the act of making these intricate bifacial tools exclusively for caching may have been a form of sacrifice, opening a potential way to investigate ceremonial events surrounding caching. In a general sense, we agree with the continuity narrative for the Northeast implied by Robinson (F. Robinson 2011:84) when he suggests that the Thurman Station site should remind archaeologists that “processes of classification, myth-making, and historicizing were likely innate outcomes of sustained Palaeoindian habitation in the region.”

The Relationship between Fluted-Point Palaeoindian and Late Palaeoindian Peoples There remain considerable lacunae that Petersen and colleagues (2000:131) termed “distribution and continuity issues” in the archaeological understanding of the Late Palaeoindian period. This question may be framed in taxonomic terms: Is Late Palaeoindian more like fluted-point Palaeoindian or more like the Archaic cultural traditions that follow (Gardner 1974)? For many researchers, the central issue might be understood as an attempt to determine cultural or population continuities and discontinuities between fluted-point and Late Palaeoindian cultures. For instance, Adovasio and Carr (2009) draw on work by Gardner (1974, 1989) in the mid-Atlantic to consider continuity and discontinuity at the end of the Pleistocene in terms of (1) lithic choice and the distance to lithic quarries, (2) “mode of lithic procurement,” (3) site location, (4) lithic technology, and (5) whether tool kits were predominantly curated or expedient. While in general data may not be sufficiently available to evaluate each of these for the Northeast, some examples may help to illustrate both current perspectives and the terms on which archaeologists are attempting to resolve “distribution and continuity.”

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Attempting to determine the connections between fluted-point Palaeoindians and Late Palaeoindians is enigmatic, but there is no strong evidence to oppose in situ technological and cultural change, although we suspect that within the Northeast the reorganization of the environment may have encouraged people from elsewhere to migrate into the region. It seems plausible to us that radical technological and cultural change corresponds to radical environmental change in this case. At a continental scale, similar abrupt transitions are also evident. However, by about 10,000 cal BP, the Atlantic Northeast became a complex cultural landscape. As a result, there has been some debate surrounding whether or not Early Palaeoindian should, taxonomically, be termed Palaeoindian, to correspond to the end of the Pleistocene. While we acknowledge that point, we agree with Petersen and colleagues (2002), who observed technological linkages between fluted-point Palaeoindian and Late Palaeoindian; in other words, as we discuss below, Late Palaeoindian is technologically distinct from other early Holocene archaeological cultures and, although flutes are absent from the Ste. Anne-Varney point assemblage (points that are, however, still large lances), they persist to varying degrees on other Late Palaeoindian forms, such as the triangular points from the Maritime provinces. Although there is more diversity in Late Palaeoindian point forms, there are still clear morphological similarities among Late Palaeoindian lanceolates in the Atlantic Northeast and “Plano”-like forms from across much of North America. At the same time, site locations shift away from typical fluted-point Palaeoindian locales and toward lakes and rivers, which is consistent with later Archaic settlement patterns. The Reagan site in Vermont, for instance, appears to be a multi-component Palaeoindian site with late Palaeoindian assemblages (Robinson 2009), implying that fluted-point Palaeoindian became Late Palaeoindian there, at the very least (see Petersen et al. 2000). However, continuities in settlement patterns may be the exception rather than the rule with, in general terms, Late Palaeoindian site locations more likely to be shared with subsequent Archaic inhabitants, especially in riverine and lacustrine settings (Doyle et al. 1985; e.g., Sanger et al. 1992). Some archaeologists have proposed essentially intermediate fluted-point Palaeoindian to Late Palaeoindian forms. For instance, at the Hidden Creek site in Connecticut, Brian Jones (1997) suggests that a collaterally flaked point that mostly resembles an Agate-Basin point is thinned at the base, reminiscent of a Cormier-Nicholas point. Chapdelaine and Richard (2017) note changes in lithic procurement between fluted-point Palaeoindian and Late Palaeoindian, which they correlate to likely changes in how people were using the landscape and an interpretation of discontinuity. In brief, while fluted-point Palaeoindian cultures surely became Late Palaeoindian, where and how this occurred, and even if it occurred in the Maritime Peninsula, is

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open for debate (see, e.g., Dumais 2000). There are also questions of scale. Broadening the lens to the broader Northeast, Adovasio and Carr (2009) emphasize local variability both environmentally and culturally, and argue that when compared, for instance, to the Early Archaic to Middle Archaic transition, the fluted-point to Late Palaeoindian transition is much less abrupt. As they put it (Adovsio and Carr 2009:521), “we view the putatively pivotal Paleoindian-Early Archaic transition not as the beginning of a new set of lifeways in a new and dramatically different environment, but rather as a continuation of an old lifeways in a subtly changing environmental matrix.” Setting aside dis/continuity debates as much as possible, we can consider general cultural interpretations about Late Palaeoindians. A general notion in Late Palaeoindian archaeology is that people, having successfully colonized the Northeast, began to increase in number and develop regional specializations – accordingly, they may have produced more diverse and localized projectile points. Further evidence in localization is that the enormous ranges that Palaeoindians previously travelled to procure highgrade toolstone decreased notably (Ellis 2011). In the anthropology of colonization, the “settling in” of people to new areas may be marked by an increase in local populations and relatively less interaction between groups. This is not just a response to environmental and economic shifts – there are important social reasons as well. As people traverse relatively unknown and unpopulated landscapes, it is important to maintain favourable relationships with others, and perhaps even to exhibit cultural similarities to them so that even people who have not met before may recognize members of the same cultural group. In low population bands, and highly mobile bands, it is also important to interact with other bands for mates. A variety of ways to manage risk and maintain endogamous relationships among low-population societies who are exploring and learning unknown environments are less essential after early colonization (Meltzer 2004, 2013). Instead, people may begin to prioritize local relationships (cf. MacCarthy 2002).

Palaeoindian to Archaic Transitions Although we have just discussed the Late Palaeoindian period, it is time for two important caveats we have already hinted at. First, although we primarily discuss Late Palaeoindian here in terms of settling into a colonized landscape, there is evidence to suggest that Late Palaeoindians may have been the colonizing populations in parts of Quebec (McGhee and Tuck 1975). This engenders some taxonomic debate – should these non–fluted point colonizing people in fact be considered “Archaic” (e.g., Wright 2006:448)? Moreover, Pintal (2006) has argued that triangular fluted points from the

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Strait of Belle Isle and the St. Lawrence Lower North Shore do not retain fluting characteristics that would represent a holdover or transitional form suggesting in situ transition between Palaeoindian and Archaic. Rather, parallel flaking may form the flute-like morphology on these points, making them plausibly Palaeoindian, but also similar to Early Archaic points known elsewhere. This question, to our minds, remains open but important and will, as Pintal suggests, also require attention to economic chronology building. Second, it is no longer possible to assume a transition from Late Palaeoindian to Archaic in the Northeast that is abrupt and clear cut. Rather, environmental change after the Younger Dryas is accompanied by cultural manifestations that archaeologists have termed Late Palaeoindian (as discussed above), Early Maritime Archaic, and Gulf of Maine Archaic, all plausibly visible in parts of the Atlantic Northeast until ca. 8500 cal BP. The two so-called Archaic cultures will be discussed in detail in subsequent chapters. For now, it is worth considering the nature of these overlaps and what they suggest. In general, we suspect research will continue to indicate that this transition was marked not only by temporal overlap but by considerable shifting in geographic boundaries among various people with different cultural traditions. Between about 10,000 and 9000 years ago, Late Palaeoindian people, perhaps reflecting these changes, modified their point forms, notably with the reduction and the replacement of flutes on points with basal thinning and/or grinding seen on the likely Plano-derived Agate Basin–related and Ste. Anne-Varney points. The end of the Palaeoindian period, however, and the onset of the Archaic period may not have been abrupt and sequential. Early Archaic and Late Palaeoindian radiocarbon dates appear to overlap (e.g., Crock and Robinson 2012:69). In some cases, Late Palaeoindian and Archaic occupations may have co-occurred in close proximity, such as on the same river drainage in western Maine (Petersen et al. 2002:137–138; cf. Sanger 2006:231). Early Archaic in the most southerly portions of the Atlantic Northeast is represented by what archaeologists have termed the Atlantic Slope Macro-Tradition (Dincauze 1976), essentially an Early Archaic population. These people made bifacial projectile points that diagnostically exhibited bifurcated bases. They were probably highly mobile, possibly interior-oriented foragers. North and east of the Kennebec River in Maine, this tradition is essentially absent. Across much of the Southern Northeast, an archaeological tradition termed the Gulf of Maine Archaic co-occurs, plausibly, with Late Palaeoindian and with Early Archaic. In contrast to Late Palaeoindian and Atlantic Slope, the Gulf of Maine Archaic exhibits low archaeological visibility because groups of people during this time did not manufacture diagnostic stone projectile points and may have rarely made projectile points at all. Rather, these people probably used bone projectile points that do not preserve well in the

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archaeological record. In southern Labrador, Renouf (1977) posited in situ development of Early Archaic from Late Palaeoindian populations who may have migrated from the Canadian Maritimes. This may have been accompanied by an increasing emphasis on the use of marine resources. Evidence for in situ cultural transitions in Labrador come in the form of apparent continuities in terms of the preserved toolkit, especially triangular projectile points.

Persistent Challenges That last half-century has witnessed exponential growth in what is known archaeologically about the Northeast’s earliest inhabitants. In the Atlantic Northeast, the patterning of Palaeoindian sites on the landscape is best known from Maine, but is improving throughout the Maritimes. More challenging is refining chronologies for Palaeoindians, a process that is heavily reliant on point chronologies, which themselves largely derive from elsewhere. By nearly 13,000 years ago, humans were beginning to colonize the Northeast as part of a final northeastward colonization push from an origin thousands of kilometres to the west, which is remarkable for its rapidity and similarity across the continent. This shared culture – manifest in artifact typologies and economy and, as archaeologists increasingly recognize, spatial patterning – should encourage, we think, further work into the shared ontologies of fluted-point Palaeoindians. From a culture historical perspective, we are optimistic that increasing resolution on the distribution of Palaeoindians in the Atlantic Northeast is inevitable, and will engender continued grappling with the tempo, order, and extent of apparent transitions in the region.

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CHAPTER 5

THE EARLY MARITIME ARCHAIC PERIOD (9500 TO 5500 CAL BP)

Introduction The transition from the Palaeoindian period to a new cultural era was a gradual one, which seemingly involved a slow process of human adaptation to the forest ecosystems that emerged after the last glaciation, and most crucially, to the prodigiously productive marine ecosystem that developed as sea levels rose throughout most of the region. This period is called the “Archaic” by archaeologists, a term stemming from the ancient Greek word arche, meaning “beginning.” Thus, it is an apt word to describe a critical moment in the archaeological history of the Atlantic Northeast, one which established a way of life that would endure for the next nine millennia. James Tuck (1975a) called this the “North Eastern Maritime Continuum,” best described as a marine-focused way of life that began roughly 9000 years ago, and which persists, genetically and culturally, to modern-day Wabanaki and Innu commercial and subsistence fishers. Tuck named this period the Maritime Archaic, referring to a constellation of technological and economic traits that indicated an extreme orientation to the marine ecosystem (e.g., Tuck 1975a, 1976a, 1991). Tuck believed there was a direct continuum from Palaeoindian populations to the Maritime Archaic. In this scenario, former Palaeoindian groups responded to the newly emerged and massively productive marine ecosystems of the Atlantic Coast, ca. 9500 cal BP (Tuck 1991:33), completely transforming their way of life. His proposition has since been discounted, primarily because it is believed to mask significant regional variability in practice and technology, and there has been a general emphasis on cultural discontinuity between the regions of the Atlantic Northeast by archaeologists, especially those based in Maine (e.g. Bourque 1975, 1995, 2001, 2012; Robinson 2001; Sanger 1973, 1975, 1996a; Spiess et al. 1983). However, for reasons that will be made clear below, we support much of Tuck’s viewpoint, and attempt to

resurrect the concept of the Maritime Archaic on a grand geographic and cultural scale. We make the explicit argument that, as Tuck originally presented it (following Goggin 1949:17), the definition of a geographically broad “culture” throughout the Atlantic Northeast is warranted because “persistent themes” in technology, economy, and spirituality indicate a shared cultural pattern. We also argue that such geographically broad cultural patterns are relatively commonplace, and therefore the concept of the Maritime Archaic is both consistent with what we know about North American prehistory, and specifically useful for summarizing broad cultural patterns in the Atlantic Northeast. While such a broadly based culture may not be unusual, the longevity of the Maritime Archaic period is uncommon. As conceived here, the Maritime Archaic period lasted for more than 6000 years, longer than any cultural historical period that came before or after it (Sassaman 2010:5) in the Atlantic Northeast. Given its enormous duration, and its enduring legacy, it is logical to surmise that the Archaic was as period of cultural stasis, but that would be inaccurate. Students of geology understand that, like the rise of ocean sea levels or the recession of the glaciers, persistent, gradual change can result in epic transformation. Massive social and cultural change did occur in the Archaic, but the shifts were slow and incremental, occurring at a steady, almost geological pace. Near the end of the Archaic period, the people of the Atlantic Northeast seemed on the cusp of making a fundamental transformation in their society, but for some reason, it all abruptly ended (see chapters 6 and 7). The nature of this transition remains a fundamental mystery of the archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast. The exact beginning of the Archaic is not easy to define. Not all Palaeoindian peoples in the Atlantic Northeast appear to have made the transition to a marine way of life at precisely the same time. For example, at deeply buried interior sites in central Maine, there is a substantial gap in occupation, represented by up to 1 m of sediment, between Palaeoindian and Early Archaic deposits. We do not believe that this meant the land was depopulated, because the Late Palaeoindian lifeway, still focused on large terrestrial game and riverine ecosystems, persisted in some regions, such as in eastern Quebec, contrasting with exploitation of the emerging productive marine ecosystem in coastal areas. Instead, the large stratigraphic gap at some interior sites may reflect a settlement shift toward the coast, and the beginning of a new cultural tradition. And yet evidence of this new tradition, and indeed any Early and Middle Archaic occupation at all, remained virtually invisible in large portions of the region for many decades. Like other authors (Deal 2016:55), we consider the Early and Middle Archaic as one period, which we define as the “Early Maritime Archaic” (figure 5.1). Throughout, however, we refer to Early and Middle periods,

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FIGURE 5.1  Key Early Maritime Archaic sites and locations mentioned in the text.

Map by Alexander Honsinger and Mallory Moran

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as some researchers recognize patterns that correspond with time periods in adjacent regions. We believe that archaeological resolution in the region is not yet sufficient to warrant such a chronological split, but we employ the terms Early and Middle, following others, as a general reference to the earlier or later part of what is a period of substantial duration.

The Great Hiatus The period ca. 9000 cal BP to ca. 5000 cal BP on the Maritime Peninsula remained an archaeological blackhole until recently. James Tuck (1984, 1991) called this lack of archaeological evidence for an Early Archaic in the Atlantic Northeast the “Great Hiatus,” a period in which a seeming break in history existed in the archaeological record; there were virtually no identified Early Archaic sites, abruptly contrasting with the Atlantic Slope tradition Early Archaic sites to the southwest (Dincauze 1971). Prior to the 1980s, several hypotheses were proposed to account for the lack of sites in the region. Ritchie (1965) and Fitting (1968) did not recognize the possibility of any marine adaptation whatsoever, and instead proposed that the boreal forest covering the region at the time could not support significant populations. David Sanger (1975, 1979a) also supported an ecological explanation for the lack of archaeological evidence. First, he proposed that sea levels were too shallow during the Early and Middle Archaic to support abundant marine life. He further surmised that lower sea levels resulted in a gradient in most rivers that was too steep to support large runs of anadromous fish. However, citing abundant evidence of coastal Early and Middle Archaic sites from regions to the north and south of the Maritime Peninsula, Tuck (1975a, 1984, 1991) proposed the “drowned sites” hypothesis to account for the lack of archaeological evidence. He argued that the hiatus was an illusion caused by the erosion and inundation of coastal sites left by a marine adapted people. David Sanger (1979a) proposed that, if true, this situation was likely exacerbated by a lack of archaeological survey and excavation in the region. Only in the last three decades has the veil been pulled back on the Maritime Peninsula, revealing that Sanger’s and Tuck’s hypotheses for the lack of sites are both in part correct. The Great Hiatus was caused by both a lack of archaeological resolution, resulting from limited archaeological exploration, and geomorphological processes, including sea level rise and erosion. What has been revealed suggests the Maritime Peninsula participates in a pan-regional cultural manifestation throughout the Atlantic Northeast, which had few rivals in geographic scope and duration.

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Early Maritime Archaic Culture on the Maritime Peninsula and Gulf of St. Lawrence Excavation of sites in central Maine and the Maritime provinces in the late 1980s and 1990s began to shed new light on the Great Hiatus. Ironically, most of the evidence comes from the interior, where sites have escaped inundation and erosion caused by rising sea levels. For example, the earliest Archaic data from the northern Gulf of Maine region show a pattern of sites located on lake and river margins, where sites have apparently survived rising sea levels, but where they often become deeply buried under stratified alluvial deposits. It is difficult to know if these interior sites represent a seasonal variant of a settlement-subsistence cycle that included significant interaction with marine resources. However, the toolkit from such sites provides some compelling clues. The best example of such early interior sites are Bringham and Sharrow, located at the confluence of the Piscataquis and Sebec rivers in central Maine (figure 5.1, figure 5.2). The earliest components of these sites date between 10,300 and 9,500 cal BP, respectively (Petersen 1991; Petersen and Putnam 1992) and the sites were occupied continuously until ca. 5300 cal BP. Artifact assemblages from the sites represent a new type of technological kit, including many ground stone tools. This technological development represents a significant departure from the carefully executed flaked-stone technology of the Palaeoindian period. Ground stone is often more durable and raw material is easier to obtain than flaked stone tools. However, this durability comes at a price: ground stone tools are time consuming to make and are difficult to sharpen and maintain. They are also heavy, making them problematic to transport over long distances. A variety of durable ground stone tools were recovered from the Bringham and Sharrow sites (figure 5.3), including fully channelled gouges (a unique form of gouge with a longitudinal groove running its entire length), adzes, axes, small chisel celts, stone rods (abraders/sharpeners), plummets (net or line weights), large ground slate spear points, knives, and semi-lunar knives (or “ulus”). While large axes, or celts, are known from this period throughout the Northeast, the remaining ground stone assemblage appears to be unique to the Atlantic Northeast during this early period (Murphy 1998:13; Petersen and Putnam 1992:49). Perhaps the most significant of these are the ground stone woodworking tools, such as the fully channelled gouges, which are sometimes believed to have facilitated the construction of large dugout watercraft that permitted riverine and marine travel (cf. Sanger 2009a). Ground stone implements, similar to the knives, spear points, plummets, and ulus found at Maritime Archaic sites, are often used by other marine-adapted groups throughout the world to hunt large sea mammals, such as seals, walrus, whales, and large fish. The assumption is

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FIGURE 5.2  A stratigraphic profile from excavations at the Bringham site, 1985. Many Early Maritime Archaic sites are deeply buried.

Courtesy James B. ­Petersen Collection, University of Vermont

that these artifacts, even if they are from interior sites, were used in a similar manner, and represent a marine-focused technology. As we shall see, travelling and hunting on the sea from durable craft fundamentally changed the relationship between humans and the ecosystem in the Atlantic Northeast. The deeply buried contexts at Bringham and Sharrow also revealed abundant evidence of bone and antler technology, including barbed and unbarbed points, blanks, foreshafts (often associated with harpooning technology), and bone needles (Petersen and Putnam 1992). The lithic tradition was substantially different than the preceding Palaeoindian period and was composed of coarse unifacial tools, largely made from quartz and other materials obtained locally (figure 5.4). At Sharrow, the only bifacial projectile points had contracting stems and dated much later, at ca. 6300 cal BP. A calcined (burned) faunal assemblage preserved evidence for hunting white tailed deer, black bear, beaver, muskrat, and fox. Waterfowl were taken, as well as turtle and snake. Eels, shad, and salmon remains attest to a well-developed fishing technology. Nuts and seeds filled out the diet of the Early and Middle Archaic inhabitants of the site, including hazelnut, acorn, and hawthorn. Amazingly, a fragment of a squash rind was recovered from the Sharrow site, also dated to ca. 6300 cal BP (Petersen and Asch Sidell 1996). Brian Robinson (1992, 2001) identified a similar suite of artifact traits from sites throughout Northern New England and Maine (figure 5.1). He called this archaeo-

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FIGURE 5.3 Early Maritime Archaic toolkit 1: (a) bifacial chopper from Sharrow; (b) celt from Sharrow; (c) slate point fragment from Sharrow; (d) celt from Sharrow; (e) perforated pebble from Sharrow; (f) slate point fragment from Sharrow; (g) fully channelled gouge fragment from Sharrow; (h) quartz scraper from Brigham; (i) quartz scraper from Brigham; (j) plummet from Sharrow; and (k) plummet from Sharrow.

Adapted from Petersen (1995:Figs. 5–6) and Petersen and Putnam (1992:Figs. 11, 13–15); illustration by Erin Ingram

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FIGURE 5.4 Early Maritime Archaic toolkit 2: (a) Cheshire quartzite projectile point from Brigham; (b) purple rhyolite projectile point from Brigham; (c) brown siltstone projectile point from Brigham; (d) green rhyolite projectile point from Brigham; and (e) Late/ Middle Archaic barbed antler point from Sharrow.

Adapted from Petersen et al. (1986:Figs. 9, 11–12) and Petersen and Putnam (1992:Figs. 6–7, 16); illustration by Erin Ingram

logical manifestation the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition. He preferred to define the tradition via a “polythetic approach” that considered a characterization of full assemblages of artifacts rather than the appearance of one artifact type. The elusive nature of this toolkit was due in large part to an absence of clearly diagnostic flaked-stone projectile points, the bread and butter of Northeast typology (e.g., Ritchie 1961). Subsequently, Robinson’s criteria for classifying Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition sites was fourfold (Robinson 1992, 2001): (1) lithic assemblages dominated by quartz; (2) flaked lithic technology focused on unifacial tools, especially scrapers; (3) low frequencies of bifacially flaked tools and especially projectile points; and (4) a well-developed ground stone industry, including fully channelled gouges, ulus, points, and stone abrading rods. Robinson (2001) viewed the Gulf of Maine Archaic as a “technological tradition,” and not a “whole cultural tradition,” meaning that other cultural aspects, such as subsistence, settlement patterns, and identity were not included in his definition. Indeed, rarely has the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition been defined in more than a technological manner, though recent research has attempted to define broader cultural practices when possible (e.g., Plourde 2006; Sanger 2006). We believe that, as defined, the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition can be seen as a regional expression of a larger “whole cultural tradition” focused on the exploitation of coastal environments, utilizing a suite of similar practices and technologies, and broadly sharing a similar burial practice and cosmology.

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To avoid terminological confusion, we should say at the outset that we continue to use Robinson’s Gulf of Maine Archaic terminology but, considering recent data, we think it can be expanded beyond its initial limited geographic and cultural extent. Robinson (1992) originally defined the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition as extending from the Merrimack River in New Hampshire to the St. Croix River on the Maine– New Brunswick border. At Gilman Falls, in north-central interior Maine, Sanger (1996a) found perhaps the broadest assemblage associated with this period, and thus it provides a good indication of the polythetic characteristics used to define the tradition. The assemblage includes fully channelled gouges, pecked and ground celts, ground slate points, chipped and ground points, quartz unifaces and scrapers, and numerous stone rod fragments. The assemblage is radiocarbon dated to between 7200 and 8100 cal BP. While Gilman Falls was located relatively far inland from the coast, Robinson considered it to be within the coastal zone. Sanger indicated that the site was mortuary in nature, and thus the location is consistent with Late Archaic burial contexts, suggesting a persistence in mortuary expression over many thousands of years, at least in Maine (see chapter 6). Only two sites, located in the eastern Maine interior, 95-20 (Cox 1991) and N’tolonapemk (Brigham et al. 2001, 2006; Spiess and Mosher 2003), provide direct evidence of coastal resource exploitation, in the form of a harpoon made from swordfish rostrum and several fragments of burnt swordfish rostrum. Hunting swordfish requires robust open-water boating technology (e.g. Sanger 2009b), as well as advanced harpooning technology, and attests to the ability of Early Maritime Archaic peoples in Maine to take large open-water prey. The ability to hunt on the open ocean also suggests the ability to access fish in inshore waters, such as cod and tomcod. When bone is preserved in the interior, a broad spectrum of resources is revealed to have been exploited, including white-tailed deer, moose, bear, muskrat, turtle, snake, and a diversity of fish available from the lake margin, such as alewife, shad, and eel (Spiess and Mosher 2006). Robinson (1992) recognized that the Gulf of Maine Archaic probably extended into the Maritime provinces, but the relationship was not formally recognized until Brent Murphy’s (1998) seminal research into extant collections in the region. Murphy conclusively determined that assemblages from collectors and early avocational archaeologists contained abundant evidence of the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition throughout the Maritime provinces. He found proof of a developed ground stone industry including fully channelled gouges, ground stone rods, and ulus, which are perhaps the most ubiquitous marker for this tradition (e.g., Deal et al. 2006; Murphy 1998:68; Robinson 1992:110, 1996a:104). As in Maine, the fully channelled gouges in the Maritime provinces could be long and parallel, with deep rounded grooves, or with flared working ends and relatively flat channels.

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BOX 5.1  RELATIONSHIPS WITH COLLECTORS AND AVOCATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS The enormity of the archaeological record poses a challenge for archaeological research because professional archaeologists will simply never see the vast majority of sites and artifacts in any region, or even come close to fully surveying a region. While much of the archaeological record will stay safely buried for the foreseeable future, large portions of it are also exposed by natural and human factors, removing objects from their original context and destroying valuable archaeological information. Artifact collectors who dig into sites looking for artifacts destroy valuable context and features. They are also often breaking laws, which vary with regard to the legality of collecting in different jurisdictions and contexts in the Atlantic Northeast. In our view, the knowledge and involvement of the public in identifying and, in some cases, recovering artifacts can be a positive force for recognizing sites and bringing them to professional attention, or for collecting artifacts that may be washed to sea by the next tidal cycle. People who regularly walk coastlines or eroding riverbanks may notice artifacts on the beach that have already been eroded from their archaeological context and report them to professional archaeologists when they would otherwise be missed. For instance, the Pierce-Embree site, an eroding Palaeoindian site in southern Nova Scotia, was identified on the basis of an eroded fluted point, the first evidence of Palaeoindian occupation in the immediate vicinity and likely all that remains of the site (Betts, Hrynick, and Pelletier-Michaud 2018). Numerous other sites in the Atlantic Northeast have been brought to the attention of archaeologists by collectors, many of whom have been important

advocates for research and protection (e.g., Pentz 2008). Many of the pioneers of the region’s archaeology were essentially self-taught (e.g., Clarke 1968; Erskine 1986). Archaeologists have an ethical obligation to share information with the public, and one of the best ways to discourage the destruction of archaeological sites is for archaeologists to recognize that most collectors are interested in learning about the past and eager to be involved in research; looting is often out of curiosity rather than malice. One of the most ­productive ways to do so can be to include avocational archaeologists in formal partnerships with ­archaeologists. In Maine, Alice Kelley, Bonnie Newsom, and colleagues have launched the Maine Midden Minders initiative. This project unites the public, land managers, and archaeologists to observe and record basic data about eroding shell midden sites along the Maine coast. Information generated by these citizen scientists is entered into a secure, custom-designed database. Citizen science initiatives and gathering knowledge from members of the public will be even more important as sites are destroyed at a greater rate due to climate change and development. This should be accompanied by attention to legislation and policies surrounding the legality of forms of collecting or “avocational archaeology,” and recognition of the kinds of information the public can provide. Throughout, archaeological ethics should be kept in mind surrounding the integrity of the archaeological record, the obligation to share information with the public, respect to landowners and users, and the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Murphy reassessed material from the Gaspereau Lake (Nova Scotia) site, excavated by John Erskine in 1965 and more recently by Cultural Resource Management (CRM) Group (2014). The assemblage contains perhaps the largest quantity of Gulf of Maine Archaic material recovered in situ in Nova Scotia. Murphy identified fully channelled gouges, two stone abrading rods, three plummets, and contracting stemmed projectile points. A similar suite of artifacts was also recovered in recent excavations by CRM Group (2014), with the addition of an ulu, abundant quartz scrapers, and multiple stone-abrading rods. In total, the assemblage closely resembles those from sites like 92 

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Bringham and Sharrow in Maine, and its location, at the outlet of a lake, is consistent with similarly dated sites in Maine and farther south. As with sites in Maine, most of the Gulf of Maine Archaic material in the Maritime provinces appears to come from river and lake systems (Deal et al. 2006:258), centring on Gaspereau Lake, Lake Rossignol, and the Mersey River in Nova Scotia and Chiputneticook Lakes and the lakes region in New Brunswick. On Prince Edward Island, the evidence is substantially more limited, which is not surprising, given the extent of erosion affecting the island and its waterways. However, three fully channelled gouges have been recovered from around river systems (Deal et al. 2006:258). Many of the interior sites attributed to the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition appear to have a mortuary component (e.g., Murphy 1998; Deal et al. 2006). The mortuary assemblages appear to have included finely made burial goods, including gouges, slate spear points, ulus, and plummets. The Maritime association of these items suggests that marine hunting and the processing of marine products held some cosmological significance. The preference for lake outlets and/or rivers for burial locations is intriguing, but suggests interior locations focused prominently in the spiritual tradition, even if the coast was signalled in the burials themselves. If the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition represents a marine-oriented technology and economy, where are the coastal sites? By ca. 3000 cal BP, the sea had risen to a level similar to the modern era (see chapter 2). As a result, coastal archaeological sites dated before that time are likely inundated, and potentially destroyed by erosion. However, fishermen engaged in bottom dragging and trawls have discovered abundant evidence of submerged archaeological assemblages. Although we are uncertain if the artifacts come from intact sites or from scattered assemblages (i.e., from eroded sites), the artifacts tend to be large ground stone implements, which are undoubtedly part of the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition. For example, a fully channelled gouge was recovered in scallop nets near Indian Island in Passamaquoddy Bay at a depth of 20 fathoms (Black 1997). Plummets, similar in form to interior Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition sites, have also been recovered offshore in multiple locations in Maine waters (Crock et al. 1993). Near Mount Desert Island, draggers recovered multiple artifacts, including a ground slate point, three large chipped stone bifaces, plummets, and a gouge. Other artifacts found from these so-called drowned sites appear to have not been present, or relatively rare, at the interior lake sites. A crude possible ulu was recovered from the Sharrow site, but much finer ground stone ulus, with an expanded bar, or ridge, along the back edge, have been found in offshore contexts. For example, in Nova Scotia waters, three very large ground slate ridge-backed ulus were recovered at two different find spots along an ancient shoreline off Digby Neck at a depth of ca. 40 fathoms (e.g., Fader 2005). A similar style ulu was recovered from the sea floor near the northern tip of PEI (Keenlyside 1984). The latter specimen may have been THE EARLY MARITIME ARCHAIC PERIOD

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r­ ecovered from an inundated river bank (Deal et al. 2006:258), suggesting it was from a domestic or mortuary context. Two ulus have been recovered from Passamaquoddy Bay (Black and Turnbull 1988) and one near Deer Island, on the central Maine coast (e.g., Stright 1990:439). Recently, an unusual large ground nephrite spear point with a ground basal “flute” was recovered in shallower coastal waters (28 fathoms) west of Little River, just south of the Digby Neck ulus (figure 5.5). The flute is unique and obviously raises comparisons to basal fluting from Palaeoindian projectile points. Similarly, a large stemmed ground stone biface was found offshore from Digby Neck, in somewhat deeper water than the ulus. It is generally accepted by archaeologists that these specimens predate the Late Archaic, and thus must represent a coastal expression of the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition. Walrus tusks have been recovered by scallop draggers in the same area off Digby Neck where the ulus and spear point were recovered (Fader 2005:07), and it is therefore possible that this submerged ground stone technology was used to hunt and process these and other large marine creatures. There is even enough variability to suggest some chronological shifts, perhaps from fluted ground slate spear points to stemmed spear points, mimicking the transition from the Palaeoindian to Archaic seen in flaked stone technology. It is also possible that the finds may be from two different types of sites. For example, the ulus and gouges, used to process fish and

FIGURE 5.5 Ground nephrite spear point recovered by the vessel Muktuk in a scallop rake from 28 fathoms of water, offshore from Little River, Nova Scotia.

Photograph courtesy Daniel Thimot

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work wood respectively, may be from inundated archaeological sites, while the hunting and fishing implements may have been lost during use on the ocean, presumably while hunting from dugout canoes. Regardless of their context, in total they suggest an elaborate marine hunting and fishing adaptation and, likely, coastal settlement spanning the Late Palaeoindian until the Late Archaic period. The ground stone industry is highly developed and relatively standardized in the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition, but the flaked stone industry is highly variable, ranging from a quartz core and flake industry with limited bifaces to a fully realized stemmed and bifurcate point industry, especially in the south. However, a common aspect linking the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition to other sites throughout the Atlantic Northeast is a lack of chert projectile points, and an emphasis on quartz tools, what Robinson (2001:89) termed the “Quartz Core and Uniface Industry.” This industry reflects a focus on quartz flakes and especially large retouched unifaces, or endscrapers. While Robinson (1992, 2001) saw evidence of this quartz industry in sites throughout Labrador, Quebec, and northern New England, he preferred to view the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition as a primarily regional manifestation, focused on Maine and northern New England. His rationale was based on different technological elements, particularly chert projectile points, between the regions, especially in sites located north of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This is understandable, given his focus on the characterization of the phenomenon as a technological tradition. However, recent research (e.g., Plourde 2006) has argued for an extension of the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition at least as far as Quebec. As will be discussed below, this has important implications for cultural connections across the Atlantic Northeast. Michel Plourde (2006) has convincingly demonstrated that a sequence of sites along Quebec’s northern shore, along the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, appear to be part of the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition. At the Cap-de-Bon-Désir site, Plourde (2006) excavated an assemblage dating to ca. 8100 cal BP. The site sits on a high terrace that has risen away from the former shoreline by isostatic rebound after the last glaciation. Like other Gulf of Maine Archaic sites, quartz dominated the chipped stone assemblage, though some lower quality chert was present. Chipped stone tools included abundant scrapers and pièces esquillées, and a biface tip fragment. A range of ground stone implements was recovered, including two fully channelled gouges (in the process of being made), two stone abrading rods, a bayonet or spear point preform, and a chisel tip (celt). Remarkably, Cap-de-Bon-Désir contained several small depressions lined with sand and charcoal, three of which were aligned in a row. Probably hearths, the features contained many fragments of calcined (significantly burnt) animal remains, 10 of which were identifiable as seal (Gates St. Pierre 1999). As a result, for the first time, a coastal Gulf of Maine Archaic site has been conclusively linked to the procurement of sea mammals. THE EARLY MARITIME ARCHAIC PERIOD

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As discussed by Plourde (2006), a number of similar sites have been excavated from high terraces on the north shore of the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. One of these, CeEt-482, near Quebec City, contains similar depressions and hearths, with burnt bone identified as seal, bird, turtle, bear, and beaver. Like Cap-de-Bon-Désir, the site contained abundant quartz and scrapers (no ground stone tools were recovered), and returned radiocarbon dates between 8400 and 9150 cal BP. Similarly, EiBg-7E, at Blanc-Sablon, was located on a 21 m high terrace. It also contained a large hearth, abundant quartz scrapers and tools, and the remains of seal, birds, and small furbearers. Two radiocarbon samples date the site to ca. 8000 cal BP. Finally, a site in Baie-Comeau, DhEb-1A (Pintal 1996), located on a 50-m terrace, exhibited a quartz-dominated lithic industry composed of retouched flakes and scrapers. Also included in the assemblage was a Neville type projectile point, which are sometimes found in Early Archaic sites in New England and Maine (Dincauze 1976; see box 5.2). The burnt remains of seal, cod, and whale firmly attest to the marine

BOX 5.2  THE EXTERNAL SOUTH: THE EARLY AND MIDDLE ARCHAIC NEVILLE-STARK

COMPLEX

Culture history in the Atlantic Northeast did not develop in a vacuum after the Palaeoindian period. The cultures of the region interacted with and, in some cases, blended with cultures on its southern and western borders. One such case is Early and Middle Archaic cultures from New Hampshire and southern New England. At the Neville site, on the Merrimack River, New Hampshire, Dincauze (1971, 1976) identified two successive Early and Middle Archaic technological complexes, the Neville Complex and the Stark Complex. The Neville Complex dates from 8000 to ca. 6500 cal BP and was defined by projectile points “with triangular blades, sharply defined tips and shoulders, and tapered stems with indented or straight bases” (Dincauze 1971:195, 1976). The Stark Complex succeeds the Neville Complex and dates from 6500 to 6000 cal BP. Stark points are very distinctive, with “sharply tipped blades, rounded shoulders, and contracting stems with pointed or rounded bases” (Dincauze 1971:195). The Neville site appears to have been a near-interior fishing and hunting camp that was occupied until the Late Maritime Woodland period. Neville and Stark projectile points, as well as other materials associated with these time peri-

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ods elsewhere, have been found in Maine and the Maritimes, but they are, in general, not common. For example, in the Maritime provinces, Deal and colleagues (2006; see also Murphy 1998:115) identified only eight Neville or Stark style projectile points, and Suttie (2007) has identified several early points and artifacts in New Brunswick. In Maine, Spiess and colleagues (1983) have identified sparse numbers of Early and Middle Archaic material culture, and most of it constrained to the southern part of the state, primarily south of the Penobscot River in Maine. The penetration of these styles into the Maritime Peninsula suggests cultural contact between these southerly populations and those in the Atlantic Northeast, but no co-occupation, at least not north of the Penobscot River. What this contact looked like culturally and socially is difficult to interpret. It certainly involved the flow of ideas and concepts, as the projectile points attest. It likely also involved the flow of trade goods as well. This is a situation that would later rapidly change after ca. 6000 cal BP, when there is more abundant evidence of occupation of multiple groups in Maine (e.g., Cox 1991).

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE ATLANTIC NORTHEAST

orientation of the site’s inhabitants; radiocarbon dates indicate they occupied it ca. 8200 cal BP.

Early Maritime Archaic Culture in Labrador In Labrador and Quebec, evidence of Early Maritime Archaic appears to be somewhat better preserved than on the Maritime Peninsula. For one thing, coastal Maritime Archaic sites exist in Labrador and the Quebec Lower North Shore, because isostatic rebound is lifting sites away from the coastal edge and the rising sea levels that have destroyed many similarly aged sites south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Any consideration of the Maritime Archaic in Labrador must begin with a unique complex of sites along the Strait of Belle Isle, near the Labrador-Quebec border. As we will see, these sites appear to form a sort of cultural bridge between the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition as expressed in Quebec and the Labrador Archaic. Among these sites is a spectacular burial feature, L’Anse Amour, which provides perhaps the most compelling window on Early Maritime Archaic life in the entire Atlantic Northeast. In 1973 and 1974, Robert McGhee and James Tuck conducted a survey and excavation on sites along the Strait of Belle Isle, north of L’Anse-au-Clair. Remarkably, some of the sites are within 10 km of the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition BlancSablon site discussed above and are therefore undoubtedly related to that cultural tradition. As such, the sites share remarkable similarities to the sites previously described from Quebec, but also exhibit some, perhaps transitional, differences that are important. McGhee and Tuck encountered close to a dozen sites during their project, six of which date between 7500 and 7700 cal BP (the others are Late Maritime Archaic in age, see chapter 6). Like many Gulf of Maine Archaic sites, they have a well-developed unifacial quartz industry (between 72–96% of formal artifacts and 85–99% of debitage were made from quartz at these sites). Quartz endscrapers, pièces esquillées and retouched flakes are all present in significant quantities. Like the Quebec Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition sites, ground stone tools, including fully channelled gouges, adzes, celts, ulus, and slate bayonets were recovered, though not in substantial abundance. The Arrowhead Mine site had preserved fauna, which included marine birds such as dovekie, gulls, scoters, and razorbills, abundant seal bones, and some caribou, indicating a relatively clear marine-oriented subsistence adaptation. Perhaps the most notable difference between the Strait of Belle Isle sites and the Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition sites farther south is the presence of a developed projectile point industry. Made from quartz, quartzite, and occasionally chert, point styles range from lanceolate and triangular specimens to points with contracting stems, or more rarely, straight stems. The contracting stemmed points at the Arrowhead Mine

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and Fowler sites along the Strait of Belle Isle (McGhee and Tuck 1975:205–211) are remarkably like Gulf of Maine Archaic projectile points recovered from Sharrow in Maine (Robinson 2001:327), Gaspereau Lake in Nova Scotia (e.g., Deal et al. 2006:273; CRM Group 2014:111), and Spednic Lake (95-20 site) and Grand Lake in New Brunswick and Maine (Murphy 1998:115). All of these forms, including those in Labrador, are comparable to Neville style points (Robinson 1992:74; see box 5.2), and their expression across a vast geographic range is suggestive of important cultural interaction and continuity. While the differences in the frequency in projectile points between the regions are significant, it is important to point out that it may be related to the differences in site location and site function. As discussed above, many Archaic interior sites are suspected to be related to burials, and the preponderance of ground stone may reflect a preference for it as grave offerings. Regardless, some interior sites in Maine (e.g., Sharrow, Bringham) and Nova Scotia (Gaspereau Lake) are clearly habitation-related and many of these also include increased frequencies of ground stone. Unlike these sites, the Strait of Belle Isle sites are truly coastal, often occurring less than 2 km from the modern high tide line. The differential expression of artifacts, with more flaked projectile points on the Labrador coastal sites, and more ground stone in the interior Maritime Peninsula sites, may reflect a seasonal difference (perhaps summers on the coast and winters in the interior). If so, then the frequency of tools initially seems backwards, with ground stone implements, most often associated with marine hunting and fishing, more frequent in the interior. However, “gearing up” is a common occupation of hunter-gatherers prior to seasonal moves, and often results in large quantities of artifacts discarded during manufacture and repair, rather than where they are used. Perhaps, then, the coastal assemblages reflect gear-up of chert projectile points for inland cervid hunting, while ground stone is found in interior sites where it is made and repaired in preparation for marine hunting. Ironically, the unusual coastal L’Anse Amour burial and the artifacts it contained (figure 5.6) provide perhaps the most intriguing window into Early Maritime Archaic lifeways in the Strait of Belle Isle region, and indeed the entire Atlantic Northeast. As McGhee and Tuck (1975:25–88) describe, the site is located on a sandy terrace at 28 m elevation, next to a small brook that feeds into the nearby ocean. Its proximity to the ocean is not consistent with most Maritime Archaic cemeteries, nor is its composition (see also chapter 6). The burial is a purposefully constructed mound consisting of a roughly circular pile of boulders approximately 8 m in diameter. Considerable effort was expended in constructing the mound; the boulders were stacked in two distinct layers approximately 1 m in thickness. At ca. 45 cm below the top of the mound a burial “cist” was revealed, lined with large upright slabs with traces of red

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FIGURE 5.6 Artifacts from the L’Anse Amour burial mound: (a) whetstone; (b) ovate biface; (c) bifacially flaked stemmed knife; (d) bifacially flaked stemmed knife; (e) toggling harpoon; (f) bone whistle; (g) bone or antler pendant; (h) ground bone point; (i) antler toggle; and (j) conical caribou ulna point.

Adapted from McGhee and Tuck (1975:Plates 24–27); illustration by Erin Ingram

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ochre. At the base of the cist was a layer of decayed organic material, with some charcoal and burned cod bones. Under the burned layer was an oval deposit of sand and red ochre at ca. 130 cm below the top of the mound. In the ochre deposit was the skeleton of a male teenager, who had been interred in an extended position with his stomach down, and his head turned to face north. A large flat rock had been placed over his back. A short distance away from the body was a cache of artifacts, containing three “socketed” bone points, a stemmed bone point, and four large quartzite projectile points with stemmed bases. Three other large quartzite or quartz projectile points (two stemmed and one with a straight base) had been placed in the grave, along with a beautifully decorated ivory toggle (an implement used to hold a line). Two graphite “palette” stones, used to grind ochre, were placed at the body’s waist, and a closed-socketed and toggling harpoon head, a bone flute, and a bone pendant were located below the individual’s chest (they were perhaps worn on the body). Finally, a walrus tusk had been carefully placed in front of the body’s face. A radiocarbon date on charcoal removed from the feature indicates that the skeleton was interred ca. 8300 cal BP. The organic artifacts from this burial reveal much about ancient Maritime Archaic lifeways. For example, the harpoon was of a toggling type, with a spur on the end that would catch and rotate in the wound to securely imbed itself in prey. These types of harpoons are often associated with the open-water hunting of sea mammals, and are similar to Inuit and Northwest Coast harpoons. The toggle is also similar to Inuit bone and ivory toggles, which are used to hold and recover very heavy prey attached to a line. The toggling harpoon head, walrus tusk, and ivory toggle suggest that large pinnipeds were captured, and the cod bones indicate fishing was part of the subsistence and technological tradition. The placement of the walrus tusk in front of the face may indicate a special relationship with this prey species or may more generally indicate a special relationship between this individual (and their people) to the ocean environment. In total, the burial indicates an extreme focus on the sea, both economically and technologically, but perhaps also cosmologically. Interestingly, the large stemmed flaked projectile points are strikingly similar in shape, size, and material to Later Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition sites found in Maine (e.g., Robinson 2001:366), and to stemmed ground slate lance points found at earlier sites such as Sharrow (see Petersen 1995:217). In the absence of ground slate in the burial, it is possible they may be a local variant used when slate was unavailable or during different seasons of the year. Around the same time McGhee and Tuck were working in the Strait of Belle Isle, William Fitzhugh (1974, 1975, 1978, 2006), was revealing that a maritime cultural continuum extended into the central Labrador coast. Some of the earliest occupied

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sites in central Labrador, such as the Hound Pound site, exhibit long stemmed points similar to those recovered from L’Anse Amour. Like the Strait of Belle Isle and Quebec sites, the central Labrador sites are located on terraces, which emerged as the land rebounded following the last glaciation. Perhaps most unique about the sites was the apparent presence of dwelling features. For example, the earliest structures at Aillik 2, in Hamilton Inlet (figure 5.7), are presumably located on the 27 m terrace and appear as single square-shaped dwellings with flat platforms. On the 23.5 m terrace at Aillik 2, dating between 7300 and 7700 cal BP, are multi-chambered structures, with the largest having five individual chambers and measuring an astonishing 8 m x 4 m (Fitzhugh 2006). Artifacts recovered from these dwellings include large amounts of quartzite and some Ramah chert, a special type of toolstone found only in Ramah Bay in northern central Labrador and which appears to have been distributed across vast distances (see chapter 6). Stemmed flaked points made from quartzite as well as ground slate were also found in the dwellings. At Karl Oom 2, Fitzhugh excavated similar rectangular dwellings that contained large amounts of quartz as well as Ramah chert. This site also contained abundant evidence of ground stone manufacture, including slate bifaces and celts (Fitzhugh 2006:52). Other Early Maritime Archaic sites, such as Karl Oom 3, appear to have very different types of dwellings. These bowl-shaped features often contain charcoal and ochre, and sometimes contain a central raised area or platform that divides the space into two chambers. The differences between these dwelling shapes have not been satisfactorily explained, but could relate to seasonal differences, or some chronological component that has not been adequately captured with current dating techniques. By the end of the Early Maritime Archaic period, after about 6000 cal BP, this pattern appears to intensify somewhat. At sites such as Nukasusutok 5 (HcCh-7), Brian Hood (1981, 1993) recovered evidence of longer multi-chambered dwellings that contained increased evidence of ground stone tools such as points and ulus, a decrease in unifacial production such as scrapers, and an abundance of large flaked stemmed points. Ramah chert use increases markedly, starting a trend that would continue to characterize the remainder of the Archaic in Labrador. At Sandy Cove and Black Island Cove, in Hamilton Inlet, Labrador, Fitzhugh (1975) excavated sites also dated to between 6500 and 5500 cal BP, near the end of the Early Maritime Archaic. Even at this late date, the sites exhibit traits remarkably consistent with earlier sites excavated by McGhee and Tuck at the Strait of Belle Isle. These “Sandy Cove Complex” sites contain “prodigious quantities” (Fitzhugh 1975:119) of quartz debitage, unifacial quartz tools, and pièces esquillées. Flaked projectile points consist of bipointed or contracting stem spear points, similar to those described above, and large leaf-shaped knives, unifacial scrapers, and unifacial

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FIGURE 5.7  Map of the Aillik 2 site in Hamilton Inlet.

Map courtesy Stephen ­Loring, Smithsonian ­Institution

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knives. Ground stone tools were chipped, then ground, and include celts, lanceolate or leaf-shaped knives, and contracting stem or bipointed spear points that resemble chert counterparts. At Sandy Cove, the deposits are located on beach terraces, within sight of the coast, and consisted of a concentration of quartz and quartzite artifacts ca. 3 m x 4 m in diameter (probably representing house floors) with evidence of a central cobble-­ encircled hearth and ochre staining. At Black Island Cove, Fitzhugh encountered a linear series of hearths that he (2006:53) believes represented a large multiple family dwelling ca. 8–12 m x 4 m. Despite the general lack of identifiable bone in these Early Maritime Archaic sites in Labrador, there can be little doubt that they were occupied by coastally adapted peoples. Their position, within hundreds of metres of the coastline, attests to this. While many of the simpler sites, with single hearths and single-roomed dwellings, indicate “sporadic occupations of brief duration during maritime hunting and fishing activities on the coast” (Fitzhugh 1975:122), others suggest longer durations with aggregations of people coming together, potentially to share in the labour of fishing and hunting on the sea. Technologically, the presence of an advanced ground stone tool industry, though limited, suggests the heavy working of wood, likely for dugout canoes, and the killing (slate spear points) and processing and butchery (slate ulus) of large sea mammals. The unusually stemmed flaked stone points, especially the large lanceolate varieties, may have been used as lances in sea mammal hunting as well. When organic technology is preserved, such as at L’Anse Amour, harpoons, toggles, and socketed bone points indicate the hunting of sea creatures. Finally, the presence of marine-oriented technology and marine mammal parts (including a walrus tusk) in the L’Anse Amour burial attests to the importance of a maritime way of life. Interaction with marine creatures was clearly crucial to the cosmology of these peoples.

Was There a Pan-Regional Maritime Archaic Culture in the Atlantic Northeast? Tuck’s (1971) Maritime Archaic model assumes that the inhabitants of the coastal Atlantic Northeast between ca. 9500 and 3000 cal BP “shared a single mode of life, from technological traditions and resource-gathering activities to social organization, aesthetics, and ideological beliefs.” This so-called whole cultural hypothesis also suggests a shared common ancestry and a degree of contemporary connection, in the form of communication (information sharing), trade, and perhaps even gene flow. We believe the above summary of the available evidence does indicate that a mode of life was shared across a vast distance, albeit with regional diversity, all stemming from a broadly shared ancestry in the Palaeoindian period. THE EARLY MARITIME ARCHAIC PERIOD

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In fact, the similarities between Early Maritime Archaic sites in Quebec, Labrador, Maine, and the Maritimes have long been recognized by archaeologists (e.g., Deal et al. 2006; Murphy 1998; Petersen and Putnam 1992:48; Robinson 1992, 2001, 2006; Sanger 1996a, 2006; Sassaman 2010:162; Tuck 1975a, 1991:33, 1993). The focus on quartz unifacial tools and pièces esquillées, the distinctive ground stone i­ mplements – including ulus, fully channelled gouges, stone abrading rods, and stemmed ground stone spear points – and a complex bone tool industry are all relatively compelling evidence of a shared toolkit and even design aesthetic, despite some regional variation (Robinson 2001:89–90). Where bone is preserved, marine animals, especially seal, walrus, and cod, are often identified, further reinforcing a focus on the marine ecosystem. Inland sites from Maine to Quebec can include the remains of cervid (caribou, deer, and moose), furbearers, waterfowl, lacustrine fish, and other terrestrial creatures. Cosmologically, a mortuary complex that included finely made grave goods of bone, ground stone, flaked stone, and red ochre is shared throughout the region. With the exception of some Labrador sites, there is a paucity of chipped stone projectile points, especially when considering the preceding Palaeoindian period. Domestic sites, for which the largest sample size comes from Labrador, also often exhibit far fewer ground stone implements, especially ulus and projectile points. The lack of chipped stone projectile points has been adequately explained by Plourde (2006:149), who notes that, among marine-oriented cultures, points fashioned from organic materials, such as harpoons and spears, are better suited to the exploitation of marine resources. Indeed, he notes that Late Maritime Archaic sites, such as Port au Choix and Nevin, “offer eloquent testimony in this regard: most of the points … and harpoons placed in offerings in the burial(s) were made of bone” (Plourde 2006:149). Furthermore, it appears that ground stone material culture was highly curated, and therefore might not have appeared in normal domestic contexts. Indeed, the same is evident at the L’Anse Amour burial, where bone tools dominated the assemblage. Significant regional variability is present in the Early Maritime Archaic continuum from north to south, and there is good evidence that regional technological traditions and complexes are present (see Fitzhugh 2006; Robinson 2001, 2006). However, the similarities are compelling, and we note that such geographically immense cultural phenomena are very common in North American archaeology. The preceding Palaeoindian period notwithstanding, the vast geographic and temporal scope of the Maritime Archaic envisioned here is entirely consistent with the cultural and geographic scope of marine-oriented Indigenous cultures in other areas of North America. For example, for the past 800 years, Inuit occupied nearly the entirety of the Canadian coastal North. Despite important regional variability in practices and technology in Inuit society (including significant culture-change over time), these people share a

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fundamental way of life across a vast geographic region. They are a cohesive cultural entity, descended from the same ancestral population, despite significant regional variability. The same might have been said for another “Archaic period” people, the Dorset, who occupied an even larger and more diverse area of the Canadian North prior to the arrival of Inuit. For example, Dorset in Newfoundland are still recognized as culturally connected to Dorset culture on Victoria Island, Nunavut, despite being separated by some 3,300 km (see chapter 8). Other examples exist throughout North America, at various time periods. It is not, therefore, provocative, especially with the abundant archaeological evidence that now exists, to suggest a single Maritime Archaic culture existed over the Atlantic Northeast, bound by similar economic practices, technology, social structures, and world view. Thus, what might a modern definition of the Early Maritime Archaic way of life be, and how might it be recognized archaeologically? About 9500 years ago, people throughout the Atlantic Northeast, from central Labrador to southern Maine, began to creatively respond to the newly developed marine ecosystem in the region. It was an almost unbelievably productive ecosystem, but required substantial technological innovation and the development of new hunting strategies to exploit effectively. Peoples throughout the region began to hunt marine resources, including fish, such as cod and swordfish, and marine mammals, such as walrus and seals. Coastal birds were also taken. Inland, there is evidence for the exploitation of furbearers, cervids, and waterfowl. The day-to-day, season-to-season, and year-to-year reproduction of economies, settlement patterns, technologies, and social relationships necessary to exploit this ocean environment created a unique and cyclic “rhythm of living,” which utterly transformed lifeways in the Atlantic Northeast. These shared practices undoubtedly reinforced identities and, in effect, signalled to those who lived them, and others who saw them enacted, that “this is who we are.” To archaeologists, these practices and affinities continue to be signalled by artifact styles and their distributions, which clearly show a shared technology and way of life throughout the entire region, albeit with understandable regional variability. These assemblages both signal these shared traditions and reveal more about the practices of those who made them. Characteristic assemblages include heavy woodworking tools, such as fully channelled gouges, celts, and abrading (sharpening) rods; these indicate the construction and use of dugout canoes or other watercraft to facilitate open-water hunting and fishing. Ground stone tools such as large stemmed spear points, ulus (especially bar-handled ulus), and plummets indicate the hunting and processing of large sea mammals and swordfish, and the fishing of other large species. Other shared technological traits include a general emphasis on quartz unifacial

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t­ echnology, such as scrapers, and pièces esquillées (possibly also used in woodworking). When chert tools are found, projectile points tend to have contracting or straight stems. These were likely used for both terrestrial and marine hunting. Settlement included both coastal and interior sites, and burials could occur both coastally and in the interior. Houses appear to have ranged from small oval or square dwellings, just 3 or 4 m in diameter, to large multi-roomed structures, such as those found in Labrador. There is some indication that the latter very large houses are more common at the end of the Early Maritime Archaic. However, the differences between these dwellings may be seasonal, with the large dwellings representing aggregations of families and the small dwellings representing single families during a season of population dispersal. Early and Middle Maritime Archaic mortuary practices included single primary burials in mounds and/or cists, with abundant use of red ochre and the inclusion of finely made, generally marine-focused, artifacts and tools. The marine focus of the burials, which are sometimes found inland, indicates that this shared identity, wrought from interaction with the sea, was critical in cosmological and spiritual relationships. Thus, in the Atlantic Northeast, peoples created their new lifeway through repeated and routine interaction with seascapes and the animals that resided there. It was a historically contingent development, a response to massive sea level rise after the last glaciation, which both radically changed landscapes and also created rich and, ultimately, irresistible coastal ecosystems. As humans throughout the region integrated with these ecosystems, they created a new historical trajectory, way of life, and identity, linked to the ocean, that would persist for over 9000 years.

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CHAPTER 6

THE LATE MARITIME ARCHAIC PERIOD (5500 TO 3500 CAL BP)

Introduction Many of the buildings in the village of Port au Choix, on Newfoundland’s northern peninsula, are located on a raised relict beach ridge thousands of years old. Since the early 1900s, Port au Choix’s residents would discover wonderous and strange things in the soil as they dug their foundations, cellars, and gardens: long stone gouges and axes, fragile slate knives, and delicate slate spears, all covered in a red mineral powder called ochre, and often associated with fragments of human skeletons. In 1939, five skeletons were uncovered by a bulldozer, again with unique grave goods. Precisely 20 years later, three additional burials were found during the construction of cellars and driveways. These were assessed by Elmer Harp (Harp and Hughes 1968), and for many years it appeared that a small Archaic period cemetery was the source of the remains. While rich, the material recovered in 1959 (gouges, adzes, chipped stone knives and points, bone daggers, and slate knives) was within the known range of what was then known as “Boreal Archaic” material culture (Harp and Hughes 1968:14). However, in 1967, as a foundation of a billiard parlour and theatre was excavated on the property of Felix Gould, construction workers unearthed a large amount of human skeletal material and associated grave goods. James Tuck, then at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, visited the site and, recognizing how remarkable the remains were, convinced the landowner to cover and protect the excavation until he could return the next summer. What Tuck would excavate at Port au Choix over the next two summers was a vast and ancient cemetery, containing over 100 individuals in three separate locations. The graves were often associated with rock and cobble features, and the goods furnished with the burials, including animal parts, beads, slate and inorganic tools, minerals, and effigies, were so spectacular and numerous that they would force a reconsideration of the nature of Archaic lifeways in the Atlantic Northeast.

The Late Maritime Archaic (LMA) represents a period of transition in the Atlantic Northeast (figure 6.1), a time when Early Maritime Archaic culture appears to “fluoresce” into an elaborate and complex archaeological expression and then abruptly comes to a halt. Cultural intensification prior to a major cultural transition appears to have occurred in many archaeological cultures throughout Canada (and indeed the world), and may have occurred repeatedly in the Atlantic Northeast. During the Archaic period, however, the mechanisms are poorly understood, and exploring how this intensification occurred, and why it ended, is the subject of this chapter. To understand this phenomenon requires a historical perspective that takes into account the recurring practices that came before the Late Maritime Archaic, the cultural, social, and environmental context of the period in question, and the practices (and people, see below) that came after. It necessitates a consideration of how humans may have responded to external pressures and attempted to negotiate changes to a way of life that had been a deeply imbedded tradition for nearly 6000 years. The archaeological hallmark of the LMA in coastal areas of the Atlantic Northeast is large and elaborate cemeteries, often with dozens of burials furnished with abundant burial goods and liberally applied with red ochre. The rich burial tradition of the LMA has led archaeologists to speculate that social complexity was increasing during this period. Burials with finely made and rare grave goods have been discovered throughout the region, and, in general, the available evidence suggests that these elaborate burials transcend gender and age boundaries (men, women, and children are all represented). The child burials, especially, suggest hereditary, or inherited, status inequality, meaning that social and political power and wealth may have been vested in powerful or wealthy families and lineages. Frankly, the roots of this inequality may have hints in the Early Maritime Archaic, as the large artifact-rich L’Anse Amour burial was that of a young individual, likely a teenager (see chapter 5). At the same time, there is evidence of intensive subsistence activities, especially those involving large sea mammals or large predatory fish, as well as large-scale seasonal aggregations. Perhaps because of the visibility of the LMA cemeteries, or perhaps because of issues related to coastal erosion, habitation sites are far less visible in this period than in the preceding period on the Maritime Peninsula. However, in Labrador, where the land has been rebounding since the last glaciation, and thus where coastal habitation sites are preserved, they are often associated with large, presumably communal, houses and evidence of seasonal population aggregations, often involving shared hunting. Faunal evidence throughout the region suggests the procurement of large-bodied sea animals (both mammals and fish) that provide large proceeds, but that also require elaborate technology and sophisticated communal hunting techniques. The development of this cultural and social com-

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FIGURE 6.1  Key Late Maritime Archaic sites and locations mentioned in the text.

Map by Alexander Honsinger and Mallory Moran

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plexity and its rapid demise is one of the enduring archaeological mysteries in the Atlantic Northeast.

Late Maritime Archaic Culture in Newfoundland and Labrador By 5500 cal BP, regional differences begin to appear in the archaeological records of northern and southern Quebec, Newfoundland, and Labrador (Lacroix 2016:183). The two “traditions” of LMA culture have come to be known as the Northern and Southern Branches, respectively (Fitzhugh 1975, 1978; Hood 1993; Tuck 1982). First recognized by Fitzhugh in 1975, the Northern Branch homeland occurs in central and northern Labrador, though some sites are known south of Hamilton Inlet, and as far south as the Quebec North Shore. Lacroix (2016) has also suggested similarities between the Northern Branch and sites on the northeast coast of Newfoundland. Defined as a technological tradition based on lithic artifacts (e.g., Tuck 1982), Northern Branch assemblages include tapering stem projectile points, bifacial knives, and a developed ground slate industry that included stemmed spear points, ulus, and knives. Tuck (1982) envisioned a direct descendent relationship between the Early Maritime Archaic L’Anse Amour burial and the Northern Branch Maritime Archaic. He predicted that the organic technological component of the Northern Branch would be similar to the L’Anse Amour assemblages, and that the subsistence focus at most Northern Branch sites would be the seasonal exploitation of marine resources (seals and fish), with a terrestrial component consisting largely of ungulates (caribou) and riverine fish. The Southern Branch, as Tuck (1982) envisioned, occurred south of Hamilton Inlet as far as the Quebec North Shore, and on the island of Newfoundland. The Southern Branch is believed to be contemporaneous with the Northern Branch and the two are known to have occasionally overlapped spatially in southern Labrador and Quebec (Tuck 1982:205). Recent research suggests that this overlap may have extended to the island of Newfoundland as well, with the southwestern shore more closely related to the Southern Branch, and the northeastern shore more closely related to the Northern Branch (Lacroix 2016). The implications of this are profound, and suggest that closely related peoples, but perhaps peoples with different homelands and group affinities, shared portions of Labrador, Newfoundland, and Quebec during the LMA period. It clearly implies a rising territorial, and thus social, complexity, and, inevitably, population increase. Also defined as a technological tradition, Southern Branch assemblages include expanding stem and side-notched flaked projectile points, blade-like or “linear” flakes, leaf-shaped bifaces, preforms and blanks, and unifacial tools, including retouched

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flakes and endscrapers. Both in Labrador and Newfoundland, a preference exists for greyish chert, probably obtained from quarries on the Northern Peninsula of the island. The Southern Branch ground slate industry is highly developed, at least as expressed at burial sites, and includes well-made stemmed spear points, plummets, celts, and channelled gouges. Ground slate technology tends to be rarer in habitation sites. Based on burial sites in Newfoundland with exceptional preservation, bone and antler technologies appear highly developed, and include toggling harpoon heads with foreshafts, lance heads and knives, and a variety of barbed points, potentially used as leister points or complex elongated spearheads or harpoons. As indicated in chapter 5, Early Maritime Archaic sites are not present on the island of Newfoundland, and indeed LMA sites only appear on the island more than 1000 years after the transition occurred on the coast of Labrador. The reason for this delay is poorly understood, but there may be an ecological basis. The most convincing evidence for this ecological explanation is that LMA sites appear limited to the northern portion of Newfoundland, occurring on both the west and east coasts of the Northern Peninsula and only as far south as Bonavista Bay.

The Northern Branch Late Maritime Archaic By 5500 years ago, Maritime Archaic populations in southern Labrador had expanded as far north as Ramah and Saglek bays. At sites like Aillik 2 (GhBt-3, Fitzhugh 1984, 1985), on the central Labrador coast, successively occupied beach ridges indicate that dwellings changed over time. As described in chapter 5, Early Maritime Archaic dwellings were single round or sub-rectangular pithouses (3–4 m in diameter) but gradually shifted in shape and size to large rectilinear multi-roomed structures called “longhouses.” By the Late Maritime Archaic, these longhouses had become truly enormous, with one structure at Aillik 2 (figure 6.2), dating to ca. 4000 cal BP, reaching more than 28 m in length (Fitzhugh 1983:7, see also Wolff 2008a). Along with the architectural shift in Labrador came technological changes. Large stemmed spear points made from flaked stone, large ground slate ulus, and pecked and ground celts (and the pecking stones used to make them) are found at many LMA sites. Grooved and notched soapstone pendants, which may also have been used as net/line weights, are abundant in some contexts. Scrapers seem to disappear in the Northern Branch LMA, which may be related to the appearance of ulus in assemblages, a type of semi-lunar ground slate knife, which could be used as both a cutting and scraping tool. Sites such as Okak 2 (HjCl-2), Sandy Cove 4 and Sandy Cove 5 (GcBk-4,5), Cutthroat Island 2 (HiCj-5), Nulliak Cove 1 (IbCp-20), and Nukasusutok 5 (HcCh-7) typify LMA lifeways on the northern Labrador coast at this time.

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FIGURE 6.2 Late Maritime Archaic longhouse structure at Aillik 2, Labrador.

Photograph ­courtesy ­Stephen Loring, ­ mithsonian Institution S

After 4500 cal BP, Late Maritime Archaic assemblages reveal a critical shift to a special type of toolstone that comes to be closely related to the LMA period in Labrador, and throughout the Northeast (Loring 2017). At the far northern tip of their range, deep in the Torngat Mountains, Maritime Archaic peoples found an inexhaustible source of high-quality toolstone, named Ramah for the bay in which it was found (figure 6.3). Ramah chert is known for its fantastic flaking qualities, and its highly unusual appearance. It is light grey or off-white and translucent, except where it is streaked by dark grey or black bands. While fine-grained, and easily worked, it has a unique “sugary” or granular texture that makes it appear coarser grained than it actually is. Its appearance has been described as “sleet on windshield” (Tuck 1976a:52), but often it looks like dirty slush ice floating in a pond or harbour prior to freeze-over (figure 6.4). For more than 2500 years, Maritime Archaic peoples collected Ramah chert at this location, creating an enormous quarry site. So much chert was removed from it that at some sites in central Labrador, Ramah chert flakes literally pave occupation surfaces (e.g., Hood 2008:84). Ramah chert was so valued that it was traded as far south as Chesapeake Bay and as far west as Manitoba (Curtis and Desrosiers 2017; Holly 2013:59). Fitzhugh’s extensive work in Hamilton Inlet in central Labrador has defined two Northern Branch LMA complexes. The first, the Black Island Complex, appears to have been a single, brief occupation ca. 4700 cal BP. At the Black Island 2 site, several

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FIGURE 6.3 The Ramah chert quarry site from the air (site is at the head of the valley in the central right of the photo).

Photograph courtesy Stephen Loring, Smithsonian Institution

loci were found, consisting of pit hearths filled with charred bone and fat, encircled by a lithic scatter up to 6 m in diameter. Charcoal and red ochre staining occurred adjacent to the hearth and lithic scatters. The tool assemblage from this site was small and rather crude, containing little ground slate. Side-notched points dominated the assemblage (no stemmed points were found), which also included discs or scrapers, side scrapers, lanceolate knives, wedges, and crude non-slate celts. Perhaps the most remarkable artifacts in the assemblages are grinding palettes for the reduction of ochre mineral into powder. The second cultural entity, the Rattlers Bight Complex, was named after the Rattlers Bight site, and dates to ca. 4600 to 4200 cal BP. This enormous site, one of the largest in central Labrador, produced evidence of a very intensive occupation. House features consisted of a central slab-lined pit hearth, often filled with charred bone, charcoal, charred fat, and ochre, all surrounded by chipped stone and flaked stone tools. Interestingly, a linear row of hearths found near the dwellings may have been a smoking or drying area. All the chipped stone tools were made from Ramah chert, indicating how extensive the Ramah toolstone industry had become by this period. The tool assemblage (figure 6.5) is characterized by large stemmed Ramah chert spear points with sharp shoulders, although some of the smallest varieties of stemmed point may have been arrowheads. Ramah bipoints and lanceolate and stemmed knives were also recovered, but scrapers were absent.

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FIGURE 6.4  A large flake of chert from the Ramah chert quarry site. Note the characteristic dark bands, translucency, and granular appearance.

Photograph courtesy Pierre Desrosiers, Canadian Museum of History

Hexagonal slate celts, created by flaking and grinding, were used, along with stemmed lance heads, similar in form to the Ramah spearheads, and single-edged knives. Soapstone plummets (or pendants) from Rattlers Bight are small and variously grooved and/or perforated for attachment to a line or net. Finally, bone leister fragments indicate that spear fishing was important in this period. Faunal remains indicate that seals and waterfowl were the primary subsistence targets at the site, but fishing was undoubtedly important. Farther north, at Nulliak Cove (4500–4200 cal BP), located on a beach ridge in Naportak Bay, Fitzhugh (2006:54) discovered 27 longhouses, composed of multiple rooms in a linear arrangement (figure 6.6). Each room was about 4 m x 4 m², and their interiors had been cleared of beach cobbles, slabs, and gravel, which were used to create low berms for outside and internal walls. Each had a single internal hearth, surrounded by fire-cracked rock, abundant stone tool debitage, and animal bones. The rooms were likely individually roofed over with poles and skins and probably functioned as individual domestic structures for a nuclear or small extended family unit (Fitzhugh 1984:20). However, some longhouses were as much as 100 m in length and contained over 20 individual segments. If all segments were occupied simultaneously, as many as 20 families, representing more than 100 people, could have lived in one structure (Wolff 2008a). If more than one structure were occupied at once, several hundred people could have lived at the site simultaneously, rivalling the population of some modern communities in Labrador. 114 

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FIGURE 6.5 Late Maritime Archaic artifacts from the Rattlers Bight Complex: (a) biface knife or lance point; (b) biface knife or lance point; (c) Ramah chert stemmed point; (d) Ramah chert stemmed point; (e) Ramah chert stemmed point; (f) Ramah chert stemmed point; (g) ground slate point; (h) ground slate point; (i) singleedged slate knife; (j) slate celt; (k) slate celt; (l) soapstone plummet; (m) soapstone plummet; (n) slate plummet; (o) semi-lunar biface; and (p) notched ­single-edged biface.

Adapted from Fitzhugh (1975:Figs. 4–5); illustration by Erin Ingram

There were good reasons for multiple families to come to Nulliak Cove to live communally. Nearby the site are large lines of piled stones that extend kilometres over the landscape. These “drive lanes” were used to funnel migrating caribou to a kill site on the beach near the longhouses. It seems likely, then, that Nulliak Cove was a place where many families aggregated to live and hunt caribou communally, sharing in the task of driving, killing, and processing caribou during their late summer or early fall THE LATE MARITIME ARCHAIC PERIOD

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FIGURE 6.6  A Late Maritime Archaic longhouse feature at the Nulliak Cove site, Labrador.

Photograph courtesy Stephen Loring, Smithsonian Institution

migration. The site is also located just 30 km from the Ramah chert quarry. Many hands make short work, and it was therefore the aggregation that represented the perfect opportunity to cooperate in the removal of the heavy stone from the nearby quarries to restock chert supplies. This was probably facilitated using dugout canoes, which were brought from sites farther south, below the treeline. From this perspective, the abundant pendants or line weights found at Nulliak Cove make perfect sense, as the efficiency of fishing and fish processing is greatly increased when it is carried out cooperatively using nets. Longhouses in Labrador during this later period average 50 m in length, with 9–10 segments, suggesting that for most LMA peoples a large seasonal aggregation was the norm (Wolff 2008a). In addition to the economic benefits, living communally in a shared dwelling was likely a symbolic act that reinforced the importance of cooperation for groups who needed to share labour at critical times of the year. These aggregation sites were likely places of feasting and ceremony, activities that would have reinforced the concept of cooperation and group identity. When groups came together, they also had the opportunity to trade, and reinforce family and personal bonds, especially while searching for romantic partners and/or mates. These communal sites thus suggest social and economic activities intensified significantly from Early Archaic times and point to the nascent emergence of social complexity in LMA society.

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Related to evidence for social complexity is evidence of elaborated mortuary behaviour. In fact, there is abundant evidence of mortuary intensification during the LMA in Labrador, and indeed mortuary ceremonialism appears to peak throughout the Atlantic Northeast during this period (see below). Mortuary activities appear to have been tied to domestic activities, as Northern Branch cemeteries, like those at Nulliak Cove and Rattlers Bight, occur adjacent to, or within, habitation sites. At Rattlers Bight, a large cemetery was placed in the midst of the habitation site (Fitzhugh 2006:58). Nine burial features appeared to be clustered in two distinct areas. The features occurred as red ochre and charcoal stained oval pits, about 1 m deep and a little more than 1 m in average maximum length, and were lined with boulders and covered in flat stone slabs. Pits appeared to have contained fragments of birchbark, perhaps used as a burial shroud, and greasy organic material that may have been the remains of animal skins. An array of artifacts were sometimes placed in fur pouches, such as ground slate celts, gouges, stemmed speared points, grinding stones, soapstone plummets, Ramah chert projectile points, Ramah chert knives (semi-lunar), and copper amulets. Many of the lithic artifacts had been broken, or “killed” prior to burial. Organic preservation was excellent, and remains included beaver incisors, walrus tusks, bone foreshafts, whale ribs, blue mussels, bird bills, and even feathers. Burial deposits were sometimes encircled by small quartz stones, and nodules of interesting minerals such as mica, limonite, iron pyrite, and hematite were placed in the graves. Due to the size of the pits, the interments appear to have been secondary, probably bundle burials, suggesting remains were brought to the site long after death had occurred. The site appears to date to ca. 3600 to 4000 cal BP (Fitzhugh 2006:60). The Nulliak Cove site appears to have been abandoned as a seasonal aggregation site by 4200 BP (Fitzhugh 2006:53), but Maritime Archaic peoples continued to return to the site for other purposes. By 3750 cal BP, Nulliak Cove had been transformed into a burial site, where, instead of aggregating to hunt caribou, people gathered to inter their dead, perhaps while journeying to Saglek Bay to collect nearby Ramah toolstone. Four burial locations were encountered, three of which were mounds, two of which were excavated by Fitzhugh (1984, 1985, 2006). The first was a stone pavement about 8 m in diameter, and the second was a 10 m x 8 m mound of boulders and dirt, similar to the Early Maritime Archaic mound at L’Anse Amour. Under the pavement, a red ochre stain was encountered that included charcoal, a walrus tusk, a copper pendant, a stemmed Ramah chert point, and a large stemmed slate lance (Fitzhugh 2006:73–74). Below this, a large 150 cm x 120 cm pit was encountered, covered by a large ochre-stained cap stone. The base of the pit was lined with mica and birchbark. Burial goods included large stemmed Ramah chert projectile points,

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very large Ramah chert “sword-like” bipoints, large stemmed slate lance heads, slate celts, and quarried Ramah raw material. Thus, it appears this remarkable boulder mound was constructed to commemorate a single burial, presumably for an important and/or wealthy individual. Subsistence at Nulliak Cove during this period appears to be a broadly based marineoriented strategy, with seasonal emphasis on terrestrial resources. Analysis of animal remains from the site indicates that seals, such as harp and harbour seal, were critical resources (Fitzhugh 1975:126). It is not known if the ice platform was used to hunt the seals, but open-water sea mammal hunting is abundantly evidenced by walrus tusks and (potentially) whale bones in burials and by the harpooning technology (including foreshafts) and advanced ground slate spear technology, probably used to provide the killing thrust to large sea mammals (see Sanger 2009b:11). The complex technology, watercraft, and organization required to hunt these large animals has important implications for social and economic organization. Marine birds were also very important, and the remains of species such as eider, oldsquaw, goldeneye, and scoter were abundantly represented. A variety of terrestrial mammals, including caribou, black bear, hare, beaver, otter, and muskrat, was taken. While fish remains are rare in such sites, ground stone plummets, which could be used for both netting and hook fishing, are abundant but may have been used to net seals during their annual migrations (Lacroix 2016:227). As discussed above, Northern Branch Maritime Archaic sites overlap with Southern Branch sites in some regions of the Labrador and Quebec mainland. These southerly Northern branch sites, which sometimes include longhouses, have been called the La Tabatière Complex (Pintal 1998, 2006), or the Mécatina Complex (Fitzhugh 2006; Fitzhugh and Gallon 2002). As we discuss below, very recent research by Lacroix (2015) has indicated that the northeast coast of Newfoundland shares some traits consistent with the Northern Branch, including contracting stem projectile points. If so, this is simply an extension of the overlapping regional occupation for the Northern and Southern Branches to the Island of Newfoundland.

The Southern Branch Late Maritime Archaic As defined by Fitzhugh (1975, see also Madden 1976; McGhee and Tuck 1975; Reid 2007; Tuck 1982, 1993a), the aptly named Southern Branch Maritime Archaic appears to be centred on the southern coast of Labrador and, in particular, the Strait of Belle Isle. It is also found in the easterly portions of the Quebec North Shore, where it is sometimes called the Bonne-Espérance Complex (Pintal 1998, 2006), and on the western shore of Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula. As discussed above, it has long been recognized that Southern and Northern Branches overlapped south of Hamilton

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Inlet (Tuck 1982) in Labrador and even on Quebec’s Northern Shore. The dynamics of how these two closely connected, temporally simultaneous cultures interacted and inhabited the same landscape but maintained separate identities (as expressed in unique material culture) is only beginning to be understood (Lacroix 2015). That the Southern Branch LMA has a unique, though closely related, technological tradition when compared to the Northern Branch LMA is undeniable. A white weathered chert from the island of Newfoundland was preferred for flaked stone technology, which included blade-like flakes, large expanding stems, “broadly sidenotched” projectile points, lanceolate and leaf-like bifaces, and a developed unifacial industry including retouched flakes and scrapers. Ground stone technology is similar or identical to that in the Northern Branch LMA, with axes, gouges, adzes, and stemmed and unstemmed slate spear points. Along the Labrador side of the Strait of Belle Isle, many Southern Branch LMA sites appear to be “single small camp(s) occupied during a short length of time” (McGhee and Tuck 1975:79), such as L’Anse Amour Area 5, the Graveyard site, and Forteau Point. These sites are remarkably similar in their composition and artifact assemblages. All located on 10 m above sea level (ASL) terraces, they generally present as lithic and firecracked rock scatters on denuded sand dunes. No evidence of houses or features are generally present, and the sites are usually small, less than 10 m x 10 m in area, consisting of lithic scatters several metres in diameter, usually arranged in a linear sequence. Assemblages are generally dominated by weathered white chert, quartzite, and slate debris. Expanding stem projectile points, with a ground stem and rounded shoulders, as well as lanceolate bifaces, all predominately made from white weathered chert, characterize the stone tool assemblages. Retouched flakes, linear flakes, and some fragments of ground stone are also present. Ground slate artifacts are less abundant than chipped stone artifacts, despite the manufacturing detritus. However, at L’Anse Amour Area 5, a slate celt and slate gouge fragment were recovered, while at Forteau Point, a bayonet blank and a large celt were recovered. There is very limited evidence about subsistence from these sites, as bone preservation is non-existent. Tuck and McGhee (1975:118) have proposed, based on the complex ground stone technology and projectile points, including bayonets, that a marine adaptation was a primary component, including a seasonal round that incorporated harp seal hunting, fishing, and birding in the Strait of Belle Isle, and caribou hunting and other mammal exploitation along the coast. They propose that people spent winters in the interior, but given the chert source, seasonal movements likely also involved excursions across the straight to the island of Newfoundland. Many of these sites were located near the mouth of large rivers and were thus positioned to access the diverse resources that phased into such locations (Lacroix 2015:230).

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The relationship between these LMA sites in Labrador and Newfoundland was immediately recognized by Tuck and McGhee (1975:107), who saw similarities in both flaked and ground stone industries. However, the Southern Branch LMA sites on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland appear to be more diverse, and generally more intensively occupied, than those in Labrador and Quebec. However, these Newfoundland sites are Southern Branch in nature, and some have gone so far as to suggest they should be placed within the Bonne-Espérance Complex (Lacroix 2015:213). Regardless, the sites seem, both depositionally and functionally, quite different from those in Labrador and Quebec, even if the artifact assemblages are similar. For example, at Big Brook 2 on the Northern Peninsula, a unique quarry site and manufacturing location (for blade-like flakes) were excavated (Beaton 2004). At Big Droke1, near Bird Cove, at least 12 hearths were encountered in addition to a “midden” and a post hole (Reader 1998a, 1999; Hartery and Rast 2001, 2002). Reader (1999:2) described the site as a place where small groups repeatedly camped, therefore making it a palimpsest deposit that, when unpacked, becomes similar to the sites in Labrador, if much more intensively occupied. Similar sites in Newfoundland, such as Caines (Reader 1999), also appear to be recurring deposits caused by the repeated occupation of small family units, though at Caines substantial bifacial production occurred, providing additional variability. Like some Northern Branch LMA sites, the Gould site, located near the modern town of Port au Choix, is associated with a large cemetery (see below), as well as Dorset and Groswater archaeological sites. The Gould site was excavated between 1997 and 2000 by Pricilla Renouf, as part of the Port au Choix Archaeology Project (Renouf and Bell 1998, 1999, 2000a, 2000b, 2001). The site contains two components, which date to ca. 6200 cal BP and between 3400–3700 cal BP (Renouf and Bell 1999). Artifacts recovered from Gould include blade-like flakes and “microblades,” pièces esquillées, retouched flakes, scrapers, and biface preforms, lanceolate bifaces, and expanding stem projectile points. The ground slate assemblage includes stemmed spear points. Unusual artifacts include smooth “egg-shaped” stones, which may have been used in rituals, games, or both. Faunal remains were poorly preserved but included fish and birds, and analysis of soil samples revealed that edible berries, such as blueberry, raspberry, elderberry, and pin cherry were eaten at the site (Renouf and Bell 2011:55). Again, the site appears to be a campsite and workshop occupied repeatedly by small groups, potentially by those who came to visit, maintain, and use the nearby Port au Choix cemetery (Renouf and Bell 2011:59–61). The Cow Head site (Hartery 2001; Tuck 1978), dated to ca. 4600 cal BP, was located on a gravel beach terrace, which may have been adjacent to the coast when it was occupied. The LMA component consisted of a series of hearths, though fire

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cracked rock was more abundant at Cow Head than other sites (likely due to its location on a gravel beach). Like other Newfoundland sites, lithic reduction was important here, and one area is described as a lithic workshop (Tuck 1978). Flaked bifaces, bipointed and lanceolate projectile points, and preforms are abundant at the site, as are hammerstones, consistent with its interpretation as a workshop. Unifacial tools include retouched flakes and scrapers. Ground stone artifacts included a plummet, a fragmentary ground celt, and numerous pieces of ground slate. Like the other sites described above, Cow Head was likely used repeatedly by small groups as a campsite and lithic workshop for short durations (e.g., Tuck 1978:139). Thus, the pattern that emerges on the west side of the Northern Peninsula is a close association with the Southern Branch of the LMA (Beaton 2004; Lacroix 2015:11; Reid 2007). Artifact assemblages predominantly include expanding stem, side-notched projectile points, lanceolate bifaces, a preponderance of flake tools, including linear blade-like flakes, pièces esquillées, and abundant bifacial blanks and preforms. Ground technology tends to be less frequent, but can include fully channelled gouges, stemmed spear points, and plummets. Dense lithic scatters are common, and hearths are often present. Subsistence at these sites is often inferred because preservation is limited, but as we shall see below, at Port au Choix 3, fauna was preserved in an adjacent cemetery that reveals much about interactions with animals. Two large, elaborate LMA cemeteries are known from the island of Newfoundland. The Port au Choix 3 cemetery is perhaps the best known, best preserved, and most diverse expression of what might be described as the Maritime Archaic mortuary complex. The cemetery at Port au Choix 3 was discovered by locals and professionally excavated by James Tuck between 1967 and 1969. The alkaline, naturally shell-laden beach sand in which the remains were interred is responsible for exceptional preservation at Port au Choix (Tuck 1976a:12). A vast assemblage of animal remains, numbering well over 3,000 specimens, was recovered from the burials, representing a wide diversity of animals. Also included were well-preserved bone and antler artifacts and effigies, as well as shells and shell beads, and the more durable stone tools and stone effigies. Men and women from all age classes are represented in the burials and the Port au Choix burial community appears to represent, at least demographically, a total society, rather than a gendered or aged subset of the LMA peoples on the island of Newfoundland. In fact, it has been speculated that the Port au Choix 3 cemetery represents a common burying ground for multiple Maritime Archaic groups who occupied the Northern Peninsula (e.g., Renouf and Bell 2011:59–61), and was specifically located in an area where multiple groups would pass by (and regularly see it) as part of their normal seasonal round. Renouf and Bell (2011) have demonstrated that, at the time of the interments, the cemetery was on an island separated from the shore by a narrow passage

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over which the cemetery faced. The adjacent Gould habitation site is located on the mainland, while the cemetery appears to have been reserved only for the island. No ­evidence of habitation has been found on the island or nearby the cemetery. The cemetery was spatially segregated into three discrete “loci” that enclosed 2, 52, and 11 burials, respectively (Tuck 1976a:125). The largest and most intact of these was Locus II, which contained up to 93 individuals buried in 52 discrete graves. Within Locus II, the burials were arranged into three relatively contiguous, but nevertheless spatially discrete, clusters or groups of more or less similar size (Tuck 1976a:9–10). Radiocarbon dates on bark or wood charcoal from the excavations indicate a roughly contemporaneous deposition of all three loci, spanning ca. 4900– 3450 cal BP. The burials include single and multiple interments, and while most appear to be primary burials of individuals, there is some evidence of multiple depositions and/or secondary burials, with one grave containing as many as 11 individuals (e.g., Tuck 1976a:16). The secondary burials suggest that individuals were moved to the site from the locations in which they died, further cementing the importance of Port au Choix 3 as an important regional cemetery. One wonders if all members of LMA society were permitted to be buried here. The organic artifacts recovered are overwhelming in their diversity (figure 6.7), and include bone and antler harpoon foreshafts, toggling harpoon heads, barbed nontoggling harpoon heads, long serrated antler projectile points, stemmed bone projectile points or knives, caribou and moose bone daggers, scrappers and beamers, needles, beaver incisor chisels, bone pendants, cormorant effigy hair pins, bird bone tubes and whistles, and numerous tooth and bone animal pendants. The large assemblage of animal bones, which include a nearly inconceivable array of aquatic birds, including the now-extinct great auk, as well as other animals such as seals, walrus, moose, caribou, dog, wolf, black bear, and polar bear, indicates the fine-grained relationship between Maritime Archaic peoples and the coastal ecosystem. It also reveals a rich spiritual life, where associations between people and animals were relational (see below). Ground stone tools included slate stemmed and non-stemmed bayonets, stemmed spear points, gouges, and celts, as well as ground stone whetstones, abraders, and grooved steatite plummets. Carved and ground stone objects included a beautiful killer whale effigy and bird-like stones. Chipped stone was rare but included one quartzite side-notched or expanding stem point, and a small contracting stem point of black chert. All but one of the burials contained burial goods, but the richness of some of the burials stunned Tuck (1976a:17). Both males and females of all ages could have large numbers of burial objects, but some individuals were buried with far more objects than others. For example, Burial 35 in Locus II was that of an adult male; a partial

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FIGURE 6.7  Port au Choix 3 burial objects from Locus II: (a) long whale bone square-barbed point; (b) grey slate bayonet; (c) square-stemmed slate spear point; (d) trianguloid axe; (e) thin-polled trianguloid gouge; (f) bird bone needle; (g) bone spear point; (h) miniature slate spear point; (i) chipped stone projectile point; (j) grooved steatite plummet; (k) barbed harpoon; (l) carved stone whale effigy; and (m) toggling harpoon head and antler foreshaft.

Adapted from Tuck (1976a:Plates 16, 18–21, 26–27, 30, 32–34, 42, 44); illustration by Erin Ingram

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list of his grave goods includes 4 slate bayonets, 1 gouge, 461 shell beads, 124 skate teeth, 1 stone whale effigy, seal claws, quartz crystals, wing bones from geese, merganser, guillemot, and murres, and more than 200 great auk bills, which all may have been sewn together to be worn as a cape or cloak. The uneven distribution of burial goods at this cemetery and others will be discussed later in the chapter. Unlike the segregated Gould and Port au Choix 3 sites, at the Curtis site in Twillingate, on Newfoundland’s northeastern shore, the cemetery and residential site were relatively contiguous, like the Northern Branch Late Archaic contexts in Labrador. However, unlike these sites, it is unclear precisely which portions of the Curtis site are associated with domestic habitation and which are not. Evidence of domestic activity, in the form of chipped stone and ground slate manufacturing detritus, is common in the deposit and suggests the domestic component is quite substantial. Consisting of 15 burials, the site was excavated by Donald MacLeod between 1966 and 1968. Like many LMA sites north of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, it is located on a beach terrace (ca. 15 m) overlooking the sea. Unlike Port au Choix 3, no human remains were encountered during the excavations, due to the highly acidic soil in the region. The mortuary features at Curtis were small, and likely represent flexed burials or reinternments. They were dug ca. 1.5 m into the terrace and liberally covered in ochre, and like Port au Choix 3, some burials were covered in large stones and slabs. Radiocarbon dates on charcoal suggest the site was occupied between 3450 and 4100 cal BP, making it roughly contemporaneous with Port au Choix 3. As expected, the material culture from the site is similar to that from Port au Choix and contains many of the same tool types, especially for ground stone tools (e.g., Lacroix 2015:122–129), and indeed also bears striking similarities to LMA (Moorehead, see below) sites in Maine. The mixed domestic and mortuary assemblage from Curtis included stemmed and tapering stemmed slate bayonets, grooved plummets, abraders, and large ground adzes and gouges. Projectile points were made of a greyish/black chert and were variously stemmed, tapering stemmed, or expanding stemmed in form. Large Ramah chert bifacial blanks were also recovered. Unique pieces include quartz crystals, a ground argillite netting needle, large sheets of mica, and unmodified stones of unusual shape (one resembling a killer whale). Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the assemblage, and probably due to the mixed domestic context it was recovered from, is that it is one of the few LMA assemblages in the Atlantic Northeast that provides evidence of the Maritime Archaic ground stone manufacturing sequence. Included in the assemblages are raw unmodified slate slabs, chipped bayonet and adze/gouge blanks, and partially finished specimens of both bayonets and gouges. Some of the slabs, blanks, and unfinished specimens were found in ochre, indicating that they were ritually cached or placed in burials, suggesting that

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not only the finished objects had ritual or social importance, but perhaps the act of making them had spiritual or social potency. DjAq-5, a large ground stone quarry and workshop, is located nearby, and the process of making these tools may have been associated with the nearby Curtis burials. Lacroix (2015) has noted both the similarities and differences of the Curtis site to the Port au Choix cemetery. He indicates that the contiguous proximity of Curtis to a habitation site is characteristic of Northern Branch LMA sites in Labrador, such as Rattlers Bight. He also notes the similarities in material culture, such as the presence of tapering stem points at Curtis and other sites in and around Twillingate. For this reason, he has linked these sites to the Northern Branch Rattlers Bight and La Tabatière complexes, calling this Newfoundland variant the Back Harbour Complex, essentially an island expression of the Northern Branch LMA (Lacroix 2016:212). However, the depositional and contextual aspects of Curtis have not been adequately assessed, and it is possible that further study may indicate these shared traits are parts of different depositional contexts, domestic and mortuary, which have become mixed.

Late Maritime Archaic on the Maritime Peninsula McGhee and Tuck (1975:104–105) almost immediately recognized that Labrador LMA material from the Strait of Belle Isle was comparable to assemblages in Maine and New Brunswick. In his definition of the Northern and Southern branches of the Labrador Maritime Archaic, Tuck (1982) speculated on the definition of a “third Branch” of the Maritime Archaic, focused south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This was, of course, consistent with his later proposed theory that the maritime-oriented peoples of the Atlantic Northeast could be conceived as a single collective culture (Tuck 1991), a view that appears well-supported in the Early and Middle Archaic. However, Bourque (1995, 2012) prefers to see a disjuncture between Late Archaic peoples north and south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, calling the Newfoundland and Labrador complexes the “Northern Doppelgänger.” What are the features of the Late Archaic archaeological record south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and how similar is it to the record from Newfoundland and Labrador? Did a form of regionalism develop in the Atlantic Northeast that indicates a cultural disjuncture, or can the archaeological record be viewed as local variants of a shared culture and people? In the late nineteenth century, naturalists and early archaeologists began to recognize the existence of a special class of artifact in Maine – a long, polished slate blade, with a protracted stem, and often hexagonal in cross-section. These were often ­recovered from special contexts, with shallow lenses of ochre, often found in multiple clusters. A relatively comprehensive assessment of the phenomenon was made by

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archaeologist Warren K. Moorehead in the early twentieth century (Moorehead 1913, 1916, 1922), who recognized these materials as derived from an early cemetery complex, left behind by a group he called the “Red Paint People,” after the boneless, ochre-stained interments they left behind. Between 1936 and 1940, Douglas Byers systematically excavated one of these cemeteries, called the Nevin site, located near Blue Hill, Maine. It had some of the characteristics of the “boneless” cemeteries, except in this case the cemetery had been deposited in a shell heap, and organic preservation was found to be excellent. While the data from the site was not published until 1979, after his death, the material and data he recovered were stunning. At the time Nevin was excavated, large plummets were eroded out onto the beach of the site, indicating that the cemetery was once larger. The Nevin cemetery was placed in the landward edge of an occupation site, and shell accumulated above and around it. While some burials had undoubtedly been lost to erosion, it appears to have consisted of at least 26 individuals (Shaw 1988). Like the Port au Choix 3 cemetery, the skeletons at Nevin apparently represented a broad cross-section of LMA society, including adult men and women and children or subadults of mixed sex (Shaw 1988:62–63). Burials were often flexed, but secondary, possibly bundle interments, were common and often had the most spectacular array of burial goods. Interestingly, the material culture recovered from the Nevin burials is substantially like Port au Choix 3, including wide bayonets of slate with diamond, hexagonal, or pie-wedge cross-sections, and metapodial bone daggers that mimic those recovered at Port au Choix 3 (Robinson 2001:196). The nature of the material culture recovered from the Nevin burials was also substantially similar to Port au Choix 3, including barbed harpoons with single asymmetric line holes, bone foreshafts, barbed bone points, bird beaks, bird bone flutes, birchbark, slate points or bayonets with square serrated tangs, metapodial beamers, beaver incisors, bone needles, ground slate gouges, ground celts, and side-notched chert projectile points. Perhaps the most spectacular and unique aspects of the Nevin burial objects were the decorations commonly found on the bone daggers, which included a variety of zigzag patterns, as well as parallel and converging line motifs (Byers 1979). The occupational layers of the site have not been published in detail, but available data indicate that fish (Byers 1979:5) were important faunal remains, and at least 35 bone foreshafts, made from swordfish rostra, were collected at the site. The artifact assemblage contained over 350 plummets, as well as dozens of gouges, adzes, celts, and abraders. Bone harpoons were also abundant. The indication is of a people almost entirely focused on the exploitation of netted fish, large sea mammals, and open-water fish, especially swordfish. There is some indication that living surfaces or house floors may have been part of the LMA occupation, and these are described as deposits of

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“black humus with pebbles” (Byers 1979:38), similar in many respects to much later house floors (see later chapters). Radiocarbon dates from the site place the use of the cemetery between 4300 and 3500 cal BP, making it at least partially contemporaneous with Port au Choix 3 (Robinson 2001:197). In 1968, a local collector discovered an ochre deposit, and with it some ground stone tools, on a small river that drained into Grand Lake, New Brunswick. While more than 85 km inland, the site was nevertheless relatively close to the effects of the ocean, as the tide extends far up the Saint John River in this area and penetrates the tributary system on which the site sits. He reported the find to archaeologists, and in 1970 David Sanger incorporated the excavation of the Cow Point (BlDn-2) site into a large-scale archaeological reconnaissance of endangered archaeological sites in western and central New Brunswick (Sanger 1973). What he discovered there was one of the largest and most elaborate LMA burial sites on the Maritime Peninsula, consisting of over 59 red ochre–covered burials, and over 300 exquisite ground stone, chert, and organic artifacts. Several tooth fragments were the only human remains recovered from the burials, which were oval ochre-stained pits, ca. 130 cm by 80 cm, large enough to contain flexed individual burials. The burial objects recovered included a great white shark tooth, six mako shark teeth, hematite and limonite fire starters, finely made ground stone palettes (for grinding ochre), and many ground stone plummets, gouges, and celts. Several chipped stone projectile points were recovered, all with contracting stems. The most impressive component of the assemblage was 77 slate bayonets, which included several broad “pie-wedge bayonets” similar to those from Nevin and Port au Choix 3, and 69 unique long slender hexagon bayonets, many of which were decorated on one side with zigzag and parallel linear motifs. The site dates to ca. 4000–3650 cal BP, again overlapping in time with LMA sites like Nevin and those on the island of Newfoundland. Some have interpreted the zigzag motifs on hexagonal bayonets (and bone daggers) as representing shark teeth (Keenlyside 1999:64), while others have noted that the finest of the hexagonal bayonets appear to mimic swordfish rostra (Bourque 1995:7, 238). Indeed, the fact that they were typically decorated on only one side (Sanger 1973:42), often with parallel or converging lines, is consistent with the anatomy of swordfish rostra (bills), which exhibit two large dark lines that converge on one side (Gregory and Conrad 1937). Swordfish rostra are common in LMA cemeteries and habitation sites with bone preservation (Robinson 2001), indicating that this species was likely both a key prey species and an ideological symbol during the period. Many of the hexagonal bayonets at Cow Point were so fine and fragile that Sanger (1973:51, 1991:77, 79, 2009b:11) interpreted them as non-functional ceremonial tools

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FIGURE 6.8 Artifacts from the Cow Point cemetery (BlDn-2): (a) ground slate point, BlDn-2:205; (b) ground slate point, no. 341; (c) ground slate point, no. 266; (d) ground slate point, no. 1; (e) celt, no. 352; (f) pendant, no. 95; (g) broken shark tooth, no. 174a; (h) broken shark tooth, no. 174b; (i) abrasive, no. 38; (j) ground slate point, no. 145; (k) ground slate point, no. 290; (l) gouge, no. 101; (m) projectile point, no. 237; (n) projectile point, no. 373; (o) plummet, no. 426; and (p) plummet, no. 156.

Adapted from Sanger (1973:182, 186, 188, 190, 200, 204, 206, 208, 210); illustration by Erin Ingram

or specially created burial goods. In fact, many of these appeared to have been broken around the time of burial (Sanger 1973:51) and may have been ceremonially “killed” prior to interment with the deceased. Their quality, combined with the fact that they were broken before interment, may suggest that they had a function during the life of the individual that was meant to end upon the individual’s death. Perhaps they were used to signal the status or social affinity of the person who owned and displayed the item. 128 

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As Moorehead recognized in the early part of the nineteenth century, and more recently scrutinized by Robinson (1996a, 2001, 2006), 34 LMA cemeteries have been discovered on the Maritime Peninsula that conform to the general pattern demonstrated by Nevin and Cow Point. Remarkably, they occur in a relatively proscribed area, spanning just 350 by 80 km (Robinson 2001:3). This culture manifestation has been called the Moorehead Phase by Bruce Bourque (1971:78, 1976:28, 1995:227), and the Moorehead Burial Tradition by Brian Robinson (2001). The salient features of the Moorehead Phase are generally boneless cemeteries identified by liberal use of ochre in burial features. These are often located near lake outlets on interior tributary systems. Artifacts include a familiar suite of LMA material culture, plus the addition of some regionally unique items. Artifacts that are not common north of the Gulf of St. Lawrence include pyrite nodules interpreted as fire starters, ground stone atlatl weights and curved pendants, small barbed slate points, slender, fragile hexagonal bayonets, bone fishhooks, and the use of swordfish rostra as a raw material. Material culture shared with LMA sites on the island of Newfoundland include broad pie-shaped slate bayonets, stemmed and side-notched flaked projectile points, bone daggers made from ungulate metapodials, bone foreshafts with bilateral and grooved lugs, bone needles, beaver incisor knives, zoomorphic stone art and pendants, mica sheets, quartz crystals, unilaterally barbed harpoon heads with single asymmetrical line holes, harpoon heads with open sockets, bone whistles, bird bills, shark teeth, barbed bone points, pointed bone lances, water rolled pebbles and eggshaped stones, small and large plummets with grooves and/or pedicle, small stemmed slate points, and a variety of ground stone abraders, gouges, and celts. Remarkably, except for raw material differences caused by local or regional availability, most of these items are essentially interchangeable regionally, and many tool types are virtually identical, including some bayonet and knife styles, harpoons, barbed points, and gouges. While there are many subtle typological differences between regions, as Bourque (2012) has outlined, especially in some bayonet types and chipped stone, these should not be taken as evidence of substantial cultural discontinuity. Regional

FIGURE 6.9 Late Maritime Archaic ground stone woodworking gouges and celts from Howland Reservoir, Maine. Photograph by Stephen Bicknell, courtesy Bonnie Newsom

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stylistic variation is common in shared cultural groups across North America, and certainly is the norm, not the exception. Indeed, such diversity is the hallmark of all regional typological analysis. But in the LMA of the Atlantic Northeast, the striking typological comparisons, and the broad categorical similarities in the expression of material culture, are undeniable. Analogies to geographically broad Arctic cultures such as the Thule Inuit and Dorset provide obvious and robust analogies for the existence of cultural continuity with substantial regional typological and, indeed, economic variability. The burial tradition associated with the Moorehead Phase is so prominent archaeologically because many inland cemeteries have escaped the sea level rise and erosion that has devastated evidence of Archaic occupation on the coast. However, the material culture from these sites, and the limited evidence from the burials themselves, reveals much about the social and economic lives of the people interred in these cemeteries. Economically, the material culture suggests a technological adaptation toward marine fishing and hunting, with complex composite technologies. The appearance of effigies and remains from large predatory sharks and swordfish, as well as the links between bayonets, daggers, and their decorative motifs, indicates a close symbolic spiritual relationship with both predator and prey and LMA identity (Betts et al. 2012). Furthermore, the ability to construct and produce watercraft using complex ground stone technologies (figure 6.9) appears to have had a significant social and spiritual component.

BOX 6.1  TECHNOLOGY, EFFIGIES, TEETH, AND LATE MARITIME ARCHAIC IDENTITY AND

SPIRITUALITY

Late Maritime Archaic artifact assemblages often contain many large, complex woodworking tools, such as gouges, adzes, and choppers, which archaeologists believe were primarily used to make large dugout canoes for transport and open-water fishing and hunting. Additional artifacts, including toggling harpoon heads, large slate lance heads or bayonets, large spear points, large slate semi-lunar knives, and net sinkers, some of which have been recovered from offshore contexts, also support this interpretation. The inclusion of both utilitarian and finely made versions of gouges, adzes, bayonets, plummets, and other fishing and marine hunting implements in almost all known LMA burials indicates that these activities were of central importance to LMA peoples (Betts et al. 2012; Strauss 1987). In many contexts, the products of the hunts are represented

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in the burials. For example, in LMA Maine shell midden burials swordfish rostra are relatively common (Byers 1979; Bourque 1995; Spiess and Lewis 2001), suggesting that these species were not only prey, but also that hunting them had special significance (Betts et al. 2012; Strauss 1987). Interestingly, it has been suggested that the hexagonal bayonets of the Moorehead Burial Tradition were designed to mimic swordfish rostra from the very species they may have been used to dispatch (Bourque 1995:7, 238). In the LMA Port au Choix cemetery in Newfoundland, seal bones are common, and occasionally walrus, as well as a bewildering array of coastal waterfowl including the now-extinct great auk (also a great sea predator, of small fish, see below). Perhaps more intriguing is the presence of body parts and effigies of marine predators in these assemblages, such as great white sharks and killer

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whales. On the Maritime Peninsula, great white and mako shark teeth (see figure 6.8), as well as the fossil teeth of megalodon sharks, have been found in many LMA burials and ceremonial assemblages (Betts et al. 2012). The latter fossils are not local and were likely traded from the Chesapeake Bay region. Also present in the LMA Port au Choix and Twillingate cemeteries on the island of Newfoundland are carved stone effigies of killer whales, with prominent dorsal fins (Tuck 1976a). A similar killer whale effigy, with distinct similarities to the Port au Choix effigy, was found on the Mersey River, Nova Scotia (see ­figures 6.7 and 6.12). Betts and colleagues (2012) have documented that these predators also took the same species as LMA human predators; for example, swordfish and cod are natural prey of killer whales and great white sharks, as are seals. That these predators and humans interacted at the moment of the open-water hunt was critical. In relational societies, humans and other than human persons (animals) are considered to have the same volitional and spiritual capacities (Viveiros de Castro 2004:4). Humans and animals who behave in similar ways, live in the same environments, and capture the same prey are often considered to share a perspective, a point of view, and way of being in the world (Viveiros de Castro 2004). As Betts and colleagues (2012:636) have inferred about shark remains found in LMA burial contexts: … sharks represent a unique way of perceiving the marine world that was also shared by their human ­conspecifics – that of an apex marine predator. And yet, while sharks maintain this perspective as a natural condition, it is achieved only by humans by adopting complex cultural and behavioral accoutrements. For maritime hunter-gatherers, open-water hunts represented critical cultural moments: the crucible in which technological, procurement, and dietary strategies were forged into an integrated way of life. Put another way, open-water hunts involved people with state-of-the-art

transportation and procurement technologies, employing the most complex and intricate hunting strategies they could devise, pursuing animals with the highest caloric returns, at the greatest risk of failure and personal catastrophe. And it was in these watershed moments, when an entire socioeconomic system was being put to the test, that humans engaged with sharks. As … [such], sharks may have represented a fulcrum around which humans could both think about and signal their complex technological, economic, logistical, and socioecological relationships with the marine environment. If this is correct, effigies and remains of marine predators were a means to project the aspirations, beliefs, capabilities, and even identities of those they were buried with. From the same perspective, the technologies that allowed humans to conduct these important hunts may have been equally important. In effect, by placing these materials in the grave, or even using and displaying them during life, LMA people were signalling “this is who we are” (Betts et al. 2012:637). If so, it was a profound statement about their relationship to the marine ecosystem and the creatures who inhabited it. It is important to note that shark teeth, especially great white shark teeth and megalodon fossil teeth, continue to be found in Maritime Woodland period ceremonial and burial contexts throughout the Maritime Peninsula (Betts et al. 2012). They are especially common in the Early Maritime Woodland period. The use of shark teeth in such contexts, from LMA times right up to the arrival of Europeans, may suggest ideological and cosmological continuity spanning over 5000 years, and may indicate that the cultural upheavals that occurred in the Terminal Archaic period (see chapter 7) may not have involved a complete cultural replacement (Betts et al. 2012). Evidence for Tuck’s (1975a) “North Eastern Maritime Continuum” may be best shown in the ideas and cosmology of the people who inhabited the Atlantic Northeast – in this case a profound identification with the sea and its creatures.

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As with the burials in Port au Choix 3, all members of LMA society appear to be reflected in the graves from Moorehead burial sites, when bone is preserved, including youth, adults, the elderly, women, and men. Moreover, all sex and age classes appear to have been provisioned with large quantities of well-made grave goods. However, the distribution of grave goods is uneven; some burials contain minimal or no grave goods, while others are lavishly furnished. This uneven distribution suggests that not all members of society had access to these important technologies, or to the activities in which they were used. Reinforcing the social importance of these technologies are the presence of non-functional display pieces, such as the decorated bayonets, which appear to have been non-utilitarian status symbols. These may have been used specifically in death, but given how difficult they were to make, it is likely they or their manufacture were also used to generate or display status among the living. There is a precedence for such behaviour among hunter-gatherers. For example, among Inuit, whaling captains often owned the boating technology and hunting equipment used to capture sea mammals, and presided over the rituals associated with the hunt (e.g., Whitridge 1999). As discussed above, very few LMA-aged domestic sites have been encountered in Maine. The most spectacular and carefully excavated of these was Turner Farm, located on North Island in Penobscot Bay, Maine. This shell midden site was occupied as early as 6100 cal BP and provides one of the longest unbroken sequences of occupation in the entire Atlantic Northeast. Excavated by Bruce Bourque between 1971 and 1977, the material recovered from Turner Farm has provided perhaps the best record of LMA lifeways ever recovered. Two “occupations,” or concatenated strata that Bourque interpreted as being related by cultural entity and/or time period, are directly associated with the LMA. Occupation 1 dates from 6100 cal BP to approximately 5100 cal BP, and contained small stemmed projectile points, primarily made from quartz (Bourque 1995:33), but no ground stone or unifacial scrapers. Faunal remains were degraded but were significantly biased toward marine taxa, including swordfish (rostra), Atlantic cod, soft-shell clam, sea urchin, sea mink, and duck (Spiess and Lewis 2001). The only terrestrial mammal remains recovered were from white-tailed deer. Occupation 2 dates from approximately 5100 to 3200 cal BP, though the bulk of the occupation likely occurred before ca. 4000 cal BP (Bourque 1995:43). The primary deposit of Occupation 2 was a soft-shell clam midden, interlaced with various features, including pits, hearths, burned rock features, and dog burials. In some areas of Occupation 2, hearths were associated with “dense scatters of artifacts and debitage” (Bourque 1995:80), which are reminiscent of later period house floors (see chapters 8 and 9). Artifacts included large bifaces with parallel and contracting stems, but curiously, no unifaces were recovered. Ground stone implements included a vast array

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of plummets, adzes, gouges, and whetstones, and zoomorphic figurines and pendants, all consistent with Moorehead material culture described above. Bone tools included swordfish rostra “bayonets” with hexagonal cross-sections and zigzag motifs, projectile points or blades, long barbed points or lances, open-socketed harpoon heads, unilaterally barbed harpoon heads with single asymmetric line holes, beaver incisor knives, foreshafts (some made from swordfish rostrum), daggers, needles, whistles, bird effigy “pins,” and barbed fishhooks. As summarized in Bourque (1995:86), and exhaustively documented by Spiess and Lewis (2001), the faunal remains removed from the midden reveal a detailed account of how LMA occupants of the site interacted with the coastal ecosystem. Despite the artifactual evidence that suggested a focus on marine hunting and fishing, remains of moose and caribou dominated the mammalian faunal assemblage. Harbour, harp, and grey seal were found in scant frequencies, while one fragment of walrus tusk was also recovered from the occupation. Other mammal remains included those of bear, sea mink, mink, and beaver. Fish bones were dominated by swordfish, Atlantic cod, and tomcod, but included a diverse array of other species, including swordfish, sturgeon, herring, alewife, haddock, sculpin, and pollock. Bird species were particularly diverse, and were dominated by duck, great auk, and common loon, with lesser contributions by Canada goose, cormorant, hawk, and heron. The midden itself was dominated by soft-shell clam valves. In summary, the LMA occupations at Turner Farm indicate an intensive occupation focused on the exploration of the marine ecosystem of Penobscot Bay and the Gulf of Maine. Spiess and colleagues (2006) have recently provided a definitive interpretation of this adaptation, based on the expansive faunal analysis conducted on the Turner Farm faunal assemblage (Spiess and Lewis 2001), and data from the Nevin site (Crader et al. 1995). It appears that shell midden sites in the LMA were occupied in multiple seasons and might have been occupied year-round (Spiess and Lewis 2001:146–149). Abundant evidence of fragmentary swordfish remains at many sites indicates that open-water hunting of this bill fish appears to have been the focus of LMA subsistence pursuits. Cod fishing and the harvesting of other groundfish was also substantial, and it is important to note that these species overlap in habitat with swordfish in this region. Waterfowl were taken in abundance as well as sea birds, including great auk, which were probably taken at offshore nesting islands. Deer and moose were extensively hunted in the fall, and drive systems may have been employed. As discussed by Spiess and Lewis (2001:147), the age and sex ratios of the deer remains from Turner Farm indicate en masse capture. Seals were rarely hunted by LMA peoples at Turner Farm and appear seldomly in the midden contexts so far examined. By far the most unusual and divergent aspect of Moorehead subsistence from LMA occupations farther north

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is the abundant use of clams at Turner Farm and Nevin. Spiess (2017) recently examined the importance of shellfish in dense shell middens and has concluded that the contribution to diet could be as much as 90% in later Maritime Woodland contexts. He notes that at Turner Farm, the LMA occupation showed that clams were “twice as important to the diet” as in subsequent Maritime Woodland strata. For many years, it seemed clear that the Moorehead Phase was limited to areas south of the Saint John River drainage and had not penetrated New Brunswick or Nova Scotia. Archaeologists have used evidence of this gap to indicate that there was a cultural break between the LMA north of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. As Bourque (2012:145) has noted, the “expectation that the void in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia would eventually be filled by future research has not been fulfilled despite forty years of fieldwork.” In the 1950s, John Erskine did recover several hexagonal ground slate bayonet fragments at Gaspereau Lake, but these have only recently been attributed to the Moorehead Phase (Murphy 1998:54). Fortunately, more recent research in Nova Scotia focused on documenting assemblages acquired by collectors and county museums (Deal and Rutherford 2001, Deal et al. 2006; Pentz 2013), and archaeological reconnaissance along the Mersey River system by the firm CRM Group (Sanders et al. 2004) has revealed significantly more about the Moorehead Phase in Nova Scotia. In 2004, Nova Scotia Power conducted a draw-down of dams on the Mersey River system, and engaged a cultural resource management firm, CRM Group, to conduct an archaeological reconnaissance of the exposed head ponds. While most of the mate-

FIGURE 6.10 Slate semi-lunar knife (after Sanders et al. 2004:Plate 105).

Photograph ­courtesy ­Cultural Resource ­ anagement Group Limited M

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rial they recovered was out of primary context, the archaeologists discovered evidence of a prominent LMA presence in the lower Mersey River (Sanders et al. 2004), near modern-day Liverpool. LMA material included several hexagonal and diamond shaped bayonet fragments, including several stone rods and abraders, several distinctive small unbacked (without bars or backs) semi-lunar knives (figure 6.10), a unique unilaterally barbed bayonet (figure 6.11), and an array of ground stone celts and gouges. The presence of this material in Nova Scotia challenges the notion of a gap between Maine and Newfoundland, though admittedly the remains professionally collected by archaeologists to date have been scant. However, Deal and colleagues (2006; see also Deal and Rutherford 2001; Deal 2016:58–60) reviewed private and public collections in the Maritime provinces, specifically in Nova Scotia. Their examination revealed abundant evidence of Moorehead-like material culture in the province. In fact, their review suggests that hexagonal bayonets, one of the most diagnostic LMA artifacts types, “are more widely distributed in Nova Scotia … than New Brunswick …” (Deal et al. 2006:261), where formal cemeteries such as Cow Point have been excavated. In fact, a recent comprehensive survey of the assemblages held by Nova Scotian collectors has revealed very abundant evidence of LMA activity in the province, and indicates another possible centre of LMA activity along the southern shore of the province. In the summer of 2011, Pentz (2013) conducted detailed interviews with collectors, recording their finds and their find spots. What his important research revealed is a fine-grained articulation of the LMA Moorehead Phase, or more accurately the LMA Moorehead Burial Tradition, in many of the river systems of

FIGURE 6.11  Unilaterally barbed bayonet (after Sanders et al. 2004:Plate 163).

Photograph courtesy Cultural Resource Management Group Limited

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Lunenburg, Queens, Shelburne, and Yarmouth counties, with the heaviest concentration focused on the Lake Rossignol and Mersey River systems. Included in the vast array of materials are classic gouges and celts, stemmed or contracting stemmed flaked projectile points, hexagonal slate bayonets decorated with zigzag motifs, diamond cross-section bayonets, broad bayonets with serrated tangs, small barbed bayonets, plummets, shark teeth, grinding palettes, whetstones, honing stones or rods, and zoomorphic effigies. One of these effigies (figure 6.12), found on the lower Mersey River, appears to depict a seal or whale, with a head shape that closely mimics an effigy found at Port au Choix 3 (Tuck 1976a:44) and two recovered from Turner Farm (Bourque 1995:Plate 5.6 a, b), suggesting a similar “shared artistic and symbolic tradition” between the regions (Bourque 1995:79). Several unique attributes are seemingly found only on the Nova Scotian South Shore sites by collectors. These include small bipolar plummets, broad slate bayonets with short stemmed bases and basal notches, a large quantity of small finely made semi-lunar knives (without backing or bars), small expanding stemmed slate points, and unilaterally barbed slate bayonets with short stems. Interestingly, the appearance

FIGURE 6.12 Whale effigy and semi-lunar knife from lower Mersey River (note similarity of the whale effigy in figure 6.7).

Photograph courtesy ­Matthew Betts, Collections from the Queens County Museum

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of semi-lunar knives in these assemblages parallels their presence in Northern Branch LMA assemblages. While the specific archaeological context of these items is largely unknown (most being collected from eroded contexts during water draw-downs), the similarities to Moorehead Phase and Southern Branch LMA material culture are undeniable and provide a basis for a chronological affiliation. While we believe the preponderance of evidence indicates that this is part of the Moorehead Phase, the unique attributes outlined above warrant the consideration that this is a regional complex, which we have provisionally called the Kejimkujik Complex, after the lake that forms the headwaters of the Lake Rossignol (a reservoir) and the Mersey River system.

Late Maritime Archaic Complexity? Sassaman (2004:233), in his consideration of the eastern Archaic period, provided an in-depth review of hunter-gatherer complexity following classic scholarship by Ames (1981, 1985, 1991a, 1991b), Arnold (1992), Brown (1985), and Feinman (1995). Sassaman outlined several interconnected and often dependent traits of complex foraging societies, including elaborate technologies, subsistence intensification (often for aquatic resources), food storage, population increases or aggregations, sedentism or restricted mobility, territoriality, long-distance trade, hereditary status inequality, burial elaboration, ritualized feasting, and prestige goods. On the Northwest Coast, there is some debate about the rise of inequality versus the intensification of economies, and which of these processes drove the development of complexity (see Ames and Maschner 1999; Matson and Coupland 1995). We see this as a chicken and egg argument; arguably both are necessary for the development of complexity, and we see no reason to believe that co-development wasn’t critical for complexity to occur, or that there could be multiple pathways to complexity, as Sassaman proposes (2004:249). From our perspective, there must be a surplus for an aggrandizer to control, and an aggrandizer must have the ability to seize enough social or ritual power to legitimately claim the means and/or proceeds of labour. We contend that there is evidence for many of the social and economic conditions associated with cultural complexity in LMA society in the Atlantic Northeast. Across its entire range, LMA culture is defined by complex marine technology, and there is good evidence of intensive subsistence economies that involved fishing and hunting of large-bodied, high-return prey. The procurement of large-bodied fish and mammals, such as swordfish, walrus, and seals, especially when conducted communally, can result in significant proceeds, which can lead to storage. In Labrador, there is excellent evidence for communal caribou hunts, likely using drive systems, which are often

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a­ ssociated with large mass kills and group processing and storage of proceeds. In fact, pit features, likely used for food storage, are abundant at LMA sites in Labrador, and are typically associated with longhouse features (Fitzhugh 1974:7). In interior Maine, the remarkably preserved wooden Sebasticook Fish Weir Complex attests to the periodic intensive capture of anadromous fish on their spawning runs by the LMA. Minimally, this would require brief intensive labour of the kind sometimes associated with political leadership and would likely involve storage of preserved fish captured en masse over a relatively short period of time (Petersen et al. 1994). Socially, the elaborate LMA burial tradition offers much illumination on this issue. Spiess and colleagues (1983:106) have previously determined that there was limited evidence for status differentiation in LMA burials throughout the Atlantic Northeast. However, such differentiation is clearly implied at sites like Port au Choix 3 (Tuck 1976a:88), with some graves showing vast differences in the quantity and quality of grave goods. Indeed, at Nevin and Cow Point, the same differences in the quality and quantity of grave objects are present (Byers 1979; Sanger 1973:Table 23). As discussed previously, the differences in quantity of grave goods suggest that some individuals of LMA society either owned more material culture, and were thus “wealthier,” or had some sort of higher status that conferred the acquisition of prestige items (Fitzhugh 2006:62; Jelsma 2006:94). Evidence for this includes differences in construction effort for certain graves (e.g., Fitzhugh 2006:62), the quality and quantity of grave goods, the differential placement of special objects such as effigies and non-functional bayonets, and costumes not worn by other members of society, such as the great-auk billadorned cape from Port au Choix 3. At Nulliak Mounds, Fitzhugh (2006:58) interprets the diversity in the treatment and adornments of the graves as indicative of community, or aggregated, responses to “special” or higher status individuals (see also Robinson 2001:13). He also has suggested that such evidence may be linked to “increased population and social competition between local groups” (Fitzhugh 2006:62). The ritual disposal of tools at Cow Point and Rattlers Bight (Fitzhugh 2006:61; Sanger 1973:102) implies the disposal of prestige items, what Fitzhugh (2006:62) has described as the “lavish public consumption of valuable goods,” which is often associated with high status burials. At the barest level a “ranked society is implied” (Nash 1983:12; see also Fitzhugh 2006), meaning that imbedded social hierarchies existed that conferred disproportional access to status-imbued material culture. The evidence of rich child burials indicates that this status may have not been achieved, but rather hereditary (Tuck 1976a:88). Studies of DNA and isotopes from Port au Choix 3 burials indicate that different groups had access to different resources, and potentially different statuses (Jelsma 2006). However, recent research by Renouf and Bell (2011) indicates that the

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Port au Choix cemetery was used by multiple LMA groups, implying that the clusters could represent different bands or lineages. Regardless, the available evidence indicates that Cluster C at Port au Choix 3 contained much higher grave-good frequencies than other burials, and especially much higher than Cluster A (Jelsma 2006:858). Exchange systems during the LMA period were pronounced and indicate a longdistance communication and connection over the entire range of the LMA homeland and beyond. A primary material appears to have been Ramah chert, which has been found in LMA sites throughout the Atlantic provinces, Maine, and New England (Erwin and Curtis 2017), and even as far south as Chesapeake Bay (Lowery 2017). The material is primarily found in LMA burial sites, indicating its ideological and social importance (Erwin and Curtis 2017:76). Loring (2017:189) sees Ramah chert as material that signified both the shared land and seascape that LMA peoples inhabited, as well as their shared social and ideological mindscapes. As he states (Loring 2017:205), Ramah chert “helped to define social identity and served as a currency for mediating treacherous boundaries between the world of human beings, the sacred world of animals and animal masters, and intangible spirit realms.” In Labrador, there is good evidence that populations were increasing, or at least increasing relative to the number of sites being utilized by LMA groups. At places such as Nulliak Cove and Aillik 2, longhouses appear to have become longer over time, and by the end of the LMA, had reached truly enormous proportions. While inferring demography is often difficult, evidence of increasing house size in Labrador, and a general intensification of cemetery numbers and size throughout the region (e.g., Robinson 2001) combined with evidence of deeper, more intensely occupied strata at some Maine shell midden sites (e.g., Bourque 1995), suggests that population was increasing throughout the region. Evidence of prestige items, in the case of the finely made bayonets, especially the non-functional bayonets of the Moorehead Tradition, the great auk-bird bill cape from Port au Choix 3, stone effigies, quartz crystals, and other rare objects, indicate that certain members of society had access to materials and tools that others did not. There may be some limited evidence of ritualized feasting at some LMA sites in Labrador, such as Rattlers Bight, which have long hearth rows consisting of multiple hearths in a linear arrangement, likely for communal food preparation. We expect, given the evidence outlined above, that LMA societies were verging on the complex side of the spectrum, but with lower population densities. Social complexity was not as pronounced as, for example, ranked societies on the Northwest Coast of North America. However, there was certainly opportunity for aggrandizers to control both the means of production and its proceeds. Specifically, ritual objects and paraphernalia associated with large-bodied open-water hunts of swordfish or

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­ innipeds indicate that much of the social complexity appears to have revolved around p these hunts and the ritual and technology, especially the use of boats and lances, necessary to ensure their success (see Betts et al. 2012 and Fitzhugh 2006:64 for discussion around these topics). A useful analogy for this sort of social structure may be early Thule Inuit whaling cultures, which appear to have been characterized by whaling captains who controlled the ritual and technology associated with the hunt and thus its proceeds (e.g., Whitridge 1999). These societies have often been characterized as “incipient complex societies” (e.g., Betts 2009) and we think the archaeological ­evidence from LMA peoples indicates a similar social structure.

Did the LMA Represent an Integrated Culture across the Atlantic Northeast? As originally conceived, Tuck’s (1982) Maritime Archaic culture spanned more than 5000 years and covered an area from the northern tip of Labrador to northern New England. There is little doubt that in the north the LMA was an integrated cultural entity spanning approximately 320,000 km² of islands and coasts, from northern Labrador to the island of Newfoundland and the Quebec Lower North Shore. While the area seems vast, it is relatively modest for many archaeological cultures in North America (for example, the Northwest Coast culture area covers some 550,0000 km²). However, the inclusion of the Maritime Peninsula Late Archaic peoples, specifically the Moorehead Phase, as part of the Late Maritime Archaic is controversial, and this characterization has been rejected by numerous researchers, including those who originally defined the Moorehead Phase (Bourque 1995, 2012; Sanger 1973; Robinson 1996a, 1996b, 2001). The primary argument, as it has been recently articulated, revolves around three pillars (Bourque 2012:144). The first is the vast spatial distance between the southern and northern Late Archaic manifestations. As indicated above, it is not unusual for a North American Indigenous people to occupy such a huge area, but for many years there was a large perceived gap in occupation between Maine and New Brunswick in the south (specifically south of the Saint John River), and Newfoundland, Labrador, and the Quebec Lower North Shore in the north. As we outlined above, recent research has shown abundant evidence of LMA occupation in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and especially Nova Scotia, such that is now difficult to argue for a spatial gap (e.g., Deal 2016; Deal et al. 2006; Deal and Rutherford 2001; Murphy 1998; Sanders et al. 2004; Pentz 2013). The second pillar is a presumed difference in subsistence between the LMA north of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Moorehead Phase homeland on the Maritime

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Peninsula. As Bourque (2012:144) states, the differences are initially large and include, respectively, “sea mammal and caribou hunting versus swordfish, deer, and moose hunting with mollusk gathering.…” At first assessment, this difference is potentially very significant. However, not only did LMA economy and technology have the capacity for enough diversity to accommodate such shifts in subsistence, but under scrutiny the technological and social aspects related to this hunting are demonstrably similar. Open-water hunting for pinnipeds or large-bodied fish would require similar technology and techniques, including the use of dugout canoes, harpooning technology, and large lances to conduct the killing stroke. Thus, the social, technological, and logistical aspects of the differing hunts are substantially the same. Indeed, there is ideational evidence, in the form of the parts and/or effigies of large marine predators (e.g., sharks and/or killer whales) in LMA cemeteries throughout the entire North Atlantic, that argues that these hunts were similar. The ideational emphasis on creatures that hunted the same large-bodied prey (seals and/or swordfish), and which were also dangerous competitors at the moment of the hunt, indicates the similarities with which LMA peoples viewed these hunts, and potentially themselves (e.g., Betts et al. 2012; see box 6.1). Finally, in many areas of the Maritime Peninsula, including Nova Scotia, caribou were locally resident (Betts et al. 2017). Regardless, moose and caribou hunting were both communally conducted with the potential to result in massive hunting proceeds. The third pillar is climate differences between Newfoundland and Labrador and the Maritime Peninsula, which Bourque (2012) succinctly defines as “subarctic versus temperate.” As discussed in chapter 2, there are significant temperature and oceanic differences between the regions, and a particularly vast difference in winter ice conditions. However, for much of the LMA homeland, including Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, the same or similar forest conditions persisted. Furthermore, the modern faunal diversity between the two regions is practically identical (Alsop 2001; Banfield 1974; Proctor and Lynch 2005). We contend that LMA culture was diverse enough to handle these differences in climate and environment. Again, there are analogues, such as Dorset culture (see chapter 8), which occupied diverse ecological and climatic regions from the High Arctic to the Newfoundland coast (Maxwell 1985). Beyond Tuck, there are proponents of the integrated LMA hypothesis for Atlantic Canada, and, interestingly, these generally appear to coincide with scholars who have trained in Canadian institutions (as both of this text’s authors have). J.V. Wright (1997:180), the great Canadian archaeological synthesizer, believed that enough similarity in technology, subsistence, mortuary and cosmological practice, and the evidence for long-distance trade throughout the region was compelling evidence for an integrated culture, one that was both genetically and socially linked over a vast

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distance. Jelsma (2006:20) also recently addressed this issue, calling the Maritime Archaic throughout the Northeast “a homogenous set of archaeological cultural assemblages” (see also Lacroix 105:26). We believe that the similarities and regional differences in the LMA archaeological record can be adequately described through the culture, tradition, and complex concept. Across the Atlantic Northeast, from Labrador to northern New England, a culture, known as the Maritime Archaic (Tuck 1975a, 1976a, 1991), connected by similar spiritual beliefs, burial traditions, technology, subsistence pursuits, and social structures, persisted from ca. 8500 to 3500 cal BP. By the Late Maritime Archaic, this culture had developed into three regional traditions, including the Northern Branch, the Southern Branch, and the Moorehead Tradition. Within these regional traditions existed several local complexes, including the Rattlers Bight, Sandy Cove, La Tabatière, Bonne-Espérance, Back Harbour, and Kejimkujik.

The End of the Late Maritime Archaic There is little definitively known about the end of the LMA period. What is clear is that LMA occupations are extensive and abundant, with significant evidence of social, economic, and ideational complexity, and then ca. 3800–3500 cal BP it all, seemingly abruptly, disappears (Bourque 2012:151). The reasons for this decline are very poorly understood, but throughout the Atlantic Northeast two significant pressures were being faced by LMA peoples, which may be related. The first is progressive climate and environmental change. Sea levels were steadily rising throughout the region (see chapter 2) and had done so quite rapidly until ca. 4500 cal BP, and undoubtedly affected the productivity of the marine ecosystem. Climate was also changing throughout the region. A period of maximum warmth occurred during the early part of the LMA period (MacPherson 1982). This brought with it a drastic increase in the northern limit of the treeline, a decline in sea ice, and an increase in precipitation (MacPherson 1982, 1995). However, after ca. 4000 cal BP, warmth began to decrease substantially, with a decrease in the growing season and a reduction in species limits (Lennox et al. 2010; MacPherson 1995:177; Railton 1973). In fact, on the Maritime Peninsula, a vegetative regime shift, which had been dominated by white pine and hemlock forests (both very large conifers), to a spruce and birch forest occurs in the years after ca. 3800 cal BP. At the same time, ocean surface temperatures were cooling throughout the region. It is possible that the change in forest cover, specifically large pines and hemlocks, affected the ability of LMA people to produce large oceanic dugouts that were necessary to sustain the most important aspect of their way of life – the open-water hunt. Indeed, significant

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r­ eduction in pine pollen is prevalent in the region after ca. 3800 cal BP (Neil and Gajewski 2014:Fig. 2.2). With cooling sea temperatures and concomitant ecosystem changes, combined with changes in hunting efficiency caused by lack of raw materials, the LMA way of life may have been at an end. The second is the arrival of new peoples. On both the southern and northern frontiers of LMA territory, newcomers appeared and encroached on LMA borders. In the south, these people were known as Susquehanna. As we further describe in chapter 7, they appear to have arrived rapidly ca. 3800 cal BP, and either subsumed the LMA in what may have been a population replacement or blended with and rapidly assimilated LMA culture. Whatever the case, there seems to be no period of short-term transition. LMA material culture is simply replaced by Susquehanna material culture in the archaeological record. In the North, the arrival of the Pre-Dorset people occurred by ca. 4100 cal BP. These people were genetically, culturally, and technologically very different from LMA peoples in Labrador and their overlapping occurrence must have created competition for resources and space. In fact, it appears that they utilized different parts of the landscape in areas where they overlapped (Fitzhugh 1984:21), which likely substantially curtailed the LMA subsistence round. Around the same time Pre-Dorset people were encroaching in the Torngat region of Labrador, an “ethnically different” Boreal Woodland people, known as the Black Island 2 Complex, moved into the central Labrador coast ca. 4200 cal BP (Fitzhugh 2006:63). It seems that LMA peoples and newcomers did not assimilate with each other, at least genetically, and there is very limited evidence of cultural or technological transmission (e.g., Holly 2013:55). Recent DNA analysis conducted on skeletal remains from Port au Choix 3 indicates a distinct genetic break between LMA populations, Paleo-Inuit, and the Boreal Woodland (pre-Beothuk) populations on the island of Newfoundland (Duggan et al. 2017). Whatever the mechanism of cultural change in Newfoundland and Labrador, it did not involve genetic intermingling of these populations. This lends credence to a potential population replacement on the LMA southern border as well. One possible scenario is that LMA peoples preferred not to compete with the new arrivals for resources or lands. Pushed out of their preferred hunting and fishing locations, and faced with even minor ecological or climate change, the population may have faced a rapid decline – perhaps one so rapid that it cannot currently be accounted for by the archaeological record and the current level of radiocarbon dating precision.

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CHAPTER 7

THE TRANSITIONAL ARCHAIC AND EARLY WOODLAND PERIODS (4000 TO 2200 CAL BP) Introduction As we have considered the archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast so far in this book, one of the tensions we have described is between views of culture history that emphasize cultural connections over large regions and ones that stress regional differences. Inherent in much of this discussion is that movements of people and ideas can have profound cultural effects – sometimes over very large distances. Yet even as these changes occur, they may not spread or be adopted equally across a region. In this chapter, we consider one of the most enigmatic of these cases in the region: the Archaic to Woodland transition (figure 7.1).

The Transitional Archaic: Northeast Overview We are electing to call the final portion of the Archaic period (ca. 4000–3000 cal BP) the Transitional Archaic, a terminology contrasting somewhat with Terminal Archaic, which implies an end of a period that we view as in many ways ushering in a variety of cultural phenomena that continue in the subsequent Woodland period. A common alternative “whole culture” taxonomic term, “Susquehanna,” has become synonymous with migration hypotheses to explain culture change around 4000 cal BP. In our assessment, the term may obscure nuance during this period in the Atlantic Northeast, so we try to limit our use of that term narrowly to certain cultural phenomena. “Broadspear Tradition” (e.g., Borstel 1982:79) has sometimes also been used to refer to the period, emphasizing shared characteristics in the lithic toolkit. The central conceptual problem here is that the period sometime around 3500 cal BP is abruptly different than the Late Archaic manifestations we described

FIGURE 7.1 Key Transitional Archaic and Early Woodland sites and locations mentioned in the text.

Map by Alexander Honsinger and Mallory Moran

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FIGURE 7.2  Photograph of various “broadspear” bifaces from the Hirundo site in north-central Maine.

Photograph courtesy Amy Fox

in ­chapter 6, and not just in the Atlantic Northeast, where the preceding Late Maritime Archaic cultural patterns abruptly changed or were replaced. Starting at least as far south as Georgia and extending into the Maritimes, the period beginning ca. 4000 cal BP is associated with unique, broad projectile points termed “broadspears” (figure 7.2). They are often given local names – for instance, they are called Savannah River points in Georgia, but in the Atlantic Northeast and New England they are usually associated with a cultural phenomenon called the Susquehanna Tradition (Dincauze 1975). Other diagnostic aspects of the toolkit in the broader Northeast included steatite vessels, ground stone adzes, grooved axes (figure 7.3), flaked stone drills (figure 7.4), and bannerstones, which probably served as atlatl weights. Scrapers are rare in Transitional Archaic assemblages, but when they occur, they tend to be bifacial rather than unifacial, like in the ­preceding Maritime Archaic period. In southern New England and New York, broadspear types appear chronologically distinct, and are associated with phases of the Susquehanna Tradition: in order, they are the Atlantic (ca. 4100–3600 cal BP), Watertown (ca. 3600–3200 cal BP), and Orient (ca. 3200–2700 cal BP) phases. Sometimes a poorly defined possible phase between Watertown and Orient is termed Coburn. These are typified as a point typology transitioning from broad-bladed Atlantic bifaces to subsequent corner-notched broad Mansion Inn blades, before the sequence culminates in narrower fishtail forms. Cross’s (1993) analysis suggests that the earlier Susquehanna Tradition bifaces may have been made on preforms designed by craft specialists, after which the user could have sharpened and hafted the bifaces. This would help to explain the homogeneity of the forms, and also highlights that these forms suggest some unique shared cultural practices over long distances. In the Atlantic Northeast, broadspears are often made from local or near local felsic volcanic stone.

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FIGURE 7.3  Susquehanna axe from the Dan Hurld collection, collected from lakes to the west of Millinocket, Maine.

Photograph by Arthur Spiess, Maine Historic ­Preservation Commission

The Transitional Archaic is also marked by cremation burials, with large numbers of diagnostic materials included in the cremations, some burned and some apparently added after the cremation. Secondary burials in some of the cremations may have followed some form of scaffolding or charnel house placement of the bodies prior to cremation, in which inhumations were secondary on bodies that no longer had flesh (for reviews see Dincauze 1968; Pagoulatos 2009; Robinson 1996b). Transitional Archaic broadspear sites appear both on the coast and the interior. When they are found intact on the coast, they frequently comprise the earliest levels of shell-bearing sites. Due to their age, such sites are often eroded, and as we discuss below, survey of intertidal zones sometimes reveals Transitional Archaic occupations. In the interior Atlantic Northeast, Transitional Archaic sites are usually found along rivers, but as Spiess and Hedden (2000) have noted, the Maine site inventory reveals a number of Susquehanna Tradition artifacts or sites away from rivers and lakes (see also Bourque et al. 2006) – sometimes in the kinds of site locations generally preferred by Palaeoindians (BgDq-39 in Pennfield, New Brunswick, is one example; see Brzezicki 2015:36). In the Atlantic Northeast,

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FIGURE 7.4  Susquehanna drills from the Dan Hurld collection, collected from lakes to the west of Millinocket, Maine.

Photograph by Arthur Spiess, Maine Historic ­ reservation Commission P

Transitional Archaic is less clearly defined by the southerly changes in artifact forms, and there are other differences from the more southerly toolkit, such as a shortage of steatite (but see Harper 1956; Jeandron 1996:12–13) and winged bannerstones (Bourque 1995:244). In general, it appears as though late portions of the Atlantic and Watertown phases are the best represented in the Atlantic Northeast. The archaeological signature of the Transitional Archaic in Maine is dominated by the Turner Farm site at North Haven, which produced diagnostic broadspears and other Transitional Archaic lithic accoutrement and cremation burials (Bourque 1995). Bourque links the Transitional Archaic at Turner Farm, noting similar technological and burial

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appearances, to the presence of Maine lithic materials in Susquehanna burials farther south. Transitional Archaic toolkit changes were accompanied by substantial broadening of the foraging spectrum compared to Maritime Archaic peoples, and the end of regular, specialized focus on swordfish and cod. Based on faunal evidence from the coastal shell middens and the food remains preserved at interior sites, Transitional Archaic economy begins to resemble the Woodland period. Some preserved or partially eroded shell-bearing sites in Maine – including Turner Farm (Spiess and Lewis 2001) – attest to shellfish consumption (especially soft-shell clam), hunting of bear, cervid, and a variety of bird species, and the capture of a variety of fish species including sculpin, sturgeon, and cod. Again, much of this subsistence data comes from Turner Farm, which Tuck (1993a:53) cautions may benefit from being in a superlative ecological location in Penobscot Bay. Keeping this in mind, Campbell’s (2016:193) consideration of subsistence at the Boswell site may serve to complement the view from Maine. In Campbell’s model, drawing in part on coastal faunal evidence from Turner Farm (Spiess and Lewis 2001), Transitional Archaic peoples likely followed a coastal-interior seasonal round, summering on the coast and wintering in the interior. He echoes the notion of a diverse diet oriented toward anadromous fish (see also Borstel 1982) – perhaps captured with weir technology – and game animals. Floral resources likely included wild comestibles such as blueberries and tree nuts. The consumption of the latter in some abundance may be associated with apparently unique cobble hearths, at least in Maine, possibly related to the consumption of tree nuts. Spiess and Hedden (2000) tentatively suggest that fire-cracked rock and cobble features at the WatervilleWinslow Bridge site in Maine may have been used to process acorns, whose oils would have provided valuable nutrients. Moreover, nuts were often included in Transitional Archaic cremations in the Northeast, suggesting their importance (see Pagoulatos 2009:246). Some archaeologists have suggested that the Transitional Archaic may be associated with a switch from dugout to birchbark canoe technology, based in part on a deemphasis on ground stone implements like gouges and adzes (cf. Sanger 2009a). The use of coastal and interior site locations (including occupation on coastal islands), apparent technological similarities among sites along riverine routes, and the distribution of toolstone along rivers and coasts further suggests extensive use of watercraft (Black 2018; Sanger 2008). An economic model of canoeing in birchbark canoes into headwaters and hardwood forests would fit the limited interior economic data, specially gathering tree nuts.

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BOX 7.1  THE BIRCHBARK CANOE The Atlantic Northeast is linked by rivers that permit travel in any direction and unite the coast and the interior. As we suggested in chapter 3, circumstantial evidence suggests that the earliest Palaeoindian occupants of the Atlantic Northeast had some kind of watercraft. By European contact, ethnohistoric records and canoe models attest to a variety of birchbark canoe forms, varying stylistically by the group using them and by the environment in which they were deployed (Adney and Chapelle 1964; Butler and Hadlock 1957:22–30; Marshall 1985). Because c ­ anoes only rarely preserve in the archaeological record, the antiquity of particular forms of craft must be inferred, which archaeologists have tended to do based on stone tool technology that may have been used to make boats and, to some degree, on site locations that may imply ways of moving across the landscape. Based on this, a proliferation of heavy ground stone tools during the Archaic period and of finer flaked stone tools in the Woodland period was often inferred to correspond to a rise in birchbark canoe technology. Birchbark canoe technology confers some advant­ages over dugouts, among them that birchbark canoes are light enough to be portaged (carried) between watersheds and are generally more manoeuvrable. A range of recent archaeological work has brought into question the antiquity of the birchbark canoe form and the persistence of dugouts. David Sanger (2009a) invoked a variety of cross-cultural and

­archaeological examples in his observation that dugout canoes are often burned before being hollowed, and that the making of dugout canoes does not necessarily require the ground stone toolkit with which the process has generally been associated within the Northeast. Setting aside this association raises the possibility of a much older introduction of birchbark canoes, perhaps as soon as large enough sheets of birchbark became available, potentially with the onset of the Holocene (Davis and Jacobson 1985). Further complicating notions of a tidy replacement of dugouts with birchbark technology in the region is that dugout canoes persisted, suggesting they were useful in some contexts. In Southern Maine, Tim Spahr and colleagues (2020) recovered a small ca. 700-year-old dugout canoe preserved in intertidal mud, suggesting a diversity of Indigenous watercraft during the Woodland and perhaps earlier. Recent research in the region is focusing on the kinds of travel routes people may have used to get across the region, aided by the application of sophisticated geographic information systems. Some of these approaches calculate “least cost” routes (e.g., Shaw 2018). Others use place names and ethnohistorical accounts to consider the cultural importance of particular places and routes (e.g., Moran 2020). Some studies have considered the role of canoes in lithic procurement (Blair 2010; Holyoke and Hrynick 2015) or identifying signatures of portage sites.

Transitional Archaic in the Maritimes One of the most intriguing aspects of the Transitional Archaic in the Atlantic Northeast is that it diminishes dramatically in the archaeological record moving north and west around Penobscot Bay. To what degree this represents true cultural patterning and to what degree it represents visibility, site preservation, and local archaeological research foci is a matter of some debate (e.g., Black 2000; Sanger 2008). The former interpretation might be consistent with a model of a migratory Susquehanna population moving into Maine from the south, with only minimal influence into the Maritimes. The migration of people versus the diffusion of ideas is difficult to recognize in the

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archaeological record, but even considering the vagaries inherent in migratory models, a clear impetus for a pan-Northeast migration to end around the Canadian border has not been identified. We think that it is likely that archaeological visibility, preservation, and extent of survey are largely to blame for the apparent dearth of Susquehanna Tradition material culture in the Maritimes, but that the apparent decrease in Transitional Archaic in the region is difficult to fully explain on those bases alone. That said, accumulated research, much of it on collections in the region, strongly suggests that there was a Transitional Archaic penetration into the Maritimes that was like that in southern New England. In terms of intact sites, Susquehanna Tradition material culture may be represented in the interior of the Maritimes at the End of Dyke site at Gaspereau Lake in Nova Scotia (Sanders et al. 2014), and is more clearly defined at Mud Lake Stream on New Brunswick’s Spednic Lake (Deal 1985) and the Boswell site in the Annapolis– Cornwallis River valley of Nova Scotia (Campbell 2016). The latter site is particularly interesting because it has an artifact suite plausibly representing the whole Susquehanna sequence at a site with a subsequent Maritime Woodland occupation. Transitional Archaic radiocarbon dates from the site range from about 3600 BP to 3200 cal BP, and the artifact assemblage at the site is consistent with a Transitional Archaic occupation of the site from the end of the early (“Atlantic”) to the late (“Orient”) Susquehanna occupation at the site. Interestingly, there is also some evidence of Late Maritime Archaic (Moorehead Phase) material at the site, hinting at some redundancies in site location, if not more profound continuity. The “continual habitation” model Campbell proposes for the full Transitional Archaic period in the Maritimes is further supported by accumulated data from avocational and surface collections (e.g., Campbell 2016; Deal et al. 2006; Pentz 2008; Sanger and Davis 1993). In brief, alongside intact interior sites, archaeologists continue to identify diagnostic Susquehanna Tradition Transitional Archaic material from each Maritime province in the form of diagnostic broadspears, ground stone, and the occasional fragment of steatite. On the coast, avocational archaeologists have also served an important role in identifying the Transitional Archaic. Some of the most detailed of this work has been from the Quoddy Region, but we think it illustrates a pattern that lends some credence to the idea that Transitional Archaic coastal sites in the Maritimes may be eroded and therefore not identified (figure 7.5) Clearly, there is a question here of the challenges of interpreting negative evidence, but the studies are suggestive. Building on long-term relationships with avocational archaeologists in the New Brunswick Quoddy Region, Black (2000, 2018) has reported extensively on Transitional Archaic material from the Rum Beach site. A variety of coastal, probably Transitional Archaic material is

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FIGURE 7.5 Terminal Archaic artifacts from intertidal sites in the West Isles, New Brunswick: (a) drill bit, tip missing, on an Atlantic- or Mansion Inn–style base, dark aphanitic volcanic; (b) Atlantic-style broadpoint, tip missing, bleached Kineo– Traveler Mountain ­porphyry; (c)  Atlanticstyle broadpoint, blade extensively retouched, bleached grey ­aphanitic volcanic; (d) Atlantic-style broadpoint, green ­aphanitic volcanic; (e) Susquehanna-style broadpoint, bleached Kineo–Traveler Mountain porphyry; (f) Mansion Inn blade, Boats variety, Kineo– Traveler Mountain ­porphyry; (g) ­complete drill bit with flared base, brown flowbanded rhyolite; and (h) large Atlantic-style broadpoint, asymmetrically retouched blade margins, dark grey aphanitic volcanic.

Artifact types identified using Boudreau (2016); photograph courtesy David W. Black, University of New Brunswick

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known from the area on both sides of the international border, although its relationship to the Susquehanna Tradition has been debated with regard to whether it is part of the broadly conceived Susquehanna or a localized and marginal variant (Black 2000; Sanger 2008). Rum Beach has produced a variety of Susquehanna Tradition (or Susquehanna-like) artifacts, including broadspears (similar to Mansion Inn and Orient forms), a flaked and ground stone axe, and drills. Occasional cached material, such as a series of ground stone axes and adzes from a feature on Rouen Island, further suggest connections to more southerly Transitional Archaic manifestations (Davis 1982). Black (2000) proposes that the location and context of the Rum Beach site is consistent with a buried surface in the intertidal zone. Rather than eroding from a now-terrestrial site onto the beach, Rum Beach is a true intertidal site, preserved due to its placement on the edge of a salt marsh and pinned by bedrock. As sea level rises, the beach captures the marsh and makes artifacts visible, where they are recovered by diligent and detail-oriented collectors. Black notes that, despite extensive survey of the Quoddy Region, such sites were not located by professionals. This may be in part because, while consistent with the locations of coastal Transitional Archaic sites in, for instance, southern New England (e.g., Rae and Jones 2017), they appear to be placed somewhat differently than Maritime Woodland period sites: they are on marshy rather than well-drained landforms and are exposed to the northwest rather than the south. They are also exposed to open water, rather than in sheltered coves. Contrasting with the well-preserved Turner Farm site, coastal Transitional Archaic in the Maritimes may be available to archaeologists mostly in intertidal locations, if preserved at all, and not in the places archaeologists have been most likely to focus their surveys. However, the affinities with Susquehanna elsewhere outlined by Black suggest connections to the more southerly broadpoint traditions. Past Maine, diagnostic Transitional Archaic burials have rarely been identified, but Dumais (1978) described a Transitional Archaic cremation burial at the Ruisseaudes-Caps site on the Gaspé, pushing the burial aspects of this tradition northward. The shortage of identified cremation burials as part of a more northerly broadspear and cremation burial co-tradition may, again, be indicative of true cultural patterning or challenges in the region’s archaeological record regarding visibility, survey, and preservation.

The Archaic to Woodland Transition Before outlining the shift that occurred in the Atlantic Northeast from Transitional Archaic to Woodland about 3000 years ago, we need to clarify the context of this transition and how it is framed archaeologically throughout the broader region. In the Northeast, the start of the Woodland period is most commonly demarcated by the

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adoption of ceramic vessels, which, cross-culturally, often is concomitant with incipient horticulture and other major settlement and social changes. Explicit or implicit in many considerations of the Woodland are Mesolithic to Neolithic models of the transition to agriculture and its major social and economic implications imported from Europe and the Levant (see Sassaman 2010). The Early Woodland transition marks other technological changes, economic changes, and most starkly major population decreases and/or settlement changes, including periods of complete depopulation in some localities. These changes occurred ca. 3000–2150 cal BP, a period marked by abrupt global climate changes felt in the Eastern Woodlands as cooling temperatures, increased precipitation, and seasonal changes (see Fiedel 2001; Kidder 2006). The problem with this understanding is not exactly that it is wrong, but that archaeologists aided by nuanced culture history building and the accumulation of absolute dates have shown that the changes associated with Woodland in the Northeast were not concomitant: ceramic vessels precede the other developments in much of New England and the proliferation of horticulture occurred relatively late (as we discuss in later chapters). As archaeologists have disentangled some of the threads of the classic Woodland concept, so too has a broader understanding of the Archaic shifted. As we discussed in previous chapters, Archaic period hunter-gatherers contradict some notions of a foraging lifeway and old evolutionary notions of culture change as they were, for instance, approaching socio-political complexity and engaged in broadly extended cultural traditions (see chapter 6). In the Eastern Woodlands more generally, Sassaman (2008) has criticized the Archaic period as a taxonomic notion that implies that “only with command of plant propagation and the settlement permanence it enabled were Archaic peoples liberated from the vagaries of nature and the limits to growth imposed by a mobile lifestyle.” He goes on: “Like the Old Grey Mare who had passed her prime, the old Archaic of cultural evolutionism has been put to pasture by the anomalies of new discoveries and critical analyses. We have indeed moved so far away from mid-twentieth-century characterizations of the Archaic as to render the concept misleading, if not downright meaningless.” For archaeologists in the Atlantic Northeast, an added complication is that, in large part, the decisive hallmark of the classic Woodland – horticulture – has never been established, so the transition from Archaic to Woodland is especially enigmatic. However, the importance of horticulture in New England, for instance, remains debated and culture changes during the last 3000 years in parts of the Atlantic Northeast closely resemble those of neighbours to the south and west. Reflecting this difference are taxonomic choices that suggest varying degrees of similarity between the Atlantic Northeast and other Woodland manifestations.

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The period ca. 3000 cal BP to European contact has been variously referred to as the Woodland (e.g., Owen et al. 2014), la periode Syvicole (e.g., Chapdelaine 1990), the Maritime Woodland (e.g., Black 2002, 2004), or the Ceramic (e.g., Bourque 1971; Sanger 1974). These terminological differences extend beyond nomenclature to reflect fundamental interpretative differences in the region’s culture history, and in our causal understanding of the period (see Bourque 1995; Leonard 1995; Sanger 1974). By necessity, regional taxonomies participate in a techno-cultural approach to culture history (e.g., Lyman et al. 1997): “cultures” develop, change, and are expressed through changes in material culture. However, the variations in terminology reflect an acknowledgement that something is fundamentally different in the Atlantic Northeast; both taxonomies tacitly acknowledge an expression of generalized Woodland material culture in the Northeast within (or grafted onto) a coastal marine economic and material culture context. But is that enough to apply Woodland concepts to the region when archaeologists have such poor archaeological resolution of the period in question, especially the Early Woodland? Following Keenlyside (1983; see also Turnbull and Allen 1988:251) and Black (2002), we prefer the term “Maritime Woodland,” which acknowledges the lack of horticulture and a focus on marine resources and marine hunting technology (e.g., toggling harpoons), while acknowledging the other hallmarks of the Woodland period – ceramics, a broadly shared lithic material culture based on a variety of side and corner notched projectile points and lanceolate or sublanceolate bifaces, and, especially, far-reaching cultural connections that saw the movement of material culture, ceremony, and spiritual concepts throughout the Northeast. In the section that follows, we start to find this transition in the end of the Archaic period, outlining the penetration of a cultural tradition with correlates farther south. We suggest that the distribution of material associated with this cultural phenomenon into the Atlantic Northeast deserves further explanation. Finally, we find considerable similarity between the Transitional Archaic and the various Woodland interaction spheres that succeed it.

“Little Gap” or Cultural Continuity Accompanying notions of the Transitional Archaic as the intrusive, migratory Susquehanna Tradition (Bourque 1995; Dincauze 1975:27) is that it has sometimes been understood as a short blip, with a population exodus from the Atlantic Northeast ca. 3400 cal BP. In that interpretation, the exodus was followed by a period occasionally termed the “Little Gap” (Turnbull 1990:15) (3400–2700 cal BP) in which the Maritime Peninsula was depopulated. Such a view was supported by the apparent absence of archaeological material yielding absolute dates from that period, and by a lack of the

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clear projectile point sequences that followed Susquehanna farther south (see Bourque 1995:254). This model, as Bourque (1995:254) suggests, would have been without clear motivation in terms of an environmental or functionalist explanation, but he did speculate that there may have been a cultural one: cross-culturally, relatively recently migrated populations sometimes abruptly return to their homelands (see Anthony 1990:904). Such a return would fit with a view of the Transitional Archaic as a brief, exploratory migration. Running contrary to this discontinuity model, other archaeologists have viewed the Terminal Archaic period as ancestral to Woodland period cultures on the Maritime Peninsula, with the apparent gap explained by the radiocarbon curve, site visibility, and site transformational processes (Black 2000:98; Haviland 2012:33–35; Petersen 1995:220–222). Sanger’s (2008) review of Terminal Archaic sites from the Maritime Peninsula has conflicted with a depopulation model or “Little Gap.” He suggests that culture historical study must therefore be aimed at understanding the Terminal Archaic as developing into Woodland (Sanger 2008:35). Lending support to Sanger’s (2008) notion of the Transitional Archaic as ancestral or developing into the beginning of the Woodland are apparently transitional components at the Rosie-Mugford site complex in Merrymeeting Bay, Maine (Bourque et al. 2006). However, much as archaeologists have increasingly identified Transitional Archaic materials consistent with Susquehanna in the Maritimes, so too have they identified sites that appear to bridge the “Little Gap” northeast of Maine (e.g., Campbell 2016; Turnbull 1990). Similarly, however, the decrease in clearly defined sites during this period deserves further attention, especially regarding questions of visibility, preservation, explainable cultural patterning, or some combination of these factors (which seems most likely to us). James Petersen (1995:221), almost two and a half decades ago, argued that one key difference between the Transitional Archaic and earlier Archaic manifestations was a fundamental shift in lithic reduction strategies, perhaps not coincidentally correlated with intra- and inter-regional trade in flaked stone raw materials and/or finished specimens. This shift is marked by an increased emphasis on early stage reduction of biface preforms at a limited number of sites, rather than the earlier pattern of opportunist reduction at many sites, and the transport of such preforms for reduction, as needed. This observation has been made on the basis of various site samples across the region. Notably, this change seems to have presaged the general occurrence of “cache blades” that were later characteristic throughout the duration of regional prehistory in the Woodland (or Ceramic) period. Other technological similarities may include the use of native copper (Campbell 2016) and ceramic vessels modelled after steatite ones (cf. Sassaman 1999). In sum, (1) ­economic

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preferences, (2) coastal site redundancy, (3) tightening of radiocarbon sequences suggesting sites where temporal gaps were previously thought to be, and (4) the inauguration of long-ranging systems of exchange emphasizing similar bifaces of the kind Petersen notes all suggest, to us, that Transitional Archaic is the first pulse of a series of farreaching and sometimes locally ephemeral Early Woodland interaction spheres.

The Early Maritime Woodland (ca. 3000 to 2200 cal BP) We view the beginning of the Early Maritime Woodland period as variable and potentially overlapping with the Transitional Archaic we discuss above (e.g., Black 2002, 2004). Sites associated with Early Woodland material culture (see below) in the Atlantic Northeast have been dated as early as 3300 cal BP (Petersen and Sanger 1993). The manifestation appears to have ended with the onset of the Middle Woodland in the Atlantic Northeast ca. 2200 cal BP, which has been extensively documented in the region (see chapter 8). Thus, we define the Early Woodland as those deposits on the Atlantic Northeast dating to between 3300 and 2200 cal BP and/or with diagnostic Early Woodland material culture. We acknowledge, at the outset, that we are biased in our approach here by the impression that Transitional Archaic likely developed into the Early Woodland, but also that we view the Transitional Archaic Susquehanna broadspear and cremation cemetery co-tradition as likely extending well into or even throughout the Atlantic Northeast – an impression that is preliminary and in contrast to some of our ­colleagues – based on our view of collections from the region and skepticism about discontinuity narratives. Moreover, we follow Petersen (1995) in viewing, as just discussed, Transitional Archaic as more culturally similar to Woodland than to Archaic in many substantive ways, most notably in participation or localization of a series of wide-reaching interaction spheres and technological continuity. More challenging to define, we have the sense that the site distribution patterns in the Maritime provinces reflect that both Transitional Archaic and Early Woodland are part of a population reduction and social contraction related to some sort of cultural phenomenon. As with the Transitional Archaic, there is considerable taxonomic baggage that permeates the literature in ways that are sometimes helpfully specific and other times frustratingly ambiguous. In the Early Maritime Woodland, as with the Transitional Archaic, much of the ambiguity arises from the genuine challenge of connecting Atlantic Northeast cultural manifestations to ones devised in southern New England or New York in ways that are meaningful. Some archaeologists have developed local culture history terminology to suggest discontinuity or local variation, and others have preferred to emphasize similarity. The relationship between co-occurring mortuary

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and habitation traditions can be similarly confusing. Heckenberger and colleagues (1990:109) describe this milieu perhaps most clearly – or at least most closely to how we see it – in terms of the Far Northeast: … the term Middlesex has been used almost exclusively to describe a complex of mortuary traits which are now typically referred to as the Middlesex phase (e.g., Ritchie 1965; Snow 1980) or the Middlesex mortuary complex (e.g., Spence and Fox 1986). The complex almost imperceptibly blends with other Early Woodland period archaeological complexes such as Delmarva Adena, Meadowood, and Adena, which are roughly coeval with the Middlesex complex. In fact, in many respects these complexes are indistinguishable from one another, and all share certain attributes over a large geographic area.

In short, it appears that the Early Woodland in the broader Northeast is characterized by broadly conceived interaction spheres manifesting in elaborate burial practices. Here, as elsewhere in this chapter, culture-historical terminology has been applied in various ways. In a broad culture historical sense, there was a Northeast-wide Early Woodland shared cultural pattern marked by the exchange native copper, shell beads, large ceremonial bifaces, birdstones, blocked-end tubular pipes, and slate ceremonial objects such as gorgets. Vinette I pottery is sometimes included in the burials, and cache blades sometimes appear in utilitarian contexts. (This is an imperfect gloss of the literature; see Robinson [2015] and Taché [2011] for broader regional background, history, and debates.) This interaction sphere was accompanied by large, often mounded inhumations of multiple individuals with inclusions of many of the ceremonial items just described – often termed Adena, reflecting past diffusionist models, which we will discuss in a moment. Sometimes, in the Northeast, these Early Woodland cultures are termed the Meadowood interaction sphere, but to reflect broadly shared patterns and temporal overlap, we simply term it the Early Woodland interaction sphere (following Robinson 2015). In the Atlantic Northeast more narrowly, a relatively small amount of Early Maritime Woodland material (see Heckenberger et al. 1990:110; Taché 2011:9) muddies the waters further, because archaeologists with small sample sizes seek to at once explain the similarities between Atlantic Northeast manifestations of broader Northeast cultural spheres and the dearth of material. Put another way, what is the extent of participation of people in the Atlantic Northeast in the interaction spheres Heckenberger indicated above, and to what degree are Atlantic Northeast peoples practicing occasional localizations of those spheres? As Pelletier-Michaud (2017:33–35)

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notes, the burial traditions – variously named – are consistent over a vast area and a variety of scholars have consciously emphasized similarities rather than differences in these Early Woodland cultural manifestations. The Early Woodland is represented on the Maritime Peninsula primarily by riverine-oriented burial or ritual sites and diagnostic material culture including Meadowood box-based points and cache blades, bird stones, and Vinette I ceramics (often termed Ceramic Period 1 on the Maritime Peninsula; see Petersen and Sanger 1993). To a lesser extent, an Adena or Adena-related (sometimes termed Boucher Complex [e.g., Bourque 2001] or Middlesex [e.g., Turnbull 1986]) cultural manifestation appears in the region toward the end of the Early Woodland, characterized by burial mounds, diagnostic adzes and points, slate gorgets, blocked-end tubular pipes, and hammered native copper. In Vermont, this burial complex has included Vinette I pottery and shell beads (Haviland and Power 1994). At least one of these burials, at the Minister’s Island site in the Quoddy Region, is coastal (Sanger 1987), but such sites are outnumbered by interior mounds, such as the Augustine Mound at Metepenagiag on the Miramichi River (Turnbull 1976; see below) or at the Skora site near Halifax (Davis 1991). In general, it appears that the participation in extra-regional interaction spheres such as these was more limited on the Maritime Peninsula than among groups south and west of the Atlantic Northeast (Bourque 1994, 1995:184). The cultural connections during this period did not always come from the south or west. There is some indication that box-based points similar to Groswater PaleoInuit projectile points (which are harpoon endblades), and in particular finely made Phillip’s Garden West points, were mimicked at many Early Maritime Woodland sites on the Maritime Peninsula. These unique bifacial tools occur all over Newfoundland after ca. 2800 cal BP, and appear to have been traded, or otherwise acquired, by Dorset groups on the island. The mechanisms for transmission to the Maritime Peninsula are unclear, but most if not all the points appear to be locally made. If so, this appears to be another example of an ideological or socially infused material culture adopted and copied on the Maritime Peninsula using local materials. However, the Atlantic Northeast was clearly exporting raw material at this time, at least occasionally, with materials such as Ramah chert and Mistassini quartzite appearing in Early Woodland burial contexts at least as far away as Vermont (Heckenberger et al. 1990; Loring 2017). Within the region, the near absence of habitation sites from the Early Woodland in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia is intriguing. Overall, there are fewer identified Early Woodland sites on the coastal Atlantic Northeast than Middle Maritime Woodland sites. A review of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission files (A. Spiess, personal communication, 2018) suggests that only ca. 5% of coastal shell-bearing sites contain Early Woodland (i.e., Vinette I) pottery, Early

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Woodland ­radiocarbon dates, or Transitional Archaic components. Survey and excavations directed since 2009 on Nova Scotia’s South Shore (Betts 2019) have failed to reveal convincing Early Woodland habitation components on or near the coast, despite the identification or re-identification of numerous shellbearing sites in the region from other periods, a smattering of Meadowood- or Adena-form artifacts held in private collections and discussed in the professional literature (see McEachen 1996), and clear manifestation of Meadowood (Taché 2011). Nonetheless, in Maine there are both interior (e.g., Bartone and Petersen 1992; Blair 2004a; Borstel 1982; Brigham et al. 2006; Cowie and Petersen 1990, 1992; Petersen 1991; Petersen and Sanger 1986) and preserved coastal (Belcher 1989; Bourque 1995) Early Woodland sites based on radiocarbon dating and/or the presence of Vinette I pottery. Some Early Woodland habitation sites are present in the Maine Quoddy Region (Black 2002, 2004), but an interesting pattern appears to be a northeastward decrease in coastal Early Woodland habitation components not well explained by differential preservation. For instance, Vinette I pottery is present in relative abundance at Turner Farm (Bourque 1995) and at the Knox site (Belcher 1989), as well as at the Wasp Island, Smith Farm, and Ellsworth Falls sites on the central Maine coast (Bourque 1971), but much less so in the Quoddy Region and less still in Nova Scotia (Kristmanson and Deal 1993:75–76). Moving southward, Vinette I pottery appears more commonly in southern New England and New York coastal contexts (e.g., Byers and Johnson 1940; Ritchie 1969). In Newfoundland, following the end of the Late Maritime Archaic (ca. 3400 cal BP, see chapter 6), there may be a brief total abandonment by humans for 600 years or so before Groswater Paleo-Inuit people occupy the island. However, there is virtually no non-Paleo-Inuit occupation of the island known from about 3200 to 2000 cal BP. Suffice to say, this is a stark change from the Maritime Archaic. In Labrador, there are some caches that suggest participation, in at least a marginal way, with Early Woodland interaction spheres (see Holly 2013:61–64). In Labrador, this period is often termed “Intermediate Indian,” but we think the term Boreal Woodland is likely more appropriate, because the ancestors of the Intermediate Indian groups appear to have been related to Woodland groups moving into former LMA territory. Evaluating to what degree the northeastward decrease in sites supports substantial cultural difference between the Atlantic Northeast and the rest of the Northeast – or the Eastern Woodlands more broadly – benefits from considering the extent to which the region appears to participate in various Woodland traits, such as Vinette I ceramic technology, burial elaboration, other aspects of ritual life, and the implied social correlates of each.

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The Origins of Ceramics The innovation of Vinette I (figure 7.6) pottery and its use among Atlantic Northeast hunter-gatherers is not entirely intuitive. The use of ceramic vessels by hunter-gatherers is of considerable interest to archaeologists because their fragility and weight seem counterproductive to a highly mobile lifeway. Bark or wood containers and baskets are light and portable and can be cooked via the use of boiling stones or the cautious application of direct heat.

FIGURE 7.6  Vinette I ceramic sherd recovered from Sebago Lake in Maine.

Photograph by Trevor Lamb

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Nonetheless, by about 3000 years ago people on the Maritime Peninsula were making undecorated pottery, with the surfaces smoothed by the application of a paddle or similar instrument covered with fabric, which leaves an imprint on the interior and exterior of the vessels. These early vessels were small (less than 4 L in capacity) and shaped like beakers or, occasionally, featuring a cone-shaped bottom. Clay, available naturally from sources throughout the Northeast, is a malleable or “plastic medium.” However, when it is heated to be hardened – in this case probably over an open hearth – it can crack and burst. To help avoid this, an inflexible temper material must be added. For these early vessels, the temper was grit (Petersen and Sanger 1993). Karine Taché and Craig Oliver (2015) conducted nitrogen and carbon isotope analyses and a variety of studies on lipids from burned food encrustations that were retained on the interiors of Vinette I vessels from around the Northeast. Based on these studies, they “suggest that pottery initially developed in this region to process freshwater and marine organisms at episodic social gatherings during periods of high resource abundance” (Taché and Oliver 2015:187). This view of the origins of ceramics is appealing because it is consistent with some other studies of hunter-gatherer ceramics, but also because such events could have served an important integrative function as people in the Early Woodland interacted over long distances and periodically constructed elaborate burials. This kind of specific use of ceramics is also consistent with the relative dearth of Vinette I ceramics in the Northeast, if their use was primarily devoted to specific extractive events that benefited from the long cooking times over direct heat that can be endured by ceramics.

The Atlantic Northeast and Early Woodland Mortuary Complexes In the classic formulation of Early Woodland mortuary activity, Adena burial practices were generally conceived of as radiating out of the Ohio Valley. The Ohio Valley was therefore viewed as a sort of heartland for the Early Woodland interaction. Robinson (2015) has revisited collections and radiocarbon dates from the Northeast and shown that classic Adena started after the onset of other regional burial complexes, making the diffusionist argument difficult to sustain. Moreover, he found that, in the aggregate, the radiocarbon dates for the various mortuary complexes suggest that the various regionalizations of the Early Woodland interaction sphere mortuary complexes all had some temporal overlap, not just sequential technological development. In other words, one complex did not lead to another in a diffusionist, regional sense, but all were to some degree happening at the same time, with the difference of location.

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There is a smattering of likely Early Woodland interaction sphere–related mortuary material throughout the Atlantic Northeast. The clearest and most striking manifestation of it is at the Augustine Mound site at Metepenagiag on the Miramachi River in New Brunswick (Turnbull 1976). The site was identified by Joe Augustine, a Mi’kmaw Elder, leader, and historian who lived at the Metepenagiag First Nation. After reading a story about North American burial mounds in National Geographic, he recalled the Augustine Mound and that his father had described the place as one where his ancestors used to “drum and dance” (Augustine et al. 2007:150). Subsequent partial excavation under the direction of Christopher Turnbull (1976) revealed at least 11 burial features on a levelled surface, with the largest in the centre. These interments may have occurred after cremations or ritualized display on scaffolds or in a charnel house. The mound itself is between 11 and 12 m across, and about 1 m high. Mounded burials are consistent with the Early Woodland interaction sphere, but the artifacts included in the mound are particularly evocative of Adena burials elsewhere (figure 7.7). The site has received only preliminary scholarly attention, but Turnbull’s report leaves the similarities in little doubt: it contains an abundance of stemmed and unstemmed Adena-style bifaces, banded slate gorgets, blocked-end tubular pipes, pendants, abraders, flaked and ground stone celts, and a remarkable collection of thousands of pieces of native copper, many of them hammered into tubes, beads, cones, and rods (Jarratt 2013). The copper salts from the beads created a preservation environment that allowed the preservation of textiles and basketry from the site. Subsequent radiocarbon dating of the site (Jarratt 2013:31, 45) suggests the Augustine Mound may have been used for two separate periods of time, one spanning about 2700–2300 cal BP and another from about 2100–2000 cal BP. The artifact assemblage and these dates are certainly consistent with the Early Woodland interaction sphere – indeed, the artifact assemblage is classically so, replete with materials that may be from Ohio, although many of the artifacts are made on local materials, such as the quartz that dominates the lithic collection. The Skora site near Halifax, Nova Scotia, suggests Early Woodland period interaction sphere mortuary complexes extended farther into the Maritimes. Although substantially disturbed by road construction, Skora appears to have been a mounded burial site containing cremated human remains and diagnostic Early Woodland stemmed bifaces and adzes. The tools had also been cremated to the extent that the heat caused them to fracture. Radiocarbon dates from the site – 2260 ± 100 and 2440 ± 120 cal BP – are consistent with the interpretation of the site as an Early Woodland interaction sphere mound burial (Davis 1991). Although the Early Woodland component has been less extensively studied at Minister’s Island, Early Woodland artifact forms and an inhumation of 12 individuals suggests participation in the Early Woodland

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FIGURE 7.7 Burial objects from the Augustine Mound: (a) non-stemmed quartz biface; (b) stemmed biface; (c) stemmed biface; (d) stemmed biface; (e) chipped stone celt; (f) ground stone celt; (g) quartz scraper; (h) blockedend tube; (i) fossil; (j) elliptical gorget; (k) reel gorget; (l) pot sherds; (m) copper beads; and (n) shell pendants.

Adapted from Turnbull (1976:Plates 2–3); illustration by Erin Ingram

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i­nteraction mortuary complex in Passamaquoddy Bay, too, although the radiocarbon dating of the site is more ambiguous (CARD n.d.; Pearson 1970; Sanger 1987). The heavily eroded dog and probably human burial at the Mud Lake Stream site, likely a cremation, again contained a diagnostic side-notched Early Woodland projectile point, as well as a slate gorget similar to that from the Augustine Mound. While the disturbed nature of much of the Early Woodland archaeological record limits interpretation somewhat, Early Woodland mortuary complexes appear to have been established in the region.

Early Maritime Woodland Biface Caches A trait held in common throughout the Eastern Woodlands interaction spheres is the presence of caches of diagnostic Early Woodland bifaces. The bifaces within a cache tend to be remarkably similar to one another in size and shape, suggesting manufacture of them was with an eye toward including them in a shared ritual context. One exemplary, probable Early Woodland biface cache is the Bristol-Shiktehawk cache from New Brunswick (Clarke 1968:112–126; Pelletier-Michaud 2017; figure 7.8). The cache was excavated by George Frederick Clarke, a prominent avocational archaeologist and dentist from Woodstock, New Brunswick (see Bernard 2015). The cache is composed of 37 predominantly bipointed bifaces. Pelletier-Michaud’s (2017) study of these “Bristol blades” revealed them as morphologically consistent with Early Woodland forms from elsewhere (see Sassaman 2010:99–105) – including “Turkeytail” forms from as far away as Michigan. The bifaces are made from a variety of materials, including from New York or Ontario and Passamaquoddy Bay. Others were made on local materials, likely from local cobble sources. The presence of debitage at the site similar to materials in the collection suggests the production of the bifaces may have taken place at the site. Most fascinatingly, Pelletier-Michaud (2017:141) notes that all but two of the artifacts are virtually identical in morphology and material to at least one other in the cache, and the overall collection is remarkably homogenous. Thus, this probably local production was likely undertaken by the same individual or, minimally, “almost every biface had to be made by someone who was cognizant of at least part of the rest of the assemblage. If several manufacturers were involved, they shared similar technical knowledge, including reduction strategies and aesthetic frameworks.” Such specialist production fits with broader interpretations of Transitional Archaic broadpoints that have suggested specialist production (Cross 1993). Substantial edge damage on the bifaces suggests that they had ritual lives before they were buried, perhaps being carried around in or out of the haft. Some may have been used for ritual piercing.

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FIGURE 7.8  Photograph of the Bristol-Shiktehawk biface cache.

Photograph courtesy ­Alexandre Pelletier-Michaud

Archaeologists do not really know why people made ritual caches; Pelletier-Michaud notes that bifaces may evoke naturalistic images such as leaves or motifs that would have been familiar and quotidian parts of Indigenous life, such as paddles. Caches may have been a way people established spiritual connections to a specific place. They may have been exchanged before they were cached, suggesting an emphasis on ritual interaction (e.g., Taché 2011). The prevalence of these caches in the Early Woodland, their similarities across the Eastern Woodlands, and their tendency to invoke materials and forms from far away suggest aspects of a shared spiritual life and further evidence of broad cultural interaction during this period.

Explaining Transitional Archaic and Early Woodland In our assessment, much work remains to clarify the Transitional Archaic and Early Woodland culture historically across the Atlantic Northeast. Suffice it to say, we are in agreement with Sassaman’s (2010:187) description of the Early Woodland as “notoriously cryptic” and Black’s (2000:98) view that “the period spanning the late Terminal Archaic and the first several centuries of the Early Maritime Woodland remains the least well understood and the most controversial in Maine/Maritimes prehistory” (see also, e.g., McEachen 1996:37).

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One central tension here is that the small number of sites known from this period is, at once, a phenomenon demanding explanation and a factor that makes any sort of regional comparison difficult. In short, to what degree are individual sites unique local variants on some broadly shared Northeast pattern, or are they sporadic Transitional Archaic or Early Woodland bursts in a marginal landscape? We do not know. Much of our goal in this chapter has been to try to identify current interpretations and ambiguities and to reframe aspects of arguments about continuity and discontinuity. The Transitional Archaic phenomenon is important because, as Robinson (2001:107) pointed out, “it implicates major mechanisms of social change at the transition between Archaic and Woodland ‘stages,’ almost regardless of the side one takes in the [Susquehanna migration] argument.” Sanger (2008:35) called on archaeologists to “examine in detail localized cultural expression in an attempt to discern how they integrated both local and extra-local constituents. Only following this step can we hope to assess the role of Terminal Archaic cultures in the evolution of the subsequent Ceramic or Maritime Woodland cultures.” If we accept Transitional Archaic as originating with some form of migration, the causes are still not exactly clear. As Bourque (1995:253) suggests, maybe we should not expect them to be, as they could result out of some difficult-to-identify cultural cause. Abrupt in situ cultural transitions could also have similarly complex cultural drivers. Whatever happened, it was profoundly different from the elaborate Maritime Archaic and its flirtation with social complexity that preceded it in the Atlantic Northeast. In any event, identifying a likely migration and its cause is only a first step: What were the social interactions of the migrating people like? Did they migrate well into the Atlantic Northeast, stopping before Newfoundland, or is the Atlantic Northeast version of Transitional Archaic a localized version of select Early Woodland cultural phenomena? Add these questions to a badly eroded coastal archaeological record and limited interior survey and it is clear much work remains to be done. In our assessment, the Transitional Archaic marks not just the end of the Maritime Archaic, but in many ways resembles the subsequent Maritime Woodland period, with redundancy in site location, involvement in far-reaching cultural interactions visible in technology or material choice, broadening of the subsistence spectrum, and an emphasis on shellfish as an economic resource. However, we acknowledge that the Transitional Archaic exhibits frustrating visibility challenges and raises questions about patterning of the cultural manifestations in the Atlantic Northeast. With this in mind, following others (notably Petersen 1995), we have suggested that substantial similarity between Transitional Archaic and Early Woodland supports continuity or in situ cultural development, as has been suggested farther south accompanied by clearer culture historical frameworks. We also think the similarity between

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Transitional Archaic and Woodland raises further challenges to the already besieged concept of Woodland, while simultaneously emphasizing participation in regional interaction spheres. Recognizing similarities and arguments for in situ cultural development is not an argument that Early Maritime Woodland cultural changes were insubstantial. Plausible major decreases in population proxied by site and artifact abundance, the beginning of ceramic production, more elaborate burial ritual, and apparent social contractions or localizations of some aspects of life all point to a major change in the Early Woodland. Identifying drivers of this transition require accounting for an array of environmental and social factors. Fiedel (2001), with particular interest in apparent population decline in the Early Woodland, has summarized a variety of possible explanations for the Early Woodland phenomenon. These include disease, plant blights, and erratic climate, among others. He also notes that the difficulties in disentangling Early Woodland culture change are made more complicated by a radiocarbon plateau and a jump in the archaeological record that may accentuate perceptions of a decrease in sites or gaps in the radiocarbon record, or make short occupations seem long. In short, a number of complicated environmental factors or plausibilities may help to drive confusion around the Early Woodland phenomenon and may have provided the impetus for dramatic cultural responses. One can conceive of a variety of such responses, even focusing solely on environmental crisis. Fiedel (2001:129) suggests that “mortuary complexes such as Susquehanna and Orient cremations, Meadowood caches, and Adena mounds and Middlesex hoards, may be manifestations of ‘crisis cults’” with their seeming riches not reflecting abundance but seeking to assert power or turn cosmological tides. Sassaman (2010:188) has suggested that social interactions during the Early Woodland likely have some explanatory potency, arguing that our efforts to understand the changes involved – and they were clearly varied – would gain more traction if we focus on why existing population alignments could not be perpetuated after about three thousand years ago, rather than seek encouraging frontier forces like those of the Neolithic. The outcomes entailed new alignments of people on the landscape, with new seams of inclusion and exclusion and new contexts of interaction. Ultimately, some, perhaps many, Late Archaic communities dissolved, relocated, and reconstituted themselves in relation to other, similarly reconfigured communities. The overall milieu was one of negotiating alliances and boundaries among communities that were more dispersed and less integrated through ritual than ever before, some no doubt exercising the will to resist incorporation into larger fields of social organization.

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At this point, we think virtually any of these hypotheses deserve consideration. And while we have made no secret of some of our interpretive biases of continuity and historical trajectory in general, the onset of the Transitional Archaic offers one of the most likely cases of some kind of major migration event in the region, but we caution against necessarily interpreting this as a population replacement. Moving forward, we think intensive survey – especially in the Maritime Peninsula considering Black’s (2018) study of intertidal sites – may help to elucidate the Transitional Archaic presence along the coast. However, there may be relatively little to find. Similarly, Early Woodland population decline seems to us to be a real phenomenon based on present evidence, as does the virtual abandonment of Newfoundland. Improved resolution of the radiocarbon and climate record may be particularly helpful. We also think historical frameworks emphasizing proximal explanations invoking social interactions may be particularly promising and can be considered using collections and sites already known. Ultimately, these can be informed in the context of the comparatively better-known periods on either side of the Transitional Archaic and Early Woodland.

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CHAPTER 8

THE ARCTIC CULTURES OF NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR (4200 TO 500 CAL BP) Introduction In this book, we reveal that the human settlement of the Atlantic Northeast involved multiple pathways and multiple groups at different times. As we saw in chapter 3, the first people in the region arrived from the south as the glaciers retreated about 13,000 years ago. However, there were at least three migrations of distinct people from the north (and possibly a second from the south, see chapter 7) into the Atlantic Northeast. The second, third, and fifth migrations into the Atlantic Northeast, chronologically, form the focus of this chapter. They were undertaken by groups of people genetically and culturally very different from resident Indigenous populations in the region. All these new groups ultimately came to the region from a homeland more than 5,000 km away, in northern Alaska. Among archaeologists, it is still common for the first of these groups of people to be called “Palaeoeskimos.” This is a term we now reject because the word Eskimo has pejorative connotations among many modern Inuit. Following the recommendations of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (2010) and the rationale outlined by Friesen (2015), we use the term Paleo-Inuit to refer to Palaeoeskimo and “Arctic Small Tool Tradition” cultures in the Atlantic Northeast. We note that the term could imply a direct ancestral connection between Paleo-Inuit and modern Inuit. However, “Inuit” technically means “the people,” so it does not, from an Inuit perspective, imply any change in meaning from the previous terminology (i.e., it simply means “old people”). Regardless, to be clear, we use the term Paleo-Inuit to mean “pre-Inuit,” or populations who arrived prior to Inuit, and who are genetically and culturally distinct from them.

Pre-Dorset (4200 to 3000 cal BP) Around 4500 years ago, Paleo-Inuit peoples entered an unpopulated Canadian Arctic for the first time. Arriving from an Alaskan homeland, they appear to have travelled

rapidly, because their earliest settlements are found in the High Arctic around Ellesmere Island and northern Greenland, with limited evidence that they stopped for very long anywhere along the way. The earliest of these people are called Independence I (Knuth 1954, 1956), after the Greenland fjord where their artifacts were first identified. Living in small bands, Independence I people inhabited locations where they could hunt seals, their primary prey, with finely crafted toggling ivory harpoons with inset blades (called endblades). They hunted muskox and caribou with powerful sinew-backed recurved bows, tipped with serrated stemmed arrowheads. Their dwellings were small with a robust midline passage or axial feature consisting of a box hearth and adjacent storage alcoves. A hallmark of this group of people is the small size of their tools, so small that they often seem inadequate to the tasks they must have been put to. Reflecting this, they are part of a pan-Arctic group called the “Arctic Small Tool Tradition” (Irving 1957, 1962), who created finely made stone tools, often of exceedingly small size. An important part of the lithic repertoire were microblades, or small blades of chert that could be used for any task requiring an extremely sharp tool. They were sometimes inset into organic tools, like lance heads, to increase their lethality or function. Closely related to this group, and also dating as early as 4500 cal BP, are an early Paleo-Inuit people called Saqqaq (Meldgard 1952). Known primarily from western Greenland and the Foxe Basin area of the Canadian Arctic, they had similar tools to Independence I, and a preference for making them on a type of Greenlandic slate called killiaq (Grønnow 2016:714). A few regionally developed traits existed, such as ground adze blades and dwellings that lacked a fully developed mid-passage or axial feature (box hearths were retained). Ryan (2000:97) views Independence I and Early Saqqaq as part of the same complex, an important observation that has direct relevance to the earliest Labrador Paleo-Inuit assemblages. Early Saqqaq peoples appear to have exploited both terrestrial and marine resources more equally than the seal-oriented Independence I economy. Both Independence I and Saqqaq are sometimes collectively called Early Pre-Dorset (e.g., Ryan 2000), especially in regions outside of the Canadian High Arctic. This is the term we employ here. The earliest evidence of these new people in the Atlantic Northeast appears, not unexpectedly, in northern Labrador, near Saglek Bay (Tuck 1975b, 1976b:141–147). Interestingly, the earliest of these sites at Rose Island (figure 8.1) contained a level just above a Maritime Archaic deposit, which provided a date of 4231 ± 163 cal BP. This places Early Pre-Dorset in Labrador just several hundred years after the first arrival of newcomers into the Canadian Arctic. The material culture from the Rose Island site discussed above, and several others on the island, is very similar to the technology associated with Early Pre-Dorset in the High Arctic and Greenland. Ryan (2000:91), following Tuck (1976b:99), views Labrador assemblages as intermediate between the earliest Independence I and Early Saqqaq populations and the Late Saqqaq population, THE ARCTIC CULTURES OF NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR

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FIGURE 8.1 Key Paleo-Inuit and Inuit sites and locations mentioned in the text.

Map by Alexander Honsinger and Mallory Moran

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which suggests a delay prior to its arrival in Labrador. This is consistent with the radiocarbon date described above, which places it several hundred years after the initial arrival of Independence I and explains Saqqaq-like elements of material culture in the assemblages (Ryan 2000:90–93; see also Cox 1978). The Early Pre-Dorset tools at Rose Island are small and finely made, and include small stemmed projectile points with serrated edges, triangular harpoon endblades, burins (tools made for scraping and incising bone or wood), and larger flaked semilunar and lanceolate knives (though still small by a relative standard). Included in the toolkit are tiny bladelets called microblades, which could be inset into bone and wood hunting instruments to increase their lethality, or simply used for any task requiring the sharpest of tools. The small projectile points are believed to be arrowheads, and if so, they may represent the earliest introduction of bow-and-arrow technology in the Atlantic Northeast. The appearance of this formidable technology may have played a critical role in Paleo-Inuit relationships with other groups in the region. The Rose Island site is an important multi-component site spanning ca. 5200 to 1700 cal BP. Directly below the Pre-Dorset occupation is a Maritime Archaic deposit that dates just prior to the arrival of the Paleo-Inuit newcomers (4316 ± 155 cal BP). The dates are overlapping, indicating that they could have been occupied contiguously, meaning that the groups possibly met, or at the very least, knew of each other. The impact of this meeting cannot be overstated (Holly 2013:52; Rankin and Squires 2006:87); for both groups, the meeting would have been akin to the first contact between European and Indigenous peoples. It involved people with disparate technology, different clothing, different dwelling styles, and most importantly, a different language. We do not know how they interacted, or if they were friendly or hostile to one another. The nature of this contact remains one of the biggest questions about Labrador prehistory (e.g., Hood 2000; Holly 2013). The Rose Island sites show that these early newcomers set up in locations that were already inhabited by Maritime Archaic peoples and may imply competition for resource locations and, hence, resources (e.g., Hood 2008; Holly 2013). Like Late Maritime Archaic peoples who occupied Rose Island, the Early Pre-Dorset peoples at Saglek Bay exploited seals at the floe edge and perhaps even by breathing hole sealing (Tuck 1976b:91). Tuck suggests that char, salmon, migratory birds, and caribou were also likely part of the subsistence at the site, and therefore these earlier inhabitants may not have needed to exploit interior resources to a significant degree (Tuck 1976b:91). However, Pre-Dorset groups appear to focus less completely on the marine environment than LMA groups (Cox 1978:102; Fitzhugh et al. 1979:20), instead practicing a more broadly-based, and therefore more flexible, strategy. The difference wasn’t in the types of animals taken and consumed, but in their proportion, and in the way they were taken (and especially their social context). THE ARCTIC CULTURES OF NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR

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Ryan (2000:95, see also Cox 1978) demonstrates that several sites from Saglek Bay to the Nain-Okak area exhibit similar stylistic traits and radiocarbon dates, including Thalia Point, Okak, and Webb Bay (Fitzhugh 1976; Fitzhugh et al. 1979; Hood 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2000; Tuck 1975b, 1976b). All sites typically contain assemblages with bifaces that have been edge serrated, bipointed tapering stem and triangular endblades, lanceolate bifaces, transverse edge blades, and contracting stem endblades, and assemblages have a general absence of surface grinding on tools and a lack of soapstone. Box hearths are also reported, and some sites even contain soapstone lamps that burned fat to produce heat and light (Ryan 2000:95). In the northern part of Labrador, Early Pre-Dorset peoples were apparently able to displace Late Maritime Archaic groups from formerly productive aggregation sites. Fitzhugh (2006:63) implies that the LMA seasonal round may have been partially responsible, as LMA peoples tended to only visit this area in the summer, leaving the sites open for Pre-Dorset occupation throughout the winter. Thus, when the LMA groups returned the following summer, they may have found their traditional aggregation sites, where they had met to hunt caribou and seals for generations, already occupied by a people with a formidable new technology, the bow and arrow. Archaeological evidence suggests that for the following several centuries Pre-Dorset and LMA peoples chose to use different parts of the coastal landscape (Fitzhugh 1984:21), and when they could not, they would use the same areas in different seasons (Hood 1993). The impact this had on the important seasonal LMA aggregations at advantageous hunting locations would have been devastating. It appears that these social aggregations were central to the LMA way of life, times when subsistence, trade, mortuary activity, and social activities coalesced (Holly 2013:54). Disrupting this important time of the year for LMA peoples may have had a vast impact on a society that was potentially already under stress from changing climate, and potentially may have been partially responsible for its decline in this region (Holly 2013:54; Hood 2008:341– 342). By disrupting the seasonal round at the crucial moment of aggregation, when so much social reproduction and maintenance was at stake, the arrival of these newcomers may have impacted the social underpinnings of LMA society itself (e.g., Holly 2013:56). And yet, it is important to note that there is some evidence of population decline among the Pre-Dorset as well (Tuck 1988:104) – such was the severity of the climate change. But with a more generalized and adaptable way of life, Pre-Dorset may have been able to quite literally weather these changes in place. Tuck (1975b:103,195) and others (Tuck and Fitzhugh 1986:162–163) have proposed that the bow and arrow was acquired by LMA peoples from the Pre-Dorset, while Pre-Dorset may have acquired a type of toggling harpoon from LMA peoples. We know that Pre-Dorset peoples acquired and even used LMA-made artifacts from

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their sites (Cox 1978:98), but in general the material culture is very different, and both groups tended to even use different types of cherts (Pre-Dorset peoples tended not to use Ramah chert, even when they could access it). However, the current consensus among archaeologists is that there was no adoption of LMA technology by Pre-Dorset peoples (Fitzhugh 1978:91; Hood 1993:178, 2000:120, 2008:319–320). This is perhaps related to the segregation of LMA and Pre-Dorset sites and the disruption of the LMA settlement round by Pre-Dorset groups, minimizing opportunities for interaction.

Groswater Pre-Dorset (3000 to 1800 cal BP) Pre-Dorset populations in northern Labrador were remarkably successful and witnessed the decline and disappearance of their neighbours, the LMA, a process that took approximately three centuries. Their toolkit and more generalized procurement capabilities, combined with a social structure perhaps less rigidly attuned to seasonal aggregations, permitted them to cope with the rapidly warming climate and related ecosystem change. For nearly 800 years, until ca. 3000 cal BP, they continued a similar way of life to the one they introduced when they first arrived in the region. However, by approximately 500 years after the disappearance of LMA peoples in the region, their culture morphed into something different, perhaps in concert with the ameliorating climate. Named by William Fitzhugh (1972) after Groswater Bay (Kangerliorsoak) where their artifacts were first discovered at a number of sites (Fitzhugh 1976; Cox 1978), Groswater Pre-Dorset represent a transitional way of life from the Early Pre-Dorset to the following Dorset period. Groswater was first recognized as a distinct group by archaeologists based on the difference in artifacts from the preceding Early Pre-Dorset period. The Groswater toolkit (figure 8.2) included a distinctive type of side-notched projectile point with a square, box-shaped base, known as a box-based endblade, likely used to tip a harpoon or lance head. Also distinctive to Groswater are burin-like tools, which mimic PreDorset burins in shape but are made differently. Microblades are present in the toolkit, as are large oval bifaces, oval and circular sideblades, and eared endscrapers. At sites with organic preservation, unilaterally barbed, self-bladed, and end-bladed toggling harpoon heads are present. Asymmetrical side-notched knives and large side- or corner-notched leaf-shaped points are also common. Groswater peoples were apparently able to exploit a broader range of climates and environments than their predecessors, and rapidly spread throughout Labrador, the island of Newfoundland, and the Quebec Lower North Shore (Fitzhugh 1980:24; Gendron 1999; Gendron and Pinard 2000; Pintal 1994; Plumet 1994; Renouf 1994;

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FIGURE 8.2  Generalized Groswater artifact assemblage from Phillip’s Garden East site.

Photograph courtesy Patricia Wells, Port au Choix Archaeology Project

Ryan 2011). They disappeared west of the Strait of Belle Isle ca. 2200 cal BP, approximately three centuries before they disappeared on the island of Newfoundland (Loring and Cox 1986:66; Ryan 2011:93; Tuck 1988:112; Tuck and Fitzhugh 1986:164). As outlined by Ryan (2011:93), Groswater sites have been difficult to identify on the island of Newfoundland and elsewhere, because they tend to be small, and ephemeral, with shallow stratigraphy. Moreover, they tend to be overlain by extensive Middle Dorset (see below) occupations, which can obscure visibility of this earlier manifestation (Wolff 2008b; Wolff and Holly 2018). Groswater sites are generally found adjacent to the coast, which is consistent with their preferred subsistence strategy, which was heavily biased toward seasonal ­aggregations of harp seals (Wells 2005, 2011). However, their small, ephemeral sites and broad distribution tend to indicate a high degree of residential mobility (Ryan 2011:93), and their subsistence strategy was geared toward the exploitation of multiple resources when available, including seabirds, fish, and terrestrial resources (Auger 1984; Wells 2005, 2011). Some evidence of interior forays has also been described, most likely to access caribou (Holly and Erwin 2009), which are found in Groswater faunal assemblages (Wells 2011). On the island of Newfoundland, much of what we know of Groswater culture comes from the Phillip’s Garden West (figure 8.3) and Phillip’s Garden East sites at

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FIGURE 8.3 Phillip’s Garden West site, looking northeast.

Photograph courtesy Patricia Wells, Port au Choix Archaeology Project

Port au Choix, which were excavated by Priscilla Renouf and her many students (Renouf 1994, 2000, 2005; Ryan 1997; Wells 2002, 2005, 2011). It is interesting to note that, just as Pre-Dorset did in Labrador, Groswater Pre-Dorset on the island of Newfoundland also settled near or on important LMA sites. Other important sites include Factory Cove (Auger 1982, 1984, 1986) and the Postville Pentecostal site in Labrador (Loring and Cox 1986). Unlike Labrador, where Ramah chert increases in Groswater sites over time (Loring and Cox 1986), Ramah chert is rare on the island of Newfoundland and colourful Cow Head chert is preferred (LeBlanc 1996:3). As described in chapter 7, the box-based point phenomenon is one that occurs throughout the Atlantic Northeast during the Early to Middle Maritime Woodland Period. The relationship between Groswater Pre-Dorset and these groups to the south is not well understood, though the similarity of the projectile point styles is remarkable. In general, they tend to be thin and very well made, though the assemblages from the island of Newfoundland tend to have the finest made specimens (which were likely harpoon endblades). In fact, Phillip’s Garden West box-based points tend to be extremely refined (figure 8.4), with delicate flaking and fine edge serration, and, sometimes, slightly convex bases (e.g., Ryan 2011). Explanations for this range from ritual activity involving the seal hunt, which required special tools (Renouf 2005; see also Holly 2013:65), to emerging regional identities (Anstey 2010), to aspects of

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FIGURE 8.4  Groswater artifact assemblage from Phillip’s Garden West site. Note the fine boxbased endblades in the upper left.

Photograph courtesy Patricia Wells, Port au Choix Archaeology Project

mobility and curation of finely crafted specimens. As Ryan (2011:Fig. 5.8) demonstrates, such refined Groswater endblades occur throughout the island of Newfoundland, and even on Middle Dorset sites. The special type of Groswater endblades likely all originated in western Newfoundland near Phillip’s Garden after about 2000 cal BP. None of these special, finely made projectile points have been found in Labrador, which suggests that Newfoundland was isolated (Ryan 2011:111), or that Groswater in Labrador ended prior to ca. 2000 cal BP. It may also suggest that a regional, island Groswater identity was signalled by these points (Ryan 2011). Perhaps all these explanations are true to a lesser or greater extent. Combined with their potential use in seal hunting ritual, such material culture may have been conceptualized by Groswater, and those that knew them, as a symbol of a complete way of life, in effect, signalling to themselves and others, “this is who we are.”

Newfoundland and Labrador Dorset (2500 to 1200 cal BP) While Groswater seems to disappear in Labrador by ca. 2000 cal BP, they persisted for some centuries afterwards on the island of Newfoundland. Just like the LMA inhabitants of the region, near the end of the Pre-Dorset period Groswater peoples may have encountered yet another group of immigrants from the north. Indeed, the

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c­ ultural landscape of the entire region was becoming crowded during this time (see chapter 9), with no fewer than three distinct cultural groups occupying some regions (Renouf 2011:Appendix 1; Ryan 2011:109). Just like their Pre-Dorset relatives, the Dorset inhabitants of Newfoundland and Labrador appear to have migrated to the region rather than developing in situ from resident Pre-Dorset (Tuck and Fitzhugh 1986). As Middle and Late Dorset populations increased in Foxe Basin, in the central Canadian Arctic, pulses of people may have migrated out of that region, settling in Labrador and eventually Newfoundland. The first Dorset in Newfoundland and Labrador appear to have inhabited similar or even the same locations as Pre-Dorset residents, or adjacent sites, potentially using the remains of Pre-Dorset settlements, or direct observation of their activities, as a guidepost to best locations for harvesting resources. It is not surprising then, that Port au Choix, which figured so prominently in the lives of Late Maritime Archaic peoples, would also become central to the lives of Dorset peoples on the island of Newfoundland. The archaeological record clearly indicates that Dorset replaced Groswater populations, instead of gradually developing from them, but the mechanisms are poorly understood. The earliest Dorset appear in northern Labrador at approximately 2500 cal BP before they appear in central Labrador and Newfoundland some centuries later. For many years, it was believed that this arrival occurred after Groswater had disappeared, but it is now clear that there was substantial temporal overlap. While some have indicated there is not much evidence for interaction (Anton 2005), there is persistence in many aspects of material culture and in the use of axial features in dwellings. This is not unexpected, however, as both groups descended from a common ancestor with the same technology and architecture. Holly (2013:83) suggests it is possible that technological and social ideas are what colonized Labrador and Newfoundland, not people, and it is likely that this is partially correct. However, the abundant evidence of temporal overlap both in Labrador and Newfoundland (Anton 2005; Hartery and Rast 2002; Renouf 1993) suggests that a migration of people must have been involved, even if the initial population numbers were very low. For example, Phillip’s Garden West type Groswater endblades can be found on Dorset sites throughout the island of Newfoundland (Ryan 2011) during a period when both cultures overlap temporally. Given the symbolic importance of these points, their presence at Dorset sites suggests the transmission of ideas was important in this process. The disappearance of Groswater, however, may have involved a slow process of acculturation, as both groups exchanged ideas, and eventually exchanged people as well, becoming a homogenous cultural and genetic entity. Whatever the mechanisms of the replacement, Dorset settlements tend to be much larger and more intensively occupied than Pre-Dorset settlements, and in both

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Labrador and Newfoundland subsistence shifts to an overwhelmingly intensive seasonal focus on small seals, likely taken on the sea ice or at the floe edge (e.g., Cox and Spiess 1980; Hartery and Rast 2002; Hodgetts et al. 2003; Jordan 1986; Murray 1999, 2011; Renouf 2011). While other animals are present in Dorset assemblages, such as caribou, walrus, migratory birds, and furbearers, seals are often so dominant that they make up more than 90% of the bones identified (Cox and Spiess 1980; Hodgetts et al. 2003; Murray 2011; Renouf 2011). At some sites, such as Port au Choix, evidence suggests that seals were taken in multiple seasons (Hodgetts 2005), implying that residential mobility was potentially lower than it was during the preceding Groswater period. Dorset material culture is also substantially different from Groswater artifact assemblages (figures 8.5, 8.6, 8.7, and 8.8). In Labrador, the preference for Ramah chert over other types of chert is clear. Furthermore, Dorset endblades are triangular rather than side notched, and while well made, do not show the distinctive refinement of the Groswater endblades. Harpoon head styles change drastically, and can be described as toggling, with close socketed, basal barbs, and an endblade slot perpendicular to the single gouged line hole. In general, material culture is more diverse than in the preceding period, including a suite of bevelled and ground slate tools used for scraping and cutting hides, abundant soapstone vessels used both as lamps and cooking pots for seal meat and fat (Renouf 2011:140), and abundant sled shoes made of antler and bone.

FIGURE 8.5 Dorset bifaces from Phillip’s Garden.

Photograph courtesy Patricia Wells, Port au Choix Archaeology Project

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FIGURE 8.6 Dorset microblades from Phillip’s Garden.

Photograph courtesy Patricia Wells, Port au Choix Archaeology Project

However, perhaps most unusual is what Dorset material culture seems to be missing. Dorset people begin to gouge, rather than drill, holes in their artifacts, and they do not appear to use bow drills in any way. Bow-and-arrow technology disappears entirely, as do watercraft, and even the use of dogs, which are very useful for breathinghole sealing. Why the Dorset would give up these useful technologies is one of the fundamental mysteries of Eastern Arctic, and North Atlantic, archaeological history. More enigmatically, art, in the form of tiny bone, stone, and ivory effigies, begins to appear, especially during the latest part of the Dorset occupation of the region. These beautiful effigies include seals and other animals, human-animal hybrids, and human forms. Humans are often depicted wearing a jacket with a unique high open collar (in contrast to Inuit hooded parkas). In addition to people, polar bears are the most abundantly carved effigy (figure 8.9), both in naturalistic and abstract forms (Betts et al. 2015). Even on the island of Newfoundland, where polar bears were rare, these effigies are common. Betts and colleagues (2015) studied the prevalence of polar bear effigies in Dorset art across the North and determined that many are shown in hunting or stalking poses. Abundant evidence of bears transforming into humans, and other links between humans and bears, indicates the special importance of this species to Dorset cosmology (Betts et al. 2015). For people who relied on seals so completely, the polar bear, who also specializes in hunting seals, may have been the ideal way to think about and signal Dorset understanding of their place in the world (Betts et al. 2015).

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FIGURE 8.7 Dorset scrapers from Phillip’s Garden.

Photograph courtesy Patricia Wells, Port au Choix Archaeology Project

Throughout the Arctic, Dorset burials are exceedingly rare. This has led some to suggest that they exposed their dead, perhaps on the sea ice, or the land (Brown 2011), and there is some evidence in the form of Dorset art (faces without noses, ears, or eyes) that may reflect this. Furthermore, nearly every known Dorset burial contains highly disarticulated remains, indicating likely exposure prior to interment (Brown 2011:245). Uniquely, on the island of Newfoundland, Dorset people appear to have

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FIGURE 8.8 Dorset endblades from Phillip’s Garden.

Photograph courtesy Patricia Wells, Port au Choix Archaeology Project

buried their dead in caves, providing important information on mortuary behaviour. In fact, of six known Dorset burial contexts, five are from caves or rock shelters (Brown 2011:238). Grave goods include a range of domestic implements such as bifaces and typical Dorset endblades, needles, barbed points, fish spear prongs, foreshafts, ivory pendants, shells, microblades, and burin-like tools. Some of the largest Dorset sites in their entire range occur on the island of Newfoundland. At Port au Choix, 88 dwelling have been recorded (Eastaugh and Taylor 2011). As Renouf (2011:143) describes (see also Harp 1976), the dwellings could be large and very elaborate. Roughly 10 m x 12.5 m in dimension and often larger, they were defined by a ring of post holes, inside of which was a s­ emi-subterranean rectangular-to-oval depression. Around the edges of the depression was a higher platform some 2–4 m wide, built up from the floor surface with a­ lternating layers of

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FIGURE 8.9 Tiny Dorset soapstone polar bear effigies from Shuldum Island, Labrador.

Photograph courtesy The Rooms Corporation of Newfoundland and Labrador, Provincial Museum Division

medium-sized stones. A large central hearth, or cooking area, dominated the middle of the dwelling. Walls were reinforced with stones, and post holes for central support poles were uncovered in the centre of the dwelling, attesting to the size of the superstructure covering required. Whale ribs recovered from some dwellings suggest that these may have been used as roof architecture on at least some, if not the majority, of dwellings (Renouf 2011:145). These were likely from scavenged whales, which are not uncommon today on the shores of Newfoundland, as there is little evidence that whales were hunted by Dorset people. We know little about Dorset social structure, but their material culture, or more importantly the absence of some types of tools, combined with the amount of mobiliary art they created, indicates a rich spiritual life that impacted all aspects of their daily existence. The large dwellings at Port au Choix and the intensity of the occupation suggest that, as in other areas of the Canadian Arctic, seasonal aggregations, when prey was hunted communally, proceeds were processed communally, and social ties were reinforced, were a critical part of Dorset social life (e.g., Holly 2016; Renouf 2011:148–153). Ritual was also likely important here, as Dorset people enacted relationships with the natural world, using effigies and other means, to ensure the success of the crucial seal hunt (Renouf 2011:149). However, there is no evidence at Dorset sites that any dwellings were more elaborate, or richer than others, suggesting that overall Dorset society generally lacked social stratification or hierarchy (beyond the

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presence of ritual specialists or shamans). Instead, the focus seems to have been on the group, which came together to share in the labour of the hunt, and its proceeds, at a crucial time of the year (Renouf 2011:154–155). The reason for the decline of Dorset is one of the great mysteries of the archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast. At sites like Port au Choix, Dorset occupation appears to end around 1200 cal BP. We know that the climate was warming during this time, and that the Labrador Current was impacted by climate change. Like elsewhere in the Canadian Arctic, it appears to have had a detrimental impact on the Dorset, who relied on the ice platform for hunting seals. Renouf and Bell (2009; see also Renouf and Bell 2008; Bell and Renouf 2008) have speculated that just this scenario happened at Port au Choix. It did not happen immediately, but over the course of several generations, uncertain ice conditions may have wreaked havoc on Dorset society, who had so much invested in the communal seal hunt. Just like the LMA before them, their extreme marine specialization, and need for social aggregations, may have been critical in their decline. The disappearance of Dorset in Newfoundland and Labrador appears to have occurred approximately 400 years before the last gasps of Dorset in the Canadian Arctic. While the reasons for this are not well known, it almost certainly is linked to climate change, which would have affected sea ice, and thus seal populations, most severely in the south, before continued warming affected the sea ice platform in northern regions. Unfortunately, it appears that the Dorset left little cultural (though some transmission may have occurred) and virtually no genetic descendants (Hayes et al. 2005; Raghavan et al. 2014) and simply disappeared into history.

The Arrival of Inuit (600 cal BP to Modern Era) The first Inuit, known as the Thule Inuit, arrived in the Canadian Arctic around 800 years ago, just prior to the demise of Dorset culture in their last refuges in the Central Arctic (e.g., McGhee 1996; Friesen and Arnold 2008, 2020). It seems relatively clear that the Thule substantially impacted Dorset society by setting up on their preferred sites and competing with them for resources. Just like LMA and Pre-Dorset populations, this competition may have eventually marginalized Dorset, by forcing them to less productive areas (Friesen 2009). The migration of the first Inuit into the Arctic was rapid, and apparently targeted to the High Arctic around Ellesmere Island and Northern Greenland. Here they had ready access to bowhead whales, walrus (and their ivory), and meteoric iron. With such wealth they could re-establish a familiar way of life from their northern Alaskan homeland, which was ruled by competition and prestige, as powerful whaling captains and their followers vied for control of the most productive whaling locations.

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The arrival of Inuit in the Atlantic Northeast occurred many centuries after the initial Thule Inuit migration from Alaska and involved a people who had already changed somewhat from those who initially populated the Arctic. As outlined recently by Kaplan and Woollett (2016:857), the timing of the migration into Labrador is controversial. Radiocarbon dates on various materials place it variously from 750 cal BP (Fitzhugh 1994) and 600 cal BP (Whitridge 2008) to as late as 500 cal BP (Ramsden and Rankin 2013). Kaplan and Woollett (2016:857) argue that by 600 years ago “Thule settlements were widespread in Labrador, extending at least as far south as the Nain region.” Inuit inhabitants of Labrador had advanced technology and hunting practices that gave them the ability to exploit the sea in a way that previous peoples in the region could not (figure 8.10). Powerful sinew-backed bows permitted long-distance hunting of land animals, especially caribou. Skin-covered kayaks and umiaks (large open boats) could be used to take all manner of swimming mammals, from caribou on rivers to seals and even whales on the ocean. These watercraft, combined with their dogs and sledding technology, made Inuit highly mobile, and capable of a finegrained articulation with the Labrador coast and its seasonal and resident resources. Netting and jigging technology allowed them to take fish at will, while harpooning technology, with specialized foreshafts for different types of mammal hunting, and deadly toggling harpoon heads, allowed for efficient harvests of sea mammals. Woollett (1991) has identified bowhead whale at Nunaingok-1 and Nachvak Village, but the faunal assemblage was dominated by phocid seals and a substantial quantity

FIGURE 8.10 Inuit hunting technology from Labrador: (a) whale effigy; (b) toy or effigy knife; (c) dog trace buckle; (d) sled shoe; (e) harpoon head; (f) ulu; (g) knife handle; (h) knife blade; and (i) mattock.

Photograph courtesy Lisa Rankin, Rigolet Community Archaeology Project

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FIGURE 8.11 Inuit semi-subterranean house floors at Double Mer Point, near Rigolet, Labrador. Note the cold-trap entrance tunnels at the bottom of the photograph.

Photograph courtesy Lisa Rankin, Rigolet Community Archaeology Project

of birds. In Nachvak Fjord, Swinarton (2009) identified a broad range of species, including walrus, small seals, and polar bears, in addition to caribou and other terrestrial mammals. Their dwellings were unlike anything seen in the region previously (figure 8.11). They were small, 4 m x 6 m on average (Kaplan and Woollett 2016:858), and usually subrectangular, excavated into the ground to conserve heat, with a long “cold trap” entrance tunnel. At the rear of the dwelling was a bench, made from sod, logs, or more usually stone. The dwellings were covered in a superstructure of wood or whale bone and in a thick layer of sod, making them very thermally efficient. Inuit thrived in this region of the world (Kaplan and Woollett 2016). By the time Europeans arrived in Labrador more than 400 years ago, Inuit settlements in northern Labrador were very large. In the earliest periods, Inuit settlements contained four or five houses, each with a nuclear or extended family. There is some evidence of settlement change over time, with a move from outer islands to more sheltered inner islands and bays over time (Kaplan 1983). At these sheltered sites, Inuit lived in large communal houses with as many as three sleeping platforms, each occupied by a family unit. Sites contained two or three of these large houses, and upwards of 60 individuals. Powerful leaders emerged in these villages, usually men, who were, like the earlier Thule whaling captains, responsible for the spiritual and economic well-being of their families and followers (Kaplan and Woollett 2000). These leaders played important roles in the early trade with Europeans, especially for furs, and several became very wealthy. Some of these leaders were women, such as Mikak, who was a powerful and wealthy trader in the late eighteenth century (Fay 2015).

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Inuit penetrated far into southern Labrador and the Quebec Lower North Shore, but, save for some Inuit soapstone in Notre Dame Bay (Lysaght 1971), do not appear to have inhabited or even utilized the island of Newfoundland in a significant manner (though place name studies indicate they knew its geography). The earliest archaeological investigations of Inuit sites in this region indicate significant interaction with Europeans, to the extent that rectangular Inuit houses are sometimes mistaken for early European dwellings (Fitzhugh 2016:943). In Hamilton Inlet, these sites, houses, and assemblages have been called “Europeanised” (Fitzhugh 1972; Jordan 1978; Kaplan 1985). Inuit regularly collected from Basque whaling and fishing encampments during the sixteenth century (Barkham 1980; Turgeon 2000), and undoubtedly participated in an early fur trade that only increased over time. Near Cartwright, at Snack Cove, large communal Inuit houses were encountered by Fitzhugh (1987) and have been extensively tested by Rankin and her students in a community-based project (Brewster 2006; Murphy 2011; Rankin 2010). Several communal houses were also recently encountered at St. Michael’s Bay (Stopp and Wolfe 2011). Evidence of Inuit in Quebec becomes even more scant than in southern Labrador, though some sites have been identified. At Baie des Belles Amours, two winter houses were discovered (Dumais and Poirier 1994). Recent research by the Smithsonian led to the discovery of Inuit winter houses at Little Canso Island dating to the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries (Fitzhugh 2016:946). Fitzhugh (2016:944–946) suggests that these Quebec settlements were part of an Inuit desire to access European trade. Like sites in the North, harp seal, caribou, and fish were staples of subsistence practice (Fitzhugh and Phaneuf 2014), and the artifact assemblages, which contain substantial European trade items, indicates the importance of European goods to the people who lived there. At Hare Harbour, Fitzhugh (2016:948) has encountered Inuit items in Basque sites, showing substantial direct interaction. In addition to Inuit use of Basque features, Inuit winter houses were encountered adjacent to the Basque site. Fitzhugh interprets the site as a possible site of a Basque outpost “operat[ing] with Inuit partners.”

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CHAPTER 9

THE BOREAL WOODLAND (CA. 3000 TO 550 CAL BP) AND MIDDLE MARITIME WOODLAND PERIODS (CA. 2200 TO 1300 CAL BP) Introduction On the South Shore of Nova Scotia is a deeply indented bay, fjord-shaped, with shallow waters surrounded by low, forested hills. The harbour is lined with brilliant white sandy beaches that stretch for kilometres on its northern and southern shores. It is known as Emsik to the Mi’kmaq, a word meaning “blown along by the wind” or “pass by, in air” (Brown 1922:117). Its shores always have a pleasant breeze and its rocky headlands and lush forests make it one of the most idyllic places in Nova Scotia. It has seemingly always been this way; in 1604, Emsik was the first harbour Champlain encountered on his mapping and survey expedition, and he named it Port Joli – the pretty harbour. Even today, Port Joli’s beaches are known for their soft-shell clams (Mya arenaria), and locals often come here with clam-rakes and shovels to collect them for a summertime clambake. This tradition, which began in ancient times with the Mi’kmaq, has lasted for over 1500 years. When Champlain encountered it in 1604, the harbour had already been intensively inhabited by the Mi’kmaq for a millennium. At the start of the Middle Maritime Woodland Period, ca. 2200 years ago, Emsik was not a harbour at all. As sea levels rose, the harbour slowly developed, and extensive beaches and shallow intertidal regions were created. By 1500 years ago, the harbour had extensive beaches many times larger than they are today, with many foreshore clam flats that undoubtedly supported millions of soft-shell clams. Archaeological evidence indicates that, as soon as these beaches developed, the Mi’kmaq began to intensively occupy the harbour (Betts et al. 2017), and the place they created there is unlike any recorded elsewhere in the Atlantic Northeast. At first, the Mi’kmaw occupation of the harbour appeared to be linked directly to its amazing resource productivity, but over time, as Emsik became even more important to Mi’kmaw social and ideological life, Emsik itself, the place, continued to be occupied even as its ecological productivity may have waned (Betts 2019a).

FIGURE 9.1 Key Middle Maritime Woodland and Boreal Woodland sites and locations mentioned in the text.

Map by Alexander Honsinger and Mallory Moran

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No fewer than 21 shell middens are identified in archaeological surveys of the harbour (Betts 2019a) – the largest number of shell middens known in the entire province of Nova Scotia, and indeed a remarkable number for the Atlantic Northeast. Furthermore, the largest intact shell middens in the province are found in Port Joli Harbour. The first inhabitants of Port Joli appear to have been drawn here ca. 1600 cal BP by the abundant soft-shell clams. So productive were the clam flats that many families aggregated at them to share in the labour of collecting and processing clams for winter storage. This way of life was so successful that it endured for centuries, and some sites were occupied for over 1000 years. In many respects, the sites the ancient Mi’kmaq created, and the social relationships they established, appear to have been specific to Port Joli, while at the same time participating in cultural and social movements that had gripped the entire Northeast, and which were, in some ways, a reaction to the turmoil of the transition from the Archaic to the Early Maritime Woodland period. As Black (2002:303) has pointed out, archaeologists have, until recently, tended to treat the Maritime Woodland period “as a single, undifferentiated adaptation spanning the years from ca. [2250 to 400 cal BP]” (e.g., Bourque 1995; Sanger 1987). However, significant cultural change occurred during this time. When compared to the Early Maritime Woodland period, the Middle Maritime Woodland appears to be a time of cultural, economic, and technological fluorescence. Sites become larger and more diverse and appear in more locations around the landscape than in the Early Maritime Woodland period (figure 9.1). Subsistence appears to intensify, especially in relation to the exploitation of marine resources. At the same time, in certain locations, important indications of social and ideational e­ xpressions become more entrenched and become recognizable as those that are described from the Protohistoric period (see chapter 11). In short, the Middle Maritime Woodland appears to be the time that Indigenous culture, as it was encountered at the time of European contact, began to emerge in the Atlantic Northeast.

Middle Maritime Woodland on the Maritime Peninsula (2200–1300 cal BP) THE IMPORTANCE OF CLAMS

Shellfish had been an important part of diets on the Maritime Peninsula since the Late Archaic, but, except at a few special sites such as Turner Farm (Bourque 1995), appeared to become less important during the Transitional Archaic and the Early Maritime Woodland periods. The reasons for this are unclear, but may be related to rising sea

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levels transgressing clam flats, and to the perceived “interior” focus of Susquehanna (see chapter 8) that appears to have replaced Late Maritime Archaic populations in many regions. It may also be related to archaeological visibility, as many Early Maritime Woodland shell middens may have been destroyed by coastal erosion, though it is important to note that the lack of these sites during the early period is consistent with a general decline in population throughout the region (e.g., Fiedel 2001). However, by 2200 to 1500 cal BP, Middle Maritime Woodland sites appear to become established at locations advantageous to clam harvesting, particularly in sheltered bays and islands with extensive beach and foreshore flat systems. At Port Joli, for example, sites were established adjacent to these beach systems as soon as sea level rise created them, ca. 1500 cal BP (Neil et al. 2014; Neil and Gajewski 2019). The Middle Maritime Woodland period shell-bearing sites at Port Joli occur in two very distinctive types. The first are very large shell middens, over 1 m deep, greater than 300 m2 in area, and consisting primarily of large unbroken clam shells and animal bones, with very limited soil development and no evidence of substantial features, hearths, or dwelling floors, though abundant charcoal was present (figure 9.2). Many years prior to their identification in Port Joli, David Sanger (1996b:523) speculated that such middens might be encountered, and proposed that the lack of features and the apparent rapid accumulation (without soil) would indicate a deposit

FIGURE 9.2 Large Middle Maritime Woodland processing midden, AlDf-24 Area A, at Port Joli, Nova Scotia (­subject is standing at the base of the midden, which is the raised, treeless area behind her).

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, E’se’get Archaeology Project

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resulting from intensive processing of clams for storage. This was done via drying, and likely smoking, which could have been accomplished with small fires on the midden, or more likely hanging clams from the rafters of wigwam dwellings over the communal hearth (see also Black and Whitehead 1988). At Port Joli, radiocarbon dates indicate that this midden formed rapidly around 1500 cal BP, with four radiocarbon dates from top to bottom essentially indicating a radiologically indistinguishable date of deposition (Betts 2019a; Betts et al. 2017). The size of the midden and its rapid accumulation suggest that multiple families came here every summer to share the labour in processing large quantities of clams for storage, and likely for winter consumption. As we shall see, these aggregations have important implications for social and ideational action during the Middle Maritime Woodland. The other type of site in Port Joli was much smaller and located ca. 300–400 m inland from the coast. They appear as small sites with several small “kitchen middens” (figure 9.3) often adjacent to, or surrounding, small black soil areas (strata with comminuted charcoal and dense artifact scatters), which were likely wigwam dwelling floors or other activity areas (figure 9.4). The small dense middens consisted of higher concentrations of broken clam shells and more soil, and more lithic tools, though with similar quantities of ceramics and animal remains (Betts 2019a; Betts et al. 2017). Such middens were likely created by repeated occupation of the same site by one or two

FIGURE 9.3 Small Middle Maritime Woodland near-interior shell midden, AlDf-30, at Port Joli, Nova Scotia.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, E’se’get Archaeology Project

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FIGURE 9.4  A Middle Maritime Woodland period house floor, outlined here with string. The ephemeral floor was determined from soil compactness, the presence of charcoal, and increased frequency of flaked stone and ­pottery.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, E’se’get Archaeology Project

families, likely at different times of the year from the large processing midden sites (see below). In the Quoddy Region of Maine and New Brunswick, Middle Maritime Woodland shell middens have many similarities and several key differences. Unlike in Nova Scotia, they are located on insular islands and on more exposed mainland sites, and often have Early Maritime Woodland components, often without shell, under them (Black 2002). This is substantially different from Nova Scotia, where Early Maritime Woodland shell middens are not common. Furthermore, the Quoddy Region middens tend to have a greater diversity of shellfish represented, and in much higher proportions, including mussel, urchin, soft-shell clam, surf clam, oyster, razor clam, and moon snail (e.g., Black 1992, 2002), whereas South Shore shell middens are almost entirely soft-shell clam with only traces of other species. The Quoddy middens all tend to be kitchen middens, and no processing middens are known (Sanger 1996b; Black 2002). Unlike in Port Joli, the middens tend to have living floors “interdigitated among substantial shell midden deposits” (Black 2002:311; Spiess et al. 1990), which tends not to be the case in many Nova Scotia shell middens. Regardless, Middle Maritime Woodland middens in the Quoddy Region are substantial in extent and thickness, and tend to have large frequencies of shell that predominate over soil, just as in Middle Maritime Woodland strata from Port Joli and elsewhere on the Maritime Peninsula (e.g., Davis 1978; Lelièvre 2017c; Smith and Wintemberg 1929:9, 112).

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As noted by Black (2002:311), these sites often preserve animal remains in a remarkable state, and they are well demarcated stratigraphically. Shell is so common in many of these Middle Maritime Woodland midden contexts that it literally becomes the depositional matrix in which the site is preserved (figure 9.5). The contribution of clams or shellfish to the diet may be misleading because one mollusc equals a minuscule amount of meat protein, compared to even the smallest vertebrate animal, which are abundantly represented in Middle Maritime Woodland shell middens. However, recent research by Spiess (2017) has revealed that shellfish at the Kidder Point (Spiess and Hedden 1983) and Indiantown Island (Spiess et al. 2006) sites, which had substantial Middle Maritime Woodland components, potentially contributed a staggering proportion of protein to the diet. Spiess and his colleagues either counted the numbers of clam shells excavated, or weighed the shell itself, along with similar quantifications of the animal bones. By multiplying these values by estimated meat weights for each species, he was able to quantify the proportion of meat protein provided by each taxon. At Indiantown Island over 91% of the meat was accounted for by clams (Spiess 2017:6), while at Kidder Point, clams provided ca. 86% of the protein. Similar calculations by Black (1992) in the Quoddy Region of New Brunswick revealed a range between 35% and 95% of the meat contribution to the diet. This research clearly demonstrates that clams were the focus of procurement at these sites, and by many measures could represent highly specialized economic activity.

FIGURE 9.5 Middle Maritime Woodland processing midden, AlDf-24 Area A, at Port Joli, Nova Scotia, during excavation. Note the general absence of soil layers and features.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, E’se’get Archaeology Project

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SUBSISTENCE AND SETTLEMENT CREATE A PEOPLE

With clams providing such an impressive proportion of the protein in the diet of Middle Maritime Woodland peoples, at least to those who lived on the coast, it may seem trivial to mention other aspects of subsistence. However, the harvesting of mammals, birds, and fish helped to define Middle Maritime Woodland ways of life, and especially their relations with the natural world. We shall begin on the coast, where much of the evidence for prehistoric Wabanaki lifeways is best preserved. Much of our information on this time comes from the Maine and New Brunswick Quoddy Region, southwestern Nova Scotia (especially the South Shore), and Merigomish on Nova Scotia’s North Shore. What emerges when comparing these regions is a “mosaic” (Nash 1984:225) of settlement and subsistence that broadly focused on marine/coastal environments with an interior element that remains difficult to establish as separate and distinct, or as an integrated part of the normal seasonal round. Recent research in Port Joli has resulted in a high-resolution understanding of the latter part of the Middle Maritime Woodland period (Betts et al. 2019; Betts et al. 2017) between 1600 and 1400 cal BP. As indicated above, the focus of occupation appears to have revolved around large clam flats, where large shell middens were placed on rocky headlands, likely several hundred metres from the beach when the site was occupied. No dwellings associated with these large shell middens were discovered, but adjacent artifact-rich deposits may indicate that the inhabitants lived at the landward edge of the shell mound, or potentially on the beach, where their occupations could not be discerned. These middens accumulated rapidly, within a few generations at most, as the radiocarbon dates from the top to the bottom of them are statistically simultaneous (Betts et al. 2017; Betts 2019a). Evidence suggests that multiple families came together to dry and smoke clams at these large sites, but this is not all they were doing. The vertebrate fauna from the midden indicates a focus on eel fishing, birding (ducks and geese), and the jigging of Atlantic cod. Deer, caribou, moose, small seals, and small mammals were present in the midden, but not in substantial quantities. Isotopic data from shells and the limited evidence of migratory birds suggest a summer occupation, from late spring into the mid-fall (Betts et al. 2017). If these data are indicative, then Port Joli was a place where multiple families came together to share in the labour of harvesting clams and other fauna during the summer months. It is almost certain that they stored some of these proceeds, specifically the clams and the fish, and the abundant charcoal in the middens, not associated with hearths or house features, suggests that small fires were used to dry and smoke the meat for later use. The implications of this are that significant storage of the proceeds was possible – but where was it used? The discovery of semi-inland shell middens, ca. 300 m from the present coast and likely at least half a kilometre from the coast when they were occupied around 1500 cal BP, provides an answer. These smaller sites exhibit shallow middens associated with living 196 

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floors from wigwam-like structures. While clams are still abundant, they tend to have more soil development and a higher proportion of animal remains than the large summer shell middens. Atlantic cod and snowshoe hare occur in much higher frequencies here than in the summer middens, while caribou and moose are present in similar frequencies. No seals were encountered in this midden, nor were eels. Isotopic data from soft-shell clams at the site, as well as migratory waterfowl, indicate a likely winter occupation. If this is correct, it is definitive evidence that Middle Maritime Woodland peoples occupied the coast year-round, which tends to be at odds with settlement and seasonality described in the ethnohistorical record. The location of the sites further into the interior, in sheltered locations and adjacent to low hills that are preferred travel routes for fall caribou and moose (when they are at their prime), further reinforces a cold-season occupation for the sites. The large processing middens in Port Joli seem to have no analogue on the Maritime Peninsula (e.g., Sanger 1996b:563) – the closest may be the unique massive Whaleback and Glidden oyster middens from the Damariscotta River estuary in Maine (Sanger and Sanger 1997), but the structure of these middens is very different from the Port Joli middens. Evidence of coastal cold season settlements are known in the Quoddy Region (e.g., Black 1993; Sanger 1996b), though the nature of the seasonal movements was somewhat different than in Port Joli (see below). Seeking to evaluate the Atlantic Northeast in terms of hunter-gatherer mobility generally and later historic accounts, archaeologists have developed various models for subsistence and settlement in Nova Scotia (e.g., Davis 1987, 1993; Nash 1984; Nash and Miller 1987; Nietfeld 1981; Stewart 1989). Davis’s (1993:97) contiguous habitat subsistence model “sees four habitat zones as contributing to settlement patterns and transhumance in precontact times. The zones include an inshore marine habitat, an intertidal habitat, a riverine/ lakes habitat and a forest habitat.” He proposes that the ancient Mi’kmaq relied heavily on interior rivers and lake outlets during certain times of the year, similar to the traditional summer/coastal, winter/interior “ethnohistoric maritime model” (e.g., Nash and Miller 1987:42). However, researchers have questioned the validity of the early historic model, which may have been heavily altered after the arrival of Europeans. In a challenge to this model, Nash (1984:225) proposed a “mosaic model,” whereby “adaptation to resource variability … yields a mosaic of maritime adaptions – each a local expression of a flexible and generalized economy.” However, Stewart (1989) concluded that, based on faunal remains from sites, in Cape Breton Island the traditional settlement and subsistence model likely holds at least in that portion of the province. Others have proposed the possibility of semi-permanent “fall through spring coastal settlements” (Nietfeld 1981:558) near large shellfish beds, offset by a mobile interior/ costal settlement strategy during the summer months (Nietfeld 1981:209–210). In Port Joli, permanent year-round settlements have not been identified, but at least some portion of the population stayed at the harbour, moving from the large THE BOREAL WOODLAND AND MIDDLE MARITIME WOODLAND PERIODS

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processing middens closer to more sheltered locations on the coast during the winter months, where cervids and small mammals were readily available. These seasonal moves were minuscule in terms of hunter-gatherer mobility, representing at most a few hundred metres. The small size of these winter sites suggests a form of dispersal, and their limited number indicates that at least some portion of the summer population settled elsewhere than in Port Joli Harbour (though visibility of the near-interior middens may be a confounding issue). This type of seasonal movement would be familiar to groups living in Passamaquoddy Bay (e.g., Black 2002; Sanger 1996b), where peoples moved from exposed warm season coastal sites, usually on islands, to protected or sheltered cold season sites, usually on the mainland. In stark contrast to many Passamaquoddy Bay sites, seal remains in Port Joli’s Maritime Woodland middens occur only in trace frequencies (e.g., Black 2002). But on Prince Edward Island’s northern shore, evidence indicates that ancient Mi’kmaq appear to have specialized in the exploitation of large pinnipeds, in this case walrus (Leonard et al. 1989). Ingraham and colleagues (2016) have proposed that the dearth of phocid remains at some Maine shell midden sites was due to selective discard of phocid remains. This may explain the phenomenon in some Nova Scotia sites (Betts et al. 2017), but it is more likely the result of less access to seal haul outs than in coastal Maine. Another difference is in the proportions of shellfish in middens. While the range of species is generally comparable, in Quoddy Region sites, mussels and other shellfish are sometimes as great as 10–30% by shell weight (e.g., Black 2002:308, 311), but in Port Joli, clams always make up more than 99% of shell fraction by weight. REGIONALIZATION AND ARTIFACT STYLE

The material culture of the Middle Maritime Woodland period is distinctive enough that shifts in ceramic decorations have been used as chronological horizon markers (Bourgeois 1999; Kristmanson 1992; Kristmanson and Deal 1993; Petersen and Sanger 1993; see table 9.1 for a summary comparison). In Petersen and Sanger’s (1993) typology, the Middle Maritime Woodland is subsumed under Ceramic Periods 2 and 3 (CP2 and CP3). Maine ceramics in Period 2 are described as incorporating pseudo scallop shell, dentate, and simple linear tool (stamped, rocked, and dragged) techniques, with incision and non-standardized punctates usually a secondary form of decoration. Castellations are known, though rare, and walls are generally thin, with grit temper. During Ceramic Period 3 in Maine, a small shift occurs, with pseudo scallop shell disappearing, dentates increasing in size, simple linear tool (rocked) predominating, and increased use of punctates to fill the decorative field. Castellations disappear, and walls become thicker, sometimes with collars. While grit temper still predominates, in some locations shell temper appears, though this might be a consequence of mixed assemblages. 198 

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TABLE 9.1  Maritime Woodland Chrono-Cultural Sequence Compared to Ceramic Period Sequence MARITIME WOODLAND SEQUENCE

RANGE BC/AD (CALIBRATED)

RANGE BP (CALIBRATED)

CERAMIC PERIOD SEQUENCE

RANGE BC/AD (CALIBRATED)

RANGE BP (CALIBRATED)

Early Maritime Woodland

1050–250 BC

3000–2200 BP

CP1 Early Ceramic

1100–200 BC

3050–2150 BP

Middle Maritime Woodland

250 BC–AD 650

2200–1300 BP

CP2 early Middle Ceramic

200 BC–AD 300

2150–1650 BP

Middle Maritime Woodland

250 BC–AD 650

2200–1300 BP

CP3 middle Middle Ceramic

AD 300–600

1650–1350 BP

earlier Late Maritime Woodland AD 650–1000

1300–950 BP

CP4 late Middle Ceramic

AD 600–1000

1350–950 BP

later Late Maritime Woodland

AD 1000–1400

950–550 BP

CP5 early Late Ceramic

AD 1000–1300

950–650 BP

Protohistoric

AD 1400–1600

550–350 BP

CP6 late Late Ceramic

AD 1300–1550

650–400 BP

Historic

AD 1600–Present 350 BP–Present

CP7 Contact (Early Historic)

AD 1550–1750

400–200 BP

SOURCE: Adapted from Black (1992:92, 2002) and Petersen and Sanger (1993:126).

FIGURE 9.6 Middle Maritime Woodland ceramic assemblage from AlDf-24 Area A, Port Joli, Nova Scotia. Note the preponderance of dentate stamped pottery and grit temper.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, E’se’get Archaeology Project

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These general traits appear to have regional variances, with Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia showing differences. In well-dated Nova Scotia assemblages (figure 9.6), castellations persist into CP3, and no evidence of shell temper is visible in Middle Maritime Woodland assemblages (e.g., Curtis et al. 2019). Unlike in Maine, where it is the hallmark of the Late Maritime Woodland, cord-wrapped stick decoration appears to begin in the Middle Maritime Woodland in well-dated Nova Scotia assemblages (e.g., Curtis et al. 2019), as it does in some New Brunswick assemblages (Bourgeois 1999). The lithic technology used in the Middle Maritime Woodland period indicates participation in an extra-regional stylistic tradition that permeates the entire Northeast (Ritchie 1961). A suite of small stemmed, side-notched, expanding stem, large stemmed lanceolate, and leaf-shaped projectile points were manufactured, with analogues at least as far away as New York (figure 9.7). The precise relationship, and any regional variation, in these tool forms has not been explored well in the Atlantic

FIGURE 9.7 Probable Middle Maritime Woodland lithic bifaces from Reversing Falls, Maine.

Photograph courtesy M. ­Gabriel Hrynick

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FIGURE 9.8  A Middle Maritime Woodland bone ­harpoon head from Reversing Falls, Maine.

Photograph courtesy M. ­Gabriel Hrynick

Northeast and represents a major lacuna in our understanding of the period. Similarly, the unilaterally barbed, toggling square based harpoon heads known from putative Middle Maritime Woodland sites (figure 9.8) have direct analogues in the LMA sites throughout the Northeast. These chronological and cultural relationships are as yet largely unexplored. SOCIAL AND IDEATIONAL PRACTICE IN THE MIDDLE MARITIME WOODLAND

Evidence from the South Shore of Nova Scotia is beginning to reveal how the Mi’kmaq created their social history while interacting with the landscape and seascape of the Atlantic Northeast. At the large and extensive clam flats in Port Joli, people aggregated to collectively and cooperatively harvest a resource in a way that doesn’t appear to have occurred previously, or indeed in other locations in the Atlantic Northeast. These communal efforts, which involved thousands of hours, or more, of human labour, resulted in large shell middens that transformed the landscape; the mounds were literally gleaming white monuments to collective effort. A new class of artifact found on these Middle Maritime Woodland shell mounds may document how social relationships functioned at these sites. Five clay-lined clam 202 

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FIGURE 9.9 Evidence of artwork is poorly preserved during the Middle Maritime Woodland, but incised pebbles are sometimes found at coastal sites. Their meaning and use is unclear. This example is from Holt’s Point, New Brunswick.

Artifact stewarded by the Robert S. Peabody Institute; photograph courtesy M. Gabriel Hrynick

shells (figure 9.10), or spark holders, were recovered from the largest shell mound in Port Joli (AlDf-24 Area A; see Betts and Holyoke 2019). These artifacts were used to transport fire from one camp to another, and were thus an important technology when travelling long distances, especially when cooking and smoking were critical to the activities at the destination (like at the Port Joli middens). Ethnographic accounts indicate that the creation of fire and the perpetuation of flame is both a social and spiritual act among the Wabanaki (Lockerby 2004:409). As described by Abbé Pierre Maillard in the eighteenth century, Mi’kmaw women preserved, transported, made, and tended fire, and this activity was a spiritual act accompanied by group ritual. When the fire had been preserved without going out for three months, the fire would become sacred. When the preserved fire was lit at a gathering, smoke would be blown into the face of the woman who had preserved it so carefully, as a sign of respect, and a feast would be held (Lockerby 2004:409–410). Given the presence of these spark holders at these large midden sites, it is plausible that the middens were also locations of group ritual and feasting for the assembled family groups. This ritual may have both established new group bonds and reinforced old affinities as families shifted their practices from single family harvesting and processing during the cold season toward cooperative practices during the warm season. This communal ritual, and the repeated activities over years and generations at these places, may have established these large shell mounds as critical social and spiritual THE BOREAL WOODLAND AND MIDDLE MARITIME WOODLAND PERIODS

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FIGURE 9.10 Middle Maritime Woodland clay-lined clam shells, or spark holders, from AlDf-24 Area A, Port Joli, Nova Scotia.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, E’se’get Archaeology Project

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places. It also suggests that these places were primarily created and maintained by women, given that women likely did most of the shell collecting and processing, probably cooked the feasts, and were the keepers of the flame. At one of the nearby winter sites in Port Joli (AlDf-30), the first feature placed on the landscape, likely contemporary with the processing midden only several hundred metres away, was a sweathouse (Hrynick and Betts 2017). The sweathouse at AlDf-30 (figure 9.11) seems clearly linked to the ritual activities at the nearby large processing middens. As Betts (2019b:360) has outlined, “a hypothetical scenario may have seen [the near-interior sites] first used as a place for sweats, while domestic activities took place [near the large processing middens].… For example, ritual preparation in the form of a sweat may have been necessary to ensure the success of fishing, hunting, and shellfish gathering going on in the summer months.” Ethnohistoric records often associate sweathouses with male ritual activities (Hrynick and Betts 2014, 2017). If keeping the spark was the domain of women, then it may be possible that a counterpart male ritual domain was necessary at another nearby site. Thus, the two sites functioned in tandem as male-female segregations of the landscape, and as places were both men and women could perform the rituals, and maintain the social bonds, necessary to act “right” in the natural and social world of Port Joli. Little research has been conducted on Middle Maritime Woodland extra-regional social and ideational interaction on the Maritime Peninsula. However, many Woodland societies in the greater Northeast participated in what is known as the Hopewell

FIGURE 9.11 Middle Maritime Woodland sweathouse at AlDf-30, Port Joli, Nova Scotia. Note the bowl shape and the large pile of stones in the centre.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, E’se’get Archaeology Project

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Interaction Sphere (Caldwell 1964), a group of related societies who shared material culture, social concepts (and sometimes structure), and aspects of ritual and cosmology. It is unknown how these social and cosmological aspects were enacted or negotiated by Middle Maritime Woodland peoples in the Atlantic Northeast, but pottery styles and lithic material culture clearly indicate that there was a widespread communication of ideas. The presence of shark teeth (Betts et al. 2012) and iron beads (Betts and Holyoke 2019:228) suggest some combined elements may have existed between the societies. However, the social stratification, wealthy burials, extensive trade in exotic materials, and the construction of earthworks, often associated with Hopewell culture, did not appear to penetrate into the region. The reason for this difference is puzzling, given the extreme economic productivity possible from the North Atlantic marine ecosystem. We tentatively explore the reasons for this difference in the conclusion, and make an appeal for more critical research on the topic.

The Boreal Woodland Period in Newfoundland and Labrador At the same time as the development of the Early and Middle Maritime Woodland south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a new First Nations culture entity appears on the island of Newfoundland and in parts of Labrador after a hiatus lasting more than a millennium. These people appear to have been the direct ancestors of the Beothuk and Innu, and the time they lived is known by archaeologists as the “Intermediate and Recent Indian” periods. We recognize that the term “Indian” has many different connotations to different individuals and communities. In Canada, the term is often considered pejorative, and it is rarely used in public or academic discourse. However, in the United States the term is widely used by both academics and Indigenous communities. Our issues with the use of the term to describe the “intermediate” and “recent” periods on the island of Newfoundland is that it is not precise, nor does it connote any real chronological or cultural linkages. At the time the period was defined, this was not seen as a problem, necessarily – it was a new cultural entity that appeared post-hiatus, and it seemingly ended with the disappearance of the last Beothuk, which also precluded it from any relationship with living Indigenous peoples. In the last three decades, it has become clear that the Recent Indian period is culturally similar to the Maritime Woodland Period in both general and specific aspects. For example, and as will be outlined below, projectile point styles are very similar between the Maritime Peninsula and Newfoundland and Labrador, especially in regard to corner and side-notched projectile points. Furthermore, dwelling styles are similar, and especially the later use of birchbark for both transportation and dwelling construction.

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Finally, economic practices, except for the use of shellfish, which are not as abundant on the island of Newfoundland, appear to parallel each other. However, there are important differences. The almost complete lack of ceramics is notable (see discussion below and in chapter 10), and the seasonal round seems to be much more focused on the interior of Newfoundland, and on the seasonal aggregation of pinnipeds, than it is on the Maritime Peninsula. Furthermore, dwellings appear to be larger, but populations smaller, than on the Maritime Peninsula. As a result, we propose a new term to describe this entity, one that evokes potential cultural connections, and tries at the same time to establish a link to the environment to which it appears to be adapted – the sub-Arctic boreal forest. We call this new entity the Boreal Woodland. Just as the term Maritime Woodland evokes a connection to greater Woodland cultures in the Northeast, so does Boreal Woodland. Here we envision it as closely connected to the Maritime Woodland both culturally and technologically, and to the greater Woodland cultural developments throughout the Northeast. Just as the Maritime Woodland strips away certain key traits of the Woodland period, namely horticulture/agriculture and large villages, the Boreal Woodland strips away ceramics and a primarily coastal focus. However, it retains many other core traits, and we envision it as existing on a continuum of Woodland lifeways adapted to the rivers, coasts, and forests of the Northeast.

The Early Boreal Woodland Period in Newfoundland and Labrador (3500–2200 cal BP) Just as LMA was at the brink of collapse throughout its territory, a new people arrived in Labrador. Known initially as the Intermediate Indian period, we now call it the Early Boreal Woodland (see above), and it is, essentially, coeval with the Early Maritime Woodland throughout the Atlantic Northeast. For ease of description and comparison, we have decided to address the entire Boreal Woodland period in the Middle Woodland chapter, though we integrate extensively into the Late Woodland chapter (chapter 10). The Early Boreal Woodland lasted ca. 3500–2200 cal BP, and, as described in chapter 7, populations were low in Labrador and Newfoundland during this time. However, central Labrador contains many more sites than the island during this period, which was, essentially, unused by Early Boreal Woodland peoples. Early Boreal Woodland sites in Labrador are not large, nor are assemblages numerous (e.g., Fitzhugh 1975:129; Holly 2013:61; McCaffrey 2006:170–172; Nagel 1978:125). In southern and northern Labrador, there is very little evidence of an Early Boreal Woodland presence at all (e.g., Stopp 1997:123–126). Yet the assemblages during this time period clearly recall a broadly shared lithic technology, particularly

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in projectile point styles, with Early Woodland assemblages throughout the Northeast. So similar are these that Fitzhugh (1972:111) has even loosely dated some Early Boreal Woodland sites using typological comparison to Early Woodland sites. In fact, the North West River phase (Fitzhugh 1972:152–155) has specific similarities to assemblages from the Tobique area of New Brunswick (Sanger 1991) and Quebec (Martijn and Rogers 1969), which when re-evaluated with comparative material could possibly be Early Woodland in age (e.g., Sanger 2008:34; see also Bourque 1995:176). As Fitzhugh (1972, 1975) and others (Brake 2009; Nagel 1978; Neilsen 2006) have pointed out, Early Boreal Woodland assemblages are particularly diverse, a point Holly (2013:61–62) is quick to note characterizes much of the Early Woodland throughout the Atlantic Northeast. He suggests that, when the LMA ended, the vacuum it created may have been filled by groups who were characterized by “social variability” (Holy 2013:62). In fact, Labrador may have been part of the Early Woodland interaction sphere and its ceremonial networks (Loring 1985, 1989), and Meadowood-type artifacts have been found on the Quebec Lower North Shore (Pintal and Martijn 2002). Part of the issue with this period is the limited amount of study that has focused on it. Nevertheless, sites are not numerous and are very ephemeral, and usually consist of lithic scatters and cobble hearths with some fire cracked rock (Nagel 1978:139). Some sites on the central coast contain large numbers of cobble hearths and one site exhibited 30 such features (Nagle 1978:140). Early Boreal Woodland peoples tended to live close to the coast, but only the inner coast, and their artifact assemblages tend to imply only moderate use of coastal resources. Sites have been encountered from Hamilton Inlet to Hebron, just south of Saglek Bay (Nagel 1978:Fig. 1). The diverse artifact assemblages led both Fitzhugh (1972) and Nagel (1978) to identify several complexes from these assemblages. The types of artifacts include stemmed projectile points, side-notched projectile points (especially on the central Labrador coast), lanceolate bifaces (sometimes with squared or tapered bases), bipointed bifaces, triangular knives, unifacial or oval endscrapers, and double-ended scrapers (Fitzhugh 1972; Nagel 1978). Lithic materials used at these sites include quartz, quartzite, and Ramah chert. Early Boreal Woodland populations co-existed with Pre-Dorset and Dorset populations in Labrador, but there is little evidence that they interacted directly or that they occupied similar regions of the coast. While Paleo-Inuit populations occupied outer coastal areas, Early Boreal Woodland populations tended to occupy the inner coast, closer to the heads of fjords and bays (Nagel 1978:143). Bone preservation is limited, but Fitzhugh (1972) has interpreted an interior hunting and fishing focus with an emphasis on caribou, which is consistent with the number of scraping implements (for working hides), but with some “moderate use of coastal resources” (Nagel 1978:124).

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FIGURE 9.12  A Boreal Woodland lithic ­artifact assemblage.

Photograph courtesy Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Archaeology Office

Previously, such assemblages have been assigned to the “Shield Archaic” (Fitzhugh 1977; Wright 1968) or, in New Brunswick, the Terminal Archaic (Sanger 1971), at least partially based on the lack of ceramics. But many Early Woodland sites in the Atlantic Northeast lack pottery, and, in general, the material culture from these Early Boreal Woodland sites is consistent with Early Woodland technologies throughout the greater Northeast, including side-notched points, Meadowood-like lanceolate points with square bases (e.g., Nagel 1978:Fig. 7-j), endscrapers, and biface styles (figure 9.12). If Boreal Woodland is Woodland-like but without the ceramic technology, the “Intermediate Indian” period in Labrador would appear similar to the assemblages recovered.

The Late Boreal Woodland Period (2200–500 cal BP) It now seems that Tuck’s (1975) contention that there was a descendent (cultural and genetic) relationship between Maritime Archaic and Beothuk (the descendants of the Boreal Woodland) peoples is not supported. Recent DNA studies have shown conclusively that Maritime Archaic peoples are not genetically related to Boreal Woodland or their descendants (Duggan et al. 2017). And yet, when Late Boreal Woodland peoples arrived on the island of Newfoundland ca. 2200 cal BP, they entered an already

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crowded landscape. Dorset populations persisted on the island of Newfoundland until ca. 1200 cal BP, overlapping with, and apparently not genetically interacting with, Late Boreal Woodland groups for over 1000 years. Similarly, the preceding Groswater Pre-Dorset persisted on the island until ca. 1800 cal BP, also overlapping with both Dorset and Late Boreal Woodland groups for centuries. Holly (2013:69) has recently suggested that the end of the Early Boreal Woodland period and the beginning of the Late Boreal Woodland period was the scene of “a significant immigration of people … between about 500 B.C.E. and C.E. 700 [2450 to 1250 cal BP].…Quite plausibly, this is when the first Algonquian speakers entered the region.” There is some evidence for this expansion in Labrador (see Fitzhugh 1972; Samson 1993) and others have suggested similar origins of Algonquian-speaking peoples in the region (Séguin 1985:216, in Denton 2012:127). This expansion corresponds loosely with the beginning of the Late Boreal Woodland. If it did occur at this time, it provides even greater evidence that a Woodland association is appropriate for this time period in Newfoundland and Labrador. This movement is associated with what is termed the Proto-Algonquian expansion (e.g., Bellwood 2005; Fiedel 1990, 1991, 1994, 1999), which appears to have resulted in a spread of Woodland peoples from the Great Lakes region into the eastern boreal forest. How this expansion affected the Atlantic Northeast south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence is unclear, but there is a radical shift in ceramic technology and projectile point styles consistent with the rest of the Northeast in the region at this time. In Newfoundland and Labrador, significant changes also occur, though there is evidence of cultural continuity from the preceding period (just as there is in other areas of the Northeast). Some suggest the bow and arrow arrived during this Late Boreal Woodland Period (e.g., Erwin et al. 2005; Fiedel 1990, Holly 2013:72), though in Newfoundland and Labrador we know that early Paleo-Inuit populations were the first to bring it into the region, and its use may have persisted, if loosely, into later times (Fitzhugh 1975:126). Certainly, Woodland type side-notched and corner-notched lithic technology appears, which elsewhere is assumed to represent arrowhead technology, as well as a smattering of crude ceramics, the hallmark of the Woodland period. Ceramics are so poorly represented in Late Boreal Woodland sites that the rarity of ceramics is a defining and distinct characteristic compared to the rest of the Atlantic Northeast. Ceramics are known only from a Late Boreal Woodland entity known as the Cow Head Complex (ca. 2200 to 1500 cal BP), and then only rarely, through the Gould site (Renouf et al. 2011), which contained relatively abundant grit-tempered ceramics with classic Middle-Woodland dentate decoration (figure 9.13). Three Late Boreal Woodland archaeological complexes are known from the island of Newfoundland. The first, as indicated above, is the Cow Head Complex, so named

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FIGURE 9.13 Dentate ­ eramics from the c Gould site.

Photograph courtesy Patricia Wells, Port au Choix Archaeology Project

for the community close to the site where it was first defined (Tuck 1978). The type site at Cow Head, the Gould site, and Bird Cove sites have provided important insights into the technology of the Cow Head Complex. The lithics are highly variable, and included expanding stem projectile points, large bipointed and lanceolate points, unique contracting stemmed projectile points, unifacial sidescrapers and endscrapers, pièces esquillées, and bipolar cores (Hartery 2001; Teal 2001:13). Sites tend to be located on the western coast of Newfoundland and the lithic assemblages consist primarily of local cherts, though some Ramah is known (Hartery 2001). Like Early Boreal Woodland sites in Labrador, Late Boreal Woodland sites generally consist of lithic scatters around a cobble hearth or series of cobble hearths. The next Late Boreal Woodland complex, temporally, is the Beaches Complex (ca. 1400 to 1000 cal BP), named after the Beaches site, in Bonavista Bay, where it was first defined (Austin 1984:124; Carignan 1975, 1977). This complex contains lithics very similar to contemporary Late Maritime Woodland period sites elsewhere in the Northeast, especially corner and side-notched projectile points and small endscrapers. Also included in Beaches Complex assemblages are lanceolate and triangular projectile points. Similar to the Cow Head Complex, local cherts were preferred, but

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small amounts of Labrador Ramah are known (Loring 1992). Beaches Complex peoples occupied most coastlines of Newfoundland, though with a concentration in the northeast (Teal 2001:11). Their sites are also composed of lithic scatters surrounding cobble hearths, though at one site Reader (1998a) documents two relatively large oval structures ca. 5 m x 10 m, with a potential entranceway lined with packed clay. Like all Late Boreal Woodland sites in Newfoundland, faunal remains are scant, but where they have been found, they represent caribou and small mammals (Reader 1998b:55). The final Newfoundland Late Boreal Woodland complex is known as Little Passage, which apparently dates from ca. 1000 to 500 cal BP, ending with the arrival of Europeans and, essentially, becoming the historically known Beothuk at that time. Regardless, these are the direct ancestors of the Beothuk and can be considered ancient Beothuk (Hull 2002; Teal 2001). Like Late Maritime Woodland contexts, small corner-notched projectile points are abundant in Little Passage assemblages, as are thumbnail endscrapers. Little Passage sites indicate a near complete niche expansion on the island of Newfoundland, and islands, bays, coastlines, rivers, and lakes all contain Little Passage sites (Holly 1997; Pastore 1986:Table 2; Schwarz 1994:60–64). A testament to their success in the boreal environment of this region, they are also found on the Quebec Lower North Shore and in southern Labrador (Pintal 1998; Tuck 1987). Like previous complexes, sites tend to include hearths and associated lithic scatters, though no dwelling structures have yet been encountered. Again, bone preservation is limited in Little Passage sites, but it has been proposed that they seasonally vacillated between coastal exploitation of harp seals and interior exploitation of caribou and other terrestrial resources. Nearly 20 years ago, Stephen Hull (2002) suggested that this period should be rethought, with the earliest Cow Head Complex existing as its own chrono-cultural entity, and the final two complexes, Beaches and Little Passage, redefined as Early and Late Newfoundland “Recent Indian,” or as we define here, Late Boreal Woodland. Much more research is necessary, but such hypotheses indicate the dynamic nature of the period and call for renewed effort in defining the Late Boreal Woodland culture history of the island. Recently, Hull (personal communication, 2020) has used Recent and Late Period to refer to the “Recent Indian” period, though we prefer to use Boreal Woodland terminology for its exposure of cultural connection with societies in the greater Northeast. In Labrador, two additional complexes of Late Boreal Woodland peoples have been identified. The first, Point Revenge, is contemporaneous with Little Passage and is likely related (Loring 1992; Teal 2001), given the striking similarities in their cornernotched projectile points. However, Ramah chert predominates in these tool assemblages (Loring 1992), and there appears to be limited penetration into the Labrador

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interior. Similarly, the Daniel Rattle Complex in Labrador has striking technological similarities to the Beaches Complex (Loring 1992), though it dates slightly earlier (1800–1000 cal BP). These two complexes are directly ancestral to the Innu of Labrador (Loring 1992) and, given the intimate connections between these complexes and those on the island of Newfoundland, the close historical and cultural relationship between Beothuk and Innu is clear.

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CHAPTER 10

THE LATE MARITIME WOODLAND (1300 TO 550 CAL BP) AND LATE BOREAL WOODLAND PERIODS (1400 TO 550 CAL BP) Introduction The periods we term the Late Maritime Woodland and Late Boreal Woodland gloss the Indigenous way of life that Europeans encountered when they came to the Atlantic Northeast. The significance of that contact has tended to obscure profound changes already underway in the region; without elucidating it, the subsequent history of the Americas cannot be understood. We begin this chapter by framing the Atlantic Northeast in terms of economic and settlement change that occurred around 1300 years ago in much of the Northeast (see Hart and Rieth 2002). This regional change offers an opportunity to emphasize how integrated the broader Northeast was before European contact. It also raises important anthropological questions about the interrelationship of several key developments in the Northeast that appear to have originated or at least intensified in the Late Woodland: increasing sedentism and a transition to village life, an abundance of shared technological forms, and a reliance – perhaps – on horticulture. Although much of the Atlantic Northeast probably could have supported maize horticulture, especially in inland river valleys (Leonard 1995), use of the plant did not proliferate. At the same time, the Late Woodland in the Atlantic Northeast was culturally dynamic in economic, settlement, and interactive ways that closely parallel southwesterly neighbours. There is now enough evidence to question the degree to which the Atlantic Northeast was separated from Woodland elsewhere, and to consider the degree to which the Woodland here interrogates and begins to disentangle the causal notions implicit in the Woodland concept. Before we begin, a note about taxonomy and terminology: we use the term Late Maritime Woodland and Late Boreal Woodland to refer to the inhabitants of the Atlantic Northeast from about 1300 cal BP to contact, and regard these groups as ancestral to the Beothuk, Innu, and Wabanaki peoples. For reasons of simplicity – but

not to deny the crucial interactions occurring among Indigenous groups – we have largely considered Inuit ancestors in another chapter. Also, for reasons of expediency, we have introduced the culture history of the complete Boreal Woodland taxonomy in ­chapter 9, but review relevant portions of it here again. Archaeologists have tended to treat the Woodland in the Atlantic Northeast differently for an arcane reason: archaeological taxonomy – how archaeologists try to classify things in ways that can inform about the past. However, by this point in this book it may have become clear that archaeologists working in the prehistoric Atlantic Northeast have not reached consensus about how to categorize the past. These debates manifest most clearly in names, but are underpinned by debates about cultural continuities and discontinuities, temporal overlaps and gaps, regional extent and consistency, and even classic “lumper-splitter” preferences. Our reason for the Late Maritime Woodland and Late Boreal Woodland terminologies are, we admit, not wholly satisfying, and we suspect it will put us at odds with some of our colleagues, but we think it is a defensible one, reflecting similarity in tool kits, subsistence strategies, and in many cases interaction and relatedness. As we discuss below, accumulated evidence suggests technological similarities that are associated with Woodland, as well as social connections and interactions among the groups we term Late Woodland. Moreover, we do not think any existing terminological system is satisfying taxonomically. Some terminologies are also at odds with contemporary language norms and imply discontinuities between pre- and post-­ contact Indigenous groups that did not exist. In Newfoundland and Labrador, these groups have often been termed “Recent Indian.” Thus, in Labrador, our Late Woodland period includes the more recent of the Recent Indian groups, including the Daniel Rattle Complex, and temporally overlapping complexes from Quebec’s Lower North Shore, such as Anse Lazy, Flèche Littorale, and Petit Hauve (Holly 2013:89–90). (In Labrador, we think that the increasing tendency to use terminology such as ancestral Innu is both commendable and accurate and borrow this convention for local contexts at points in this chapter.) Newfoundland has also been described in terms of a series of archaeological “complexes” – roughly equivalent to what a cultural anthropologist might call a “culture” – who were ancestral to the Beothuk Europeans met. As outlined in the previous chapter, these pre-contact complexes include the Beaches Complex (ca. 1400–1000 cal BP) followed by the Little Passage Complex until European contact, when Little Passage begins to be termed Beothuk. This distinction is based almost solely on contact, with Little Passage and Beothuk often occurring at the same site, and the components are often indistinguishable from one another save for the occasional incorporation of European items into Beothuk components. On the Maritime Peninsula, some archaeologists have termed the last thousand or so years the Late Ceramic, or the Late Woodland. Each term reflects the degree to which

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researchers view the period as fitting within the cultural and economic trapping of the Woodland concept (Leonard 1995). Absent corn, did the Atlantic Northeast really have a Woodland? We think a strong case can be made that it did.

The Late Woodland (Maritime and Boreal): An Overview The Late Maritime Woodland’s archaeological record invites us to consider some remarkable places and the ways they were connected (figure 10.1). Among these places is Port Joli Harbour, where in the Late Maritime Woodland a growing population lived year-round on the coast, hunting more deer and consuming fewer – but still many – shellfish. They hunted birds, scavenged whales, and fished. This pattern was repeated in other places – sometimes with logistical forays to islands, such as moving from mainland sites in Passamaquoddy Bay in cold seasons to sites on the bay’s islands in the warm seasons. This pattern could reflect a cultural tension toward developing coastal villages coupled with population expansion, and a need to better augment clam flats, which can become depleted (see Spiess et al. 2006:183). In Newfoundland, Ancestral Beothuk enjoyed that the Dorset were no longer on their island, expanding in population, and beginning to live, especially, at inner coastal areas in places such as the Burgeo Islands, Clode Sound, and Big Barasway, permitting even further success of a broad-spectrum foraging pattern (Renouf and Bell 2009; see Holly 2002). On the interior of the Maritime Peninsula, closely related but probably ethnically distinct people interacted regularly with coastal peoples but maintained a more general foraging strategy. Here, many of their sites were placed at key locations that had, in some cases such as the Bob site (Mack et al. 2002) and N’tolonapemk (Brigham et al. 2006), been utilized for millennia – likely heavily focused on runs of fish, such as alewives. Population expansion, year-round occupation, and the intensification of resources tend to be accompanied by political complexity; this includes year-round occupation of areas with central sites occupied for longer periods than was customary in earlier times, sites devoted to specific economic or spiritual tasks (i.e., a transition toward logistical mobility [sensu Binford 1980]), and invites archaeologists to consider how these communities were organized. While the degree to which centralized political leadership existed and mattered in the Late Woodland is debatable, the conception of it we outline below is consistent with a scenario in which some political leaders, probably holding achieved status, assumed varying degrees of regional significance. Miller’s (1983:51) model for the Mi’kmaq is compelling and “places the Micmac about midway between the levels of tribe and chiefdom: on the attributes of basic structure, integration, and specialization, the Micmac are closer to a tribal level, while on the

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FIGURE 10.1  Key Late Maritime Woodland and Boreal Woodland sites and locations mentioned in the text.

Map by Alexander Honsinger and Mallory Moran

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attributes of leadership, polity, and stratification, the Micmac are closer to the chiefdom level” (see also Hoffman 1955a; Nietfeld 1981). An important task of Late Woodland political leaders may have been to organize aggregations of people at central places for social and economic purposes. Aggregations – at such places as AlDf-24 in Port Joli (Betts 2019a), Goddard (Bourque and Cox 1981), and Gaspereau Lake (Sanders et al. 2014) – would have been (1) extractive, focused around seasonally available and predictable resources; (2) ­productive, for example marked by the production of ceramic vessels and materials that do not survive in the archaeological record such as the manufacture of canoes; (3) integrative, as groups met to maintain myriad social relationships and develop new ones; and (4) accompanied by exchange of items from afar. These leaders may also have organized far-reaching expeditions, likely by watercraft, to acquire goods, travelling along waterways both riverine and coastal, and portaging among watersheds – all requiring generations of accumulated knowledge. These routes and the pre-existing Indigenous trade networks that follow them were the basis for those along which exchange with Europeans would later develop. The historic record hints at later tensions among peoples in the Atlantic Northeast and their horticultural neighbours to the south and west, and the Dorset–Ancestral Beothuk interactions in Newfoundland we discussed in an earlier chapter. Coupled with exchange of raw lithic materials, appearing to be primarily moved around the Atlantic Northeast (often over enormous distances) rather than to the south, we suspect these tensions were at least nascent by the Late Woodland. As Miller (1983:52) notes, such tension to the south would encourage comparable levels of political organization. Leaders may also have organized journeys of hundreds or even thousands of kilometres to acquire exotic toolstone, native copper, non-local nuts, and other items. Speculatively, political complexity and sedentism could have been useful to the expansion of such a canoe tradition. Today, at least, the manufacture of birchbark canoes by Indigenous experts is enormously time consuming and requires much material – bark, wood, roots, sinew, pitch, fat, and so forth. Increased political leadership could have helped harness labour for communally owned watercraft, or particular “boat captains,” who themselves may have been political leaders. In the centuries following European contact, the Atlantic Northeast was composed of ethnically distinct but closely related groups, with levels of political organization ranging from small family bands and hunting groups to confederacies. The composition of these is a source of great debate. However, as we outline in this chapter, there is some evidence that ethnic distinctions were already formed and intensified in local social, economic, and cosmological contexts. We argue that the Atlantic Northeast in

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the millennium before European contact was one of increasing socio-political complexity and expanding interactions and exchange.

Late Woodland Horticultural Neighbours Late Woodland coastal New England was home to various groups of Algonquian speakers. Concurrently, much of the interior was inhabited by Iroquoian language speakers (see Snow 1994). These groups probably all arose to some degree out of a substrate of the shared northeastern Middle Woodland cultural traits described in the previous chapter – although the exact nature of these developments is not agreed upon by all scholars (see Snow 1994:202–203). In coastal Algonquian New England, considerable ambiguity surrounds the exact causal relationships among socio-political complexity, the importance of maize horticulture, and the development of settled village life. At present, the preponderance of evidence points to maize horticulture being at minimum linked with major social change in much of New England, with this analysis being complicated by difficulties identifying maize in the archaeological record, and by inferring co-occupation of dwelling features within a single year- or near-year-round occupation. Based on research by Leveillee and colleagues (2006) and increased size in domestic structures in Late Woodland coastal New England (Farley et al. 2019), it seems likely that at minimum political organization beyond the nuclear family and more closely resembling the village accompanied maize, even if in parts of New England, such as the rich ecosystem of Block Island, people did not extensively rely on maize more than important foraged and hunted resources (see Ceci 1990; Chilton 2005; Farley et al. 2019; McBride and Dewar 1987). These “villages” may have been dispersed over some area with a degree of centralized leadership, and have nucleated in reaction to extra-regional pressures from European and Indigenous neighbours (Leveillee et al. 2006; Waller 2000). Here, it is not at all clear to archaeologists that the widespread adoption of maize south and west of, roughly, the Saco River in southern Maine incited a switch to sedentary village life and the associated social accoutrement such as political inequality and population expansion. Indeed, in coastal southern New England, maize may not have been adopted at all; elsewhere, it may have been treated much as any foraged plant. These causal relationships are similarly difficult to disentangle for Iroquoian groups on the interior (see Birch and Williamson 2013:14–15). However, the presence of nucleated villages of expanding size is much better attested to in the archaeological record by the Late Woodland (e.g., Fox 1990; Williamson 1990). In Iroquoia, villages increased in size and definition, often delineated by palisades. By the end of the Woodland, Birch (2012) suggests the previously separate villages began to coalesce, which may suggest hostility among Iroquoians or with their neighbours.

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Thus, on both the coast and the interior, the Atlantic Northeast was neighboured by increasingly sedentary communities with increasing political centralization. Boundaries, defined physically by palisades or more broadly as territories, and exchange were more pronounced and formalized. These shifts resemble, at least cursorily, the Neolithic in the Old World, where domestication is often regarded as a driver of sedentism that, in neoevolutionary models, facilitates the accumulation of wealth, growth in political centralization and power, and population expansion. Accumulated research from the broader Northeast ca. 1300 cal BP offers a serious challenge to such models, not just because of the ambiguity of maize’s socio-economic impact south and west of the Saco River, but because in the Atlantic Northeast, without substantial adoption of domesticates, the archaeological record suggests similar shifts toward sedentism, territoriality, and long-distance exchange, perhaps facilitated by increased political complexity.

Late Maritime Woodland Settlement on the Maritime Peninsula: “Out of the Blue and into the Black” When Verrazano reached southern Maine in 1524, he reported, in contrast to elsewhere in New England where he had earlier travelled, the people were quite different from the others, for while the previous ones had been courteous in manner, these were full of crudity and vices, and were so barbarous that we could never make any communication with them, however many signs we made to them. They were clothed in skins of bear, lynx, sea-wolf and other animals. As far as we could judge from several visits to their houses, we think they live on game, fish, and several fruits which are a species of root which the earth produces itself. They have no pulse, and we saw no sign of cultivation, nor would the land be suitable for producing any fruit or grain on account of its sterility. If we wanted to trade with them for some of their things, they would come to the seashore on some rocks where the breakers were most violent, while we remained in the little boat, and they sent us what they wanted to give on a rope, continually shouting to us not to approach the land; they gave us the barter quickly, and would take in exchange only knives, hooks for fishing and sharp metal. We found no courtesy in them, and when we had nothing more to exchange and left them, the men made all the signs of scorn and shame that any brute creature would make. Against their wishes, we penetrated two or three leagues inland with 25 armed men, and when we disembarked on the shore,

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they shot at us with their bows and uttered loud cries before fleeing into the woods. We did not find anything of great value in this land, except for the vast forests and some hills which could contain some metal: for we saw many natives with “paternostri” beads of copper in their ears. (Wroth 1970:140–141)

Such early historic accounts have served as a partial basis for considering the Atlantic Northeast as separate from elsewhere in the Northeast. However, as Woodard (2004:66–67) plausibly suggests, the cold local reaction to Verrazano may have been from awareness of atrocities committed by Europeans in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Such a scenario may speak instead to complex patterns of regional identity and integration rather than isolation. Given that Verrazano and his men proceeded to storm violently inland looking for loot, this response may have been more informed than the warm one he was given by more southerly Algonquians. The Quoddy Region is a useful place to begin to visualize the Late Maritime Woodland on the Maritime Peninsula, in no small part because archaeologists started there and have been working out to the rest of the Northeast since the nineteenth century, when G.F. Matthew (1884), Spencer Baird (1881), and others sought to identify past economies and lifeways in the area. Dichotomies often obscure archaeological nuance, but a general way to think about settlement and subsistence in the Quoddy Region can be imperfectly perceived of as two packets of theory and methodology and, simply, the nature of sites being investigated. Based on work focused primarily at large multi-component shell midden sites in the Quoddy Region, David Sanger (1987, 2012) proposed the Quoddy Tradition, in which “despite the littoral setting … the impression is one of terrestrial hunter-gatherers utilizing relatively few marine resources” (Sanger 1987:84). In the aggregate, the archaeological record suggested, in his view, a broad-spectrum pattern of “cold weather foragers” for the entire Maritime Woodland (or Ceramic) period (Sanger 1996b). This view is based largely on the investigation of deep, highly visible, mainland shell midden sites occupied over long periods such as at Carson, Minister’s Island (Sanger 1987), and Teacher’s Cove (Davis 1978). For Sanger, working in the 1970s, this would be a logical decision, and indeed was required to rapidly build the foundations for culture history. The concept of a Quoddy Tradition also drew on a generally distrustful view of the integrity of shell middens; concisely put, the Quoddy Tradition assumes that it is not possible to infer distinct, intact strata and artifact associations consistently within shell middens (this was part of a robust debate throughout the entire Northeast surrounding the interpretive and methodological approaches to shell middens; see especially Black 1993; Brennan 1977; Bourque 1996; Dincauze 1996; Spiess 1988) (figure 10.2).

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FIGURE 10.2 The western end of a ­ ection through the s Central Mound at the Weir site (BgDq-6), Bliss Islands, New Brunswick, provides a unique view of midden accumulation. This stratigraphic section illustrates what many large shell-bearing sites, especially those abandoned before European contact, might have looked like before erosion and Historic period disturbances and with optimal site preservation. Because it was positioned on bedrock, the contents of this mound were not mixed into an underlying substrate; and because they were capped by a thick post-occupation peat deposit, the cultural contents were protected from bioand cryo-turbation and Historic period impacts. The dwelling features were restricted to the level surface of the bedrock outcrop and, as they and the associated middens accumulated over ca. 1200 years, the mound took on a domed shape.

Photograph courtesy David W. Black, University of New Brunswick

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Setting aside large shell middens and an assumption of temporal mixing, Late Maritime Woodland coastal archaeological sites on the Maritime Peninsula tend to shift in appearance from their Middle Maritime Woodland predecessors, a shift that is more noticeable at small sites, such as those David Black worked at, especially on islands in the Quoddy Region. Generally, Late Maritime Woodland middens, both insular and mainland, such as those found at the Camp, Northeast Point (Black 2002), Partridge Island (Bishop and Black 1988), and Devil’s Head (Hrynick et al. 2017) sites, are thinner and contain less soft-shell clam (Mya arenaria) shell. What shell they contain tends to be more crushed and whole valves are rare. Rather than being deep, they are more likely to be of large horizontal extent, and contain discrete dwellings and pit features. Some of them appear to have been associated with specific tasks rather than general life. Invoking Neil Young’s song, David Black (2002:313) has suggested that this structural shift can be visualized as “out of the blue and into the black” as “the Middle-Late Maritime Woodland transition [in the Quoddy Region] is marked by an apparently abrupt structural shift from the mussel-tinged blue-grey of the Middle Maritime Woodland shell middens to the humic stained black of the Late Maritime Woodland soil middens.” This structural shift appears to co-occur with the appearance of pit features at some coastal sites, possibly corresponding with increased storage of foods such as smoked or dried fish or shellfish (see Black and Whitehead 1988). This change in focus, coupled with sound arguments that are increasingly borne out by geoarchaeological studies augmented with refinements in radiocarbon

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dating, has indicated that Late Maritime Woodland shell middens do in fact show this important economic shift. In the Late Maritime Woodland, people hunted more terrestrial resources – probably near the coast – such as cervids (Betts et al. 2017; Spiess et al. 2006), and captured somewhat fewer sea mammals by the end of the Late Woodland (Betts et al. 2017; Black 2017). Whether or not whales were hunted in the Woodland is unclear. Spiess and Lewis (2001:157–159) draw on Rosier’s historic account of a whale hunt from a boat using harpoons, bows, and arrows to suggest that a couple of whales might have been killed annually with the meat distributed among related bands during the Late Woodland. Alternatively, the occasional presence of whale at sites might be due to scavenging drift whales, including to use their bones as occasional stakes, perhaps to tie down wigwams (Black 2017). The scenarios are not necessarily exclusive, and could vary sub-regionally. Recently, Jesse Webb (2018) has conducted detailed economic analysis focused on the identification and recovery of small fish bones from a Quoddy Region site, ­BgDs-15, suggesting not just a previously underappreciated significance of fish economically, but also the potential that specialized exploitation of particular species occurred within the Quoddy Region. Webb examined a series of samples of archaeological sediment screened through 1 mm windowmesh, rather than the more typical 6 mm mesh that had been employed at many Quoddy Region sites. His work identified a remarkable number of tomcod – and virtually no other fauna. Indeed, a single 1 m x 1 m unit at the site could be extrapolated to have been the place of deposition for some 3,100 tomcod, suggesting not just a specialized winter economy, but a highly specialized winter fishery on the scale of those that support socio-political complexity among Northwest coast hunter-gatherers (Webb 2018:113). The Late Woodland intensification (cf. Betts and Friesen 2004) of some resources may have fulfilled a similar role in the Late Woodland of the Atlantic Northeast as did the introduction of maize in southern New England, with similar social implications. Evidence from the capture of seasonally specific species, clam shell growth rings (Black 2002, 2004), and increasingly stable isotopes (Hrynick et al. 2015) show that occupation in the Quoddy Region was marked by a shift to spring-fall occupations on islands and winter occupations on the mainland in the Late Woodland. In terms of settlement and site structure, this may have been accompanied by increasing sedentism at some large sites – such as perhaps some large multi-component sites – with people conducting more logistical forays to sites like BgDs-15; rather than shifting their entire residential group in pursuit of resources, smaller groups of people may have left to conduct specific tasks or collect specific resources before returning to larger residential sites, described by Binford (1980) as a collecting pattern, suggesting the

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foraging pattern described by Sanger (1996b) for the entire Woodland period may have been more characteristic of the Middle Woodland rather than the Late Woodland. Black’s “out of the blue” model remains remarkably apt outside the Quoddy Region, with localized economic differences. These structural changes are clearly e­ vident in Nova Scotia’s South Shore, where the large deep processing middens of the Middle Maritime Woodland are replaced with shallow, black soil middens of great areal extent (Betts et al. 2017; Betts 2019a). In Port Joli Harbour, settlement changed, too, albeit on the mainland, with a shift to more sheltered mainland sites in cold seasons in the Late Woodland. This was accompanied by a change in cervid exploitations from moose and caribou to white tail deer, often with spirally fractured bone, presumably for marrow extraction (Betts et al. 2017) – a pattern seemingly repeated in the Quoddy Region (Hrynick et al. 2017). Essentially, exposed mainland sites in Port Joli may have replaced exposed insular sites and associated tasks in the Quoddy Region. In the overarching sense, fishing- and birding-dominated economies shifted toward a cervid focus, and are accompanied by similar structural changes in the archaeological record to the Quoddy Region (Betts et al. 2017). Newfoundland’s Late Boreal Woodland (especially the Little Passage Complex, ca. 1000 cal BP to contact) is also known from coastal sites but is present in nearly every landform and ecosystem on the island. Contrasting with two-population models for the Maritime Peninsula (see previous chapters), most archaeologists in Newfoundland have embraced a seasonal round in which people exploited both coastal and interior resources; for instance, Schwarz (1994) offers a model of summering at sheltered coastal sites, venturing to the interior to intercept caribou and forage during the fall and winter, and taking seals from more exposed coastal vantages during the spring, when seals are close to shore, hauling out to pup and nurse on still-available sea ice. Most coastal sites were preferentially placed – unsurprisingly – in well-sheltered locations from southwest winds, adjacent to a source of drinkable water, and on flat, well-drained ground (Rast et al. 2004). Complicating settlement patterns in Newfoundland may have been the history – described in previous chapters – of Dorset Paleo-Inuit and Boreal Woodland populations avoiding one another. Implicit in understanding site location in Newfoundland is that “there is no single best-choice exploitative pattern for the sometimes harsh and unpredictable Newfoundland environment, but that each precontact culture reached their own good-choice solution, arrived at within their particular cultural framework” (Rast et al. 2004:52). While we think this is true, we also think there is a risk of overstatement with regard to the ­difference between Newfoundland and the rest of the Atlantic Northeast, with major differences being the absence of deer and moose but larger seal and caribou populations in Newfoundland.

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So far, we have focused mostly on the coast of the Atlantic Northeast. This is largely for reasons of archaeological visibility, as the majority of Late Maritime Woodland sites are known from the coast where they present in shell-bearing contexts. Accordingly, they have been included in economic-oriented studies as well as studies requiring visible features. The absence of a single identified interior dwelling feature from the Maritime Peninsula stands as one demonstrative lacuna. One challenge in addressing the Late Maritime Woodland in the interior has been a relative lack of radiocarbon dates from the period and concerns about bioturbation of shallow deposits (Blair 2004a; Holyoke 2012:159). At many sites, Middle Maritime Woodland and Late Maritime Woodland deposits are not easily resolved stratigraphically (e.g., Mack et al. 2002), even when sites are excavated stratigraphically. Alternatively, if the pattern we have begun to elucidate on the coast also holds for the interior, there may have been fewer, larger sites at places prone to subsequent historic disturbance (Snow 1980:320) or to deep burial – such as on floodplains (Petersen and Cowie 2002). Absent good faunal preservation, interior economic reconstructions are largely inferential, but a focus on terrestrial mammal, anadromous and catadromous fish, and various nuts and wild fruits is likely. Preservation bias discourages nuanced diachronic comparison from the Middle to Late Woodland, and suggestions that interior settlement patterns also became larger, more sedentary, and were accompanied by a shift toward logistical mobility seem plausible. At least one portage site on the interior from the Late Woodland, Mill Brook in New Brunswick (Holyoke and Hrynick 2015), speaks to the importance of canoe travel along interior waterways. In western Maine and northern New England’s interior more generally, Petersen and Cowie (2002) note that there is an apparent decrease in the number of interior sites. At the same time, occasional longhouses have been identified at the edge of maize horticultural zones on floodplains, as have some small archaeological sites especially in uplands. As in southern New England and New York, the Late Woodland transition is accompanied by an increase in pit features, probably for storage. This all implies a settlement shift, roughly consistent with the coastal shifts we have outlined, with fewer larger sites potentially being destroyed by subsequent settlement at key places or being less commonly identified. That this focuses on western Maine is complicated by the possible influence of incipient maize horticulture moving eastward during the Late Woodland, or by the need to interact with or resist increasingly sedentary and politically complex peoples with growing populations living nearby. Clearly much remains to be done to disentangle the local origins of the Northeast-wide settlement shift, especially on the interior, but a starting point may by Petersen and Cowie’s (2002:278–280) call to investigate their hypothesis: “some may disagree but we argue that historic Norridgewock [in western Maine along the Kennebec River drainage] and Fort Hill

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[overlooking the Connecticut River in New Hampshire] support late prehistoric origins for sedentism and defensible locations in northern New England, dating well before European contact” (see also Cowie et al. 1995; Cowie and Petersen 1999; Thomas 1979).

Plants, Gardening, and Possible Domesticates Evaluating this hypothesis across the interior will require a consideration of the influence of various plants in the Atlantic Northeast. Elsewhere in the Northeast, the last thousand or so years of prehistory are marked by a proliferation of domestic plant resources. Floral datasets are far less numerous and arguably more obscure and subject to the vagaries of sampling than faunal ones on the Maritime Peninsula (see Deal 2008; Petersen and Cowie 2002). Nonetheless, a picture of resource intensification, expanding exchange patterns, and settlement change is hinted at by these undoubtedly crucial resources (e.g., Deal 2002). We are hardly the first to note that flotation to recover archaeobotanicals and subsequent identification of them from the interior of the Atlantic Northeast, especially the Maritime provinces, has been insufficient for evaluating contributions of plants to the diet and variability sub-regionally in the consumption and preparation of comestible plants – or even the potential exchange of such foodstuffs as nuts. First, in a general way, the archaeological record suggests a slight Late Maritime Woodland increase in the exchange of floral resources, not unlike lithic materials – one may have accompanied the other. For instance, at Port Joli Harbour, Nova Scotia, a butternut (Betts 2019a) was identified in a Late Woodland context. Butternuts would not have grown in Nova Scotia. Deal (2008) offers that regionally limited wild plants such as butternuts and wild grapes or even occasional domesticates from farther south might have been exchanged around the Northeast, much like lithic materials. As Petersen and Cowie (2002) note, this may have meant that, especially at the southwestern edges of the Atlantic Northeast, domesticates were important, even if not grown locally; it may be putting it strongly, but it is certainly not impossible that “even where it is ultimately documented that local crop raising was of limited importance, the strong likelihood of intergroup trade in cultigens may have allowed local dependence on them and also left them more or less invisible in the archaeological record” (Petersen and Cowie 2002:268). For instance, what might be the implications of the abundant Late Woodland presence of both maize and squash along the Saco River (Asch Sidell 1999; see Petersen and Cowie 2002:272–273) for people nearby who were not themselves growing crops? It is hard to say at the moment, but it is an important question with settlement-subsistence implications. Certainly, the southwestern edge of the Maritime Peninsula poses interesting

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q­ uestions in terms of horticulture and its impacts, because the idea of a rigid horticultural boundary at, perhaps, the Saco River is difficult to imagine, especially given the abundant presence of maize along the Saco at such sites as Little Ossippee North and the Early Fall site, the latter of which contained maize in 70% of the samples prepared for palaeoethnobotanical analysis (Asch Sidell 1999; Petersen and Cowie 2002). Tracy Farm and Norridgewock along the Kennebec River in Maine, for instance, had evidence of a longhouse and extensive pit storage, basically at the southwesterly edge of the Atlantic Northeast, by very early European contact or the end of the Late Woodland (Petersen and Cowie 2002). The floral record hints at intensification of some plant resources. In the early 1990s, Kevin Leonard initiated excavation of the remarkable Skull Island site near Shediac, New Brunswick. There, Leonard excavated an eroding Late Maritime Woodland burial with ca. 75 g of groundnut (Apios americana). The Jesuit missionary Le Jeune related that French missionaries called A. americana “‘Rosary’ because it is distinguished by tubers in the form of beads” (quoted in Beardsley 1939:509). According to Speck (1997:94) tuberous roots were typically prepared by Wabanaki by baking them in the ashes of a fireplace, following which they could be served with maple syrup. Leonard suggests that the tubers were placed in a ceramic vessel and added to a funeral pyre at the site, resulting in a rare case of the tubers being preserved, as they were likely often prepared for human consumption by boiling, making them unlikely to char. In the Northeast generally, preservation for parenchymatous tissue is poor (Leonard 1996:147–149). Employing ethnographic analogy, especially from complex hunter-gatherers on the Northwest coast, Leonard (1996:144–145) suggests that hunter-gatherers sometimes “enter into symbiotic relationships” with tuberous plants, because frequent tending, especially digging and transplanting, increases the number of plants. This relationship would quickly become apparent to individuals harvesting the wild plant, thus encouraging the maintenance of well-tended A. americana gardens, and thus incipient horticulture. At least as recently as the early twentieth century, Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia were collecting A. americana, but there is only ethnohistorical evidence for collecting them, not gardening them (Parsons 1925:66). By the 1600s, A. americana consumption was frequently described by European explorers, including Biard (JR 1896), Denys (1908:397–398), and Lescarbot (1907:254) (see also Leonard 1996:146–147). Of these, Lescarbot (1907:254) is the only one to hint that the plant may have been gardened, writing, that “when planted [groundnut] multiplies as it were out of spite, and in such sort that it is wonderful.” Russell (1980:156) suggests that the plant was probably “encouraged” by early Historic period Indigenous people, but that it is unclear whether or not it was truly gardened.

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The model that Leonard (1996) proposed suggests that plant use could have shifted during the Woodland too, especially in the southern parts of the Atlantic Northeast, influenced perhaps by horticulturalists in adjacent parts of New England and Ontario. While more direct archaeological evidence is needed, he posits that the groundwork was laid for domesticated tobacco and perhaps even very late pre-contact maize by such gardening practices, but may have been abandoned with the introduction of storable European foodstuffs after contact. In Maine, groundnut has been identified at the Late Woodland period site 7.58 (Mosher and Spiess 2004:26) and a Susquehanna (ca. 3500 cal BP) feature at the Bob site (Mack et al. 2002:86). Similarly, it is likely that Indigenous people grew a form of smoking tobacco, Nicotiana rustica, before contact, but this has not been conclusively identified in the archaeological record (see Deal 2002:325).

Coastal Villages on the Maritime Peninsula? Throughout the Algonquian Northeast, the presence or absence of Maritime Woodland period villages, defined loosely as more-or-less permanent settlements with a wide variety of activities within them, has been debated at length. At various places, mostly at the Saco River and farther south and west, early European explorers described villages with corn horticulture. In southern New England, maize appears to have proliferated about 1000 cal BP, and had long been assumed to have driven a shift from hunting and gathering to settled village life, perhaps roughly akin to the MesolithicNeolithic transition in the old world. The challenge to this model is that while the evidence for corn exploitation after 1000 cal BP abounds in southern New England, it was not accompanied by similarly conclusively identified villages themselves. This is odd, because corn had often been assumed to be the major determinant of social change in New England; domesticates can be harvested at set times, which, along with maize’s capacity to be stored, facilitates sedentism and population expansion, encouraging social inequality and socio-political hierarchies. For our purposes, disentangling maize and villages has implications for the archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast: if maize was not the causal factor in many of the changes observed at European contact, it may be prudent to reconsider the Atlantic Northeast in terms of the New England village question. One attractive model for coastal southern New England is the dispersed village model (Leveillee et al. 2006). In effect, Leveillee and colleagues argue that dispersed settlement on a landscape may still be under similar political structures as what is often envisioned for a village. Thus, while the individual dwelling or two at the family level may have been the primary political unit, political structures existed such that these units would periodically coalesce for economic or ritual purposes.

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Aggregation of hunter-gatherers in the Atlantic Northeast is certainly not exclusively a Late Maritime Woodland phenomenon, but tentatively it does appear that something akin to the dispersed village model may have been occurring along the region’s coastline. While aggregations of various kinds likely occurred throughout prehistory in the Atlantic Northeast, evidence for aggregation accompanied by subregional integration on the coast appears to amplify in the Late Maritime Woodland. At Port Joli Harbour, for instance, Middle Maritime Woodland mobility year-round on the coast appears residential and often over short distances, while Late Maritime Woodland settlement included logistical movements, task-specific sites, and large head-of-harbour habitation sites (Betts 2019a) – in short, a pattern consistent with increased political integration and task-specific activities being conducted throughout the harbour and its environs. Elsewhere on the Maritime Peninsula, this pattern may repeat, in the form of large “village” sites such as Goddard in Maine (Bourque and Cox 1981) and Melanson and St. Croix in Nova Scotia (Deal and Halwas 2008; Nash and Stewart 1990).

Technological Change Changes in lithic technology occurring in the Late Woodland suggest important changes in the overall toolkit that complement the settlement patterns we have just outlined; they are remarkably similar in many cases across the Atlantic Northeast, and show affinities with people in the greater Northeast. CERAMICS

Ceramics (figure 10.3) appear more rarely in the Late than the Middle Woodland record in the Atlantic Northeast, but still occur frequently. In Newfoundland and Labrador, ceramics are extant, but rare; in the early part of the Late Boreal Woodland (the Cow Head Complex), which is coeval with the Middle Maritime Woodland, there are occasional ceramics but they are absent in subsequent Beaches and Little Passage complexes. When they occur, they are impressed with dentate motifs that suggest they may have been an occasional Middle Maritime Woodland (Cow Head) phenomenon in Newfoundland (Renouf et al. 2011). A handful of undecorated, grit-tempered sherds from one vessel lot were found at the Kamarsuk site in the Voisey’s Bay region of Labrador, a rare example of late ceramics from Labrador (Loring 1985). On the Maritime Peninsula, Petersen and Sanger (1993; also Bourgeois 1999; Kristmanson 1992) identified a Late Maritime Woodland shift in ceramic technology away from dentate and pseudo-scalloped shell decorated forms of ceramic to thicker, cord-wrapped stick ceramics. In the Late Maritime Woodland, people began to

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FIGURE 10.3 Late Maritime Woodland ceramics from AlDf-24 Area C, Port Joli, Nova Scotia. Note the preponderance of cordwrapped stick ­decoration.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, E’se’get Archaeology Project

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r­ egularly use shell as well as grit to temper ceramics. Archaeologists have sometimes suggested that Late Maritime Woodland period ceramics were less well made than their predecessors, although visually striking shreds decoratively speaking, they had a tendency to break where they were coiled or to be more prone to crumbling in the archaeological record. However, this shift may be consistent with settlement-­ subsistence shifts outlined above. As Deal and colleagues (2018) note, the increase in round-based vessels occurring in the Late Maritime Woodland (especially toward the end of the Woodland) tends to be associated, cross-culturally, with fairly sedentary peoples, compared with conoidal, point-based bottoms that are often used by highly mobile peoples and for less specialized uses, which is consistent with limited isotopic data suggesting that ceramics tended to be used increasingly for a variety of purposes or for mixed “stews” (Deal et al. 2018). Woolsey (2018) has argued that changes in the manufacture of Late Maritime Woodland ceramics, notably an increased use of temper in the Late Maritime Woodland and simplified decorative motifs, may have been a strategy to increase the efficiency of making ceramics, due to increased demand. Adding more temper to pots makes them more difficult to shape, but it increases their thermal resistance, making it possible to fire them more quickly. This could have been linked to sedentism around particular resourcerich places, such as Gaspereau Lake. Such an interpretation is consistent with settlement models that involve expanded interaction and exchange, with relationships across long distances maintained by periodic aggregations or with village or village-like settlement. However, confounding interpretations of this sort, certainly pre-contact peoples used a variety of container technologies, likely including bark containers and baskets. LITHIC TECHNOLOGY AND INFERRED EXPANDING CANOE USE

Such changes may be consistent with data from lithic assemblages. In general, Late Maritime Woodland (and Late Boreal Woodland) lithic toolkits (figures 10.4–10.6) appear to be more dominated by small scrapers, some with spurs that could be used as perforators (e.g., Dickinson 2001), and more abundant flake tools (see Holyoke 2012). We think that a parsimonious explanation for this is that the Late Woodland was marked by increased use of fine woodworking, especially basket and bark technologies (including canoes). It is difficult to say exactly why this may have been; one hypothetical scenario is that, as canoes became more important for maintaining longdistance interactions, there was a more general expansion of wood and basket technology and shifting use of different kinds of containers. As Deal and colleagues (2018) have noted, the choice between using a bark container or wooden basket as opposed to a ceramic vessel eschews simplistic interpretation. For instance, it is possible that ceramics may be more expedient to make than some kinds of baskets, although so

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FIGURE 10.4  A Late Maritime Woodland projectile point assemblage from AlDf-24 Area C, Port Joli, Nova Scotia.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, E’se’get Archaeology Project

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FIGURE10.5  A Late Maritime Woodland lithic assemblage from AlDf-30, Port Joli, Nova Scotia. Note the classic Levanna projectile point at the top of the image, the thumbnail scrapers, and the quartz cores at the bottom of the image.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, E’se’get Archaeology Project

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FIGURE 10.6  A Late Maritime Woodland scraper assemblage from AlDf-24 Area C, Port Joli, Nova Scotia.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, E’se’get Archaeology Project

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little pre-contact basketry is preserved, this is impossible to test. Ceramics may be especially useful as storage vessels rather than for transport. While ceramics are perhaps preferable for certain kinds of cooking, it is possible to heat perishable vessels with direct flame or by the addition of hot stones. In total, research along these lines deserves more attention, but we suspect changing patterns of ceramic use must be related to the relative importance of bark and wood technologies. Moreover, as we have discussed, boat technology was clearly ancient in the Atlantic Northeast. Holyoke (2012; Holyoke and Hrynick 2015) has suggested that Late Woodland lithic toolkits may in some cases be focused toward the manufacture and maintenance of birchbark canoes. In the Lower Saint John River Valley, for instance, Holyoke and Hrynick (2015) identified a likely portage site where people during at least the Late Maritime Woodland likely stopped to mend their canoes, process nearby Washademoak chert (figure 10.7), and spend the night before carrying their canoes and goods to the next watercourse. This mode of transport is virtually inconceivable without a refined birchbark canoe technology, with canoes that were both nimble in the water and fairly easy to carry. At the same time, dugout canoes continued to be used at least occasionally in the Late Maritime Woodland. One example was recovered in the intertidal zone at Cape Porpoise in Southern Maine (Spahr et al. 2020) (figure 10.8).

FIGURE 10.7  In situ Washademoak multicoloured chert at a quarry location, Washademoak Lake, New Brunswick.

Photograph courtesy Kenneth R. Holyoke, University of Toronto

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FIGURE 10.8 The Cape Porpoise dugout canoe, dating to approximately 660 cal BP. The canoe was ­recovered after being exposed by shifting intertidal zones of southern coastal Maine. The presence of a Late Woodland dugout canoe suggests that dugout canoes continued to be made and used even after the development of birchbark technology. Photograph courtesy Tim Spahr and the Cape Porpoise Archaeological Alliance

In the Late Woodland, people also changed their projectile point choices, in ways that resemble changes in the Northeast as a whole. The Late Maritime Woodland in the Atlantic Northeast is characterized by the use of small triangular points, consistent with what are termed Levanna or Madison points in New York and much of New England, and small corner- or side-notched points. In Newfoundland – and by implication affiliated groups in Labrador and Quebec’s Lower North Shore – the switch to corner-notched small projectile points is usually viewed as indicating the proliferation of bows and arrows by Late Woodland (Little Passage) peoples. Erwin and colleagues (2005; using methods outlined by Bradbury [1997] and Shott [1997] that correlate point metrics to functional uses) suggest on the basis of size and form – primarily whether or not points were side or corner notched – of a large point sample that this did not mean the immediate or total abandonment of spear-throwers. Rather, both continued to be used, but a proliferation of late bow-and-arrow technology proxied by projectile point change may signal Little Passage–Dorset competition, either violent with bows and arrows as weapons, or as a successful Little Passage hunting adaptation on a competitive landscape. Alternatively, expanded bow-and-arrow technology could have been part of a post-Dorset adaptation permitting Little Passage use of more areas, especially if hunting groups became smaller, with a preference for solitary or small group hunting forays. As Erwin and colleagues (2005) note, expanding their study to Labrador and the Quebec Lower North Shore is an obvious next step; however, such studies might also be valuably applied to the Maritime Peninsula for elucidating technological changes in points through time and – as we discuss 236 

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below – to help differentiate complex questions of point functional-versus-formal differences during the Late Woodland. It would be particularly interesting if bow-and-arrow technology proliferated along with an increased emphasis on deer in the Late Woodland. WIGWAMS (AND MAMATEEKS)

In terms of formal structure, wigwams from the Woodland period are remarkably similar across the Atlantic Northeast and through time (Hrynick and Black 2016) (figure 10.9); indeed, this continuity is so strong that wigwams continued to be extensively used by Wabanaki people until at least the middle of the nineteenth century in some areas (figure 10.10). However, known fully excavated dwelling features from the Late Woodland tend to have been somewhat larger than their predecessors (Farley et al. 2019) and to sometimes have contained multiple hearths, at least on the interior (Blair 2004a:308–309). More striking is the qualitative tendency of dwelling features in the Late Woodland to be more artifact-rich than those from early periods (Hrynick and Betts 2019). One possibility that has been offered is that this may signal a seasonal difference, with the artifact-rich dwelling floors representing winter dwellings when the cold encouraged people to work inside (Sanger 2010), but it increasingly seems to hold true for many warm season floors as well, perhaps proxying length of occupation rather than season (e.g., Hrynick and Betts 2019). Together, larger dwelling features potentially occupied for longer periods of time suggest increasing sedentism along with the maintenance of a

FIGURE 10.9  Photograph showing a plan view of a Late Woodland period dwelling feature at the Devil’s Head site (97.10) in Downeast Maine. The south (left) of the feature shows gravel added to the soil to create a paving on which to place the wigwam; the soil has also been blackened by human activities within the wigwam. The small shell midden formerly articulating with the feature has been excavated. Photograph ­courtesy M. ­Gabriel Hrynick, ­Northeastern Archaeological Survey Project

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FIGURE 10.10  Photograph showing a contemporary wigwam based on traditional knowledge, built by Todd Labrador (Acadia First Nation). Middle and Late Maritime Woodland wigwams probably closely resembled this ­structure.

Photograph courtesy ­Matthew Betts

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BOX 10.1  MEN’S AND WOMEN’S SPACES In his seminal book Bringing Home Animals, an ethnography of Mistissini Cree hunting bands, Adrian Tanner (1979) provides accounts of how the Cree organize their domestic space such that the way people use their houses reflects attitudes about themselves, others, and how the world should be ordered: in effect, the organization of space can be scaled up to the landscape or even how the universe is organized. Maintaining this organization is critical, because it is an essential way that humans show respect for the cosmological entities that ensure successful hunts and safe lives. A similar system was probably in place for Wabanaki (Hoffman 1955a), and gendered organization of space is common among peoples cross-culturally. Finding gender in the archaeological record is challenging, but one way to do so is by direct historic analogy: working backward in time from patterning reported in the Historic period to progressively older periods in the same location. Another method is by cross-cultural analogy, in which ethnographically known groups are studied to find generalities that may be applicable to interpreting archaeological findings. Both are useful, albeit imperfect, ways to study gender in the archaeological record. Some of the best evidence for gender in the archaeological record of the Atlantic Northeast is from

a series of domestic features at Port Joli Harbour in Nova Scotia. Historic period accounts indicate that Wabanaki organized space within dwellings according to gender, with men typically living and carrying out daily activities on one side and women on the other. Our research at Port Joli found a dwelling feature at the end of the Woodland period that had artifacts patterned bilaterally, with ceramics and scrapers dominating one side and bifaces and lithic debitage dominating the other, a pattern that was visible despite reuse of the feature (Hrynick et al. 2012). At another site in Port Joli, AlDf-30, Middle Woodland inhabitants of the site revised an earlier sweathouse – probably a male space based on ethnographic accounts – into a dwelling. In that dwelling, the central architecture of the earlier sweathouse was reused as an axial feature, dividing the dwelling into two, correlating, we suspect, with a gendered division of space. In a relational ontology, aspects of life such as the organization of gender are important ways people exist in the world and ensure that life proceeds harmoniously. Shifts in gendered divisions of space and how they are actualized, or the reinvention of space, suggest important aspects of agency exist in ­gendered behaviour, and likely highlight one of ­myriad ways women exhibited agency and ­cosmological power.

consistent technology tradition of wigwam constructions. Notably, the size increase is a less pronounced but similar shift to one that occurred at the same time, the proliferation of maize horticulture (Farley et al. 2019). In Newfoundland, Boreal Woodland peoples made similar dwellings to Maritime Woodland peoples, and not until after European contact would they become more robust as Beothuk became more sedentary, made larger houses, and mounded soil around the bases of them (Holly 2013:139).

Extra-Regional, Regional, and Sub-Regional Integration and Boundaries Within the Atlantic Northeast, archaeological patterning suggests that Late Woodland peoples engaged in both increasing interactions with their neighbours – both local and distant – and increasingly defined themselves in contrast to them. While we doubt a THE LATE MARITIME WOODLAND AND LATE BOREAL WOODLAND PERIODS

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simplistic explanation that the ethnic distinctions that contact period Europeans described originate entirely in the Late Woodland, present data suggest that at minimum the Atlantic Northeast was becoming more clearly defined in terms of ethnic groups and far-reaching trade networks. Anthropologists generally think of ethnicity simply in terms of a group of people who either set themselves apart from others or are set apart by others (S. Jones 1997). This tends to be accompanied in a material way by doing things differently. Those differences can be for a range of reasons that can be difficult to disarticulate: different people occupy different environments, so there may be functional reasons for doing things differently. People tend to learn to do things from people in the same group, so activities may be passed along “learning lineages” (Woolsey 2018), such that even mundane and functionally unimportant traits are put into material things that may be different from how other groups do things. Some ways of doing things may be consciously or unconsciously used to signal inclusion in the group. Blanton (1994) makes a useful distinction between material symbols that are designed to be seen by others to announce group membership and difference and those that are in designed to be used among members of a group, to remind them of appropriate group behaviour and emphasize membership and cooperation. Along the same lines, even closely related groups may develop local religious practices against the same general backdrop of a belief system. However, even to cultural anthropologists, ethnic groups, boundaries, and beliefs may be obscure. For instance, the ethnographic film The Cree Hunters of Mistassini shows a Cree hunter, Sam Blacksmith, disposing of bear bones on a platform to keep them away from dogs, which the narrator notes is part of Cree religious practice. Blacksmith says (translated by the filmmakers from Cree), “the bear thinks of himself as the most important animal. Nothing can be hidden from the bear. He knows everything; even when you talk about him. If the bear knows he is not well respected, it’s very hard to kill him again. [Shown tying bear remains to a tree.] I’m going to talk about this now. The reason I hang this up is because the bear wants to be well respected. The front arms are very important. This is the birch bark we wrap the arms in. Long ago we started to hang the bones along the shore. I do not know why, but that’s what we have always done” (Ianzelo and Richardson 1974; emphasis added). Such a scene would, we think, be very familiar in a Late Woodland community in the Atlantic Northeast (see, e.g., Ingraham et al. 2016). It may seem incongruous that boundaries and ethnicity become solidified at the same time that extra-regional amplification increases. However, this is consistent with anthropological models that note that, as people interact more, the need to associate with a particular, well-defined group can become even stronger. In the Atlantic

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Northeast, archaeologists have proxied questions of identity and interaction in different ways. At the broadest scale, identifying variation in patterns of settlement and subsistence may reflect local environmental conditions as well as actual group cultural differences, though this can be difficult to disentangle; some of these we have already discussed. Interactions may be signalled by the movement of items that are known to originate in specific places away from those places. In practice, in the Atlantic Northeast this mostly means tracking the spread of specific toolstones away from known sources, but advances have been made in sourcing other materials, such as native copper. Requiring less technical expertise, interactions can be pursued locally as the presence of coastal materials – such as shell – at interior sites. Of course, as you will recall from our discussion of Palaeoindian raw material exchange, it is difficult to determine whether a material was exchanged or collected at the sources. Similarly, the ways in which materials are shaped into artifacts – whether obvious such as the shapes of projectile points or subtle like the direction in which cordage is twisted – may indicate affiliations with particular people. Perhaps most enigmatic is trying to parse past cosmological beliefs and their variations. Archaeologists have much to learn about these prehistoric boundaries, but there are some overarching trends to explore. LATE WOODLAND BOUNDARIES: THE KENNEBEC RIVER, PROJECTILE POINT STYLES, AND CERAMIC MOTIFS

The Kennebec River offers one compelling place to envision Late Maritime Woodland cultural boundaries. A “modern vegetation tension zone,” the river defined the probable limit of maize horticulture into the Northeast, and marks the transition of the Central Hardwoods Oak Forest ecosystem to the Spruce-Northern Hardwood Forest ecosystem (Maine DACF n.d.; see Robinson and Ort 2011). Different food resources result: to the east, fewer deer, larger cervids, more beaver, and fewer tree nuts, for instance. Brian Robinson (1996c; Robinson and Ort 2011:213–214) identified patterns of artifact style that potentially help to illustrate connections and differences in the Atlantic Northeast’s Late Woodland in terms of small projectile points – likely for arrows – which were either triangular, possibly derived from Iroquoian Levanna points, or side- to corner-notched. The former point style, Robinson notes, is usually rare but extends north and east of about Penobscot Bay and across the Penobscot River, and is the dominant point form to the south and west into the rest of New England and New York. Robinson notes a few sites along the Kennebec and Saco river drainages in southwestern Maine, including the aptly named “Levanna site,” yielding collections of triangular points. This remarkable site contained over 60 triangular points or triangular preforms, contrasted with fewer than 20 side-notched points or preforms. Moreover, the triangular points were all, with a single possible exception, made on

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local material from the Kineo-Traveler mountain felsite formation. Almost 40% of the notched points are made on exotic material, probably originating from sites to the north, including Munsungan chert. To the coast, Goddard may form a similar ­boundary or inflection point, with over 1,000 notched points, in addition likely ca. 500 preforms of notched points, and only about 100 Levanna-style points; many of the Levanna-style points were, again, produced on exotic chert (Robinson 1996c:17). Robinson notes that this transition appears to be abrupt between the Penobscot and Kennebec river drainages, with large interior assemblages to the north and east dominated by corner-notched points. Ceramics offer another potential view of ethnic boundaries. In Petersen and Sanger’s (1993) initial formulation of a ceramic chronology for Maine, they suggested that cordage twists and wefts, which can be identified in cordage impressions on ceramics, might be a useful ethnic indicator, with a tendency for coastal peoples to Z-twist their cordage and interior peoples to S-twist their cordage. This is potentially useful because, cross-culturally, this does not usually reflect handedness as one might expect, but an in-group way that people are taught to make cordage (Petersen 1996). However, by the Late Maritime Woodland, patterning in these twists is obscure, including at the Levanna site where cordage is almost evenly divided. At the same time, the S- and Z-patterns seem to weaken in Nova Scotia (Petersen and Sanger 1993:141; Curtis et al. 2019). Increasingly, research along this line has suggested that a coastal-interior dichotomy may not be supported by cordage twist. For instance, at the Bob site, Z- and S-twist vessel lots were recovered (Mack et al. 2002:75–77, 90) in the Late Ceramic period. For the sake of our discussion here, more work is warranted, but ceramic motifs and variability therein offer tantalizing but challenging approaches to sorting ethnicity through time and space. How these different technological spheres interact and expand out to broader cultural categories will be challenging but probably achievable with the accumulation of more research. LATE WOODLAND EXCHANGE: THE CASE OF RAMAH CHERT

Bourque (1994) observes that people during the Late Woodland were acquiring materials, especially lithics, from distant places far more frequently than during the Middle Woodland. There was almost certainly sub-regional patterning in this tendency (e.g., Betts 2019a), but overall there appears to have been abundant exchange or transport of lithic materials across the Atlantic Northeast and beyond in the Late Woodland. Archaeologists are biased to recognize well-known lithic materials and conceptualize interaction in terms of them, but materials originating in the Minas Basin in Nova Scotia, Washadamoak Lake in New Brunswick, Munsungan Lake in Maine, and Mistassini chert from interior Quebec were moved around the Atlantic

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Northeast in abundance (e.g., Black and Wilson 1999; Burke 2000; McCaffrey 2011; Pollock et al. 1999). Perhaps most visually striking and remarkably long-ranging, however, is Ramah chert, the fine-grained smoky-grey stone from the isolated northern coast of Labrador on Ramah Bay that we discussed in some detail in chapter 6 (see Burke and Gauthier 2017; Gramly 1978). At various points, the source may have been controlled by specific groups, and access to the best material limited (see Erwin and Curtis 2017). The material was clearly highly desirable: by about 1200 years ago, its use by ancestral Innu at the Eva Luther site is one of multiple examples of a late pre-contact site where the occupants appear to have nearly exclusively used Ramah chert to make stone tools (Stopp 2008). Uniting north and south of the Atlantic Northeast, Loring (2018:196) situates Ramah chert in terms of expanding interaction toward the end of the Middle Woodland, when Ramah begins to appear on the Maritime Peninsula outside of mortuary and other probably ceremonial contexts. While individual Ramah bifaces continue to be transported, there is also evidence for exchange of Ramah as raw material, which can be considered within and also help to generate the socio-economic and settlement context we have outlined in this chapter. While never an abundant material at sites on the Maritime Peninsula, many sites in the region produced small amounts of Ramah, especially at sites that may be associated with aggregation; this includes over 35 Ramah tools at the Goddard site, along with Ramah flakes, indicating transport of Ramah as a raw material, a distance of over 1,500 km as the crow flies, to be made along and between rivers or along the coast. Loring’s interpretation of this stone is consistent with our view that exchange, as Bourque (1994) also suggested locally, is far from “epiphenomenal” (also McCaffrey 2011). Loring (2018:196) suggests that “the appearance of Ramah chert in this context appears to substantiate the impression that trade and commerce, facilitated by watercraft, played a significant role in enabling long-distance trade and communication. Individuals who could coordinate labour to maintain an ocean-going vessel (whether of wood, skin or bark) and organize a crew for long duration voyages would be likely candidates for social recognition and leadership status, perhaps the same individuals who acquired prestige goods found in a mortuary context.” Key to this conception is that the exchange of specific lithic materials was part of how identity was constructed, maintained, and asserted over long distances. These networks likely also facilitated communications and social relationships; we suspect they also sometimes effected strife – while Ramah was probably an important and highly powerful material given its unique appearance, the difficulty with which it is acquired, and the spiritual properties imbued in it by contemporary Indigenous peoples, other materials and items likely reflect and produced similar relationships that differed through

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time. The Late Woodland expansion of these may well have set the stage for the contact period exchanges we discuss in the next chapter.

Cosmology and the Development of Ethnic Identities in the Atlantic Northeast Everything we have discussed so far was conducted against an overarching way of living in, and conceiving of, the world by the peoples of the Atlantic Northeast. Timothy Pauketat (2012) has noted that archaeological views of religion acknowledge that religion is something people do as well as believe, shifting belief away from the ideational to the tangible. While it is not difficult to call to mind material correlates of religious action – in non-Western or Western religious traditions – Pauketat’s assertion is essential because as people do cosmology, they may change it or perpetuate it, or may employ it to affect other changes. Tentatively, we have proposed some changes and intensifications of cosmological practice on the Maritime Peninsula in the recent pre-contact period. The historical roots of these religious practices appear to be deep and continuities abound. One implication of cosmological action is as a possible mechanism for ethnogenesis and the strengthening and defining of local group identities. As we discussed in the previous chapter, artifactual, linguistic, genetic (Schultz et al. 2001), and symbolic evidence (e.g., petroglyph motifs [Hedden 2004]) support elements of common belief distributed across the Atlantic Northeast by the Middle Woodland. This focus shifts away from the broadly shared burial elaborations of the Early Woodland. By the Late Woodland, however, boundaries and exchange – ­interpreted by variability in artifact forms and lithic materials, for instance – appear to change somewhat. This is interesting because while the Wabanaki Confederacy sensu stricto formalized after European contact, it is rooted in ethnic distinctions and alliances in the past (Speck 1915). How might a cosmology across the Northeast have shaped the relationships, connections, and identities of the Atlantic Northeast in the millennia before sustained European contact? Recent years have seen an increase in studies explicitly considering late pre-European cosmologies in the Atlantic Northeast. At European contact, the inhabitants of the Atlantic Northeast practiced a relational cosmological system that was a variant of similar systems practiced by other Algonquian hunter-gatherers such as the Cree (Hoffman 1955a:489; see, e.g., Tanner 1979). Archaeological evidence suggests a general shared backdrop of cosmology among many of the inhabitants of the Atlantic Northeast, perhaps even extending to shared Dorset–Ancestral Beothuk beliefs (Kristensen and Holly 2013:48). In this system, termed a “sacred ecology” by Hornborg (2013), Western notions of the natural and the cosmological are blurred,

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a different ontology or way of being in the world that is common among huntergatherers but alien to most Western peoples. The Algonquian cosmology was relational, and conceived and acted upon in large part in terms of relationships between humans and animals, especially supernatural animals or “game keepers.” Hallowell (1960) usefully termed these particular animals “other than human ­persons,” signifying that people had to treat their interactions with them as a series of complex social relationships that came with obligations, in order that the game keepers would continue to provide game animals for food and facilitate the well-being of their families and bands. For instance, hunting was not conceived just as the immediate interaction between hunter and prey. Rather, ongoing appropriate practices ensured that hunters would continue to be provided with animals and people could live their lives in relative safety. The observance of gender taboos in the home, reverential treatment of dead animals, and observance of correct interpersonal relations were essentially ways people in the Atlantic Northeast acted upon their cosmology. More elaborate religious practices such as shamanism, sweat baths, or the treatment of dead humans could supplement these quotidian cosmological activities, or serve to address cosmological crises. The result was a cosmological life occurring at what Tanner (1979) described as the articulation of “common sense” and “motivated religious” actions. Because relational ontology systems are common among hunter-gatherers (Descola 2013), archaeologists seeking to find local specificity must interpret hunter-gatherer cosmology at the intersection of multiple lines of evidence, and recourse to historical context and direct historic analogy is warranted. In the Atlantic Northeast, cosmological activities such as those surrounding the divisions of space may be visible as early as the Palaeoindian period, after which much of what archaeologists have inferred about cosmological and spiritual beliefs have surrounded burial contexts. In the Middle and, especially, Late Woodland, evidence for more mundane cosmological practices becomes more visible and remarkably congruent with cosmological life reported in early European accounts. Machias Bay, Maine, is home to the largest known series of pre-contact petroglyphs on the east coast, probably beginning about 2500 years ago (Hedden 2004) and continuing into European contact. These have been compellingly associated with shamanistic activity and exhibit a range of images that are recognizable and interpretable within the context of Algonquian cosmology and myth. Adjacent to this remarkable outcrop are shell-bearing deposits, dwelling features, and ritual features. The most securely dated of these include a series of Late Woodland to contact period dates on bone (Ingraham et al. 2016:93–95). In these contexts, Ingraham and colleagues (2016) and Robinson and Heller (2017) found a tendency for the retention of the left temporal bulla of grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) in terrestrial contexts, suggesting that

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the right temporal may have been disposed of in the water. Notably, there was no such statistical significance for harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) bullas. While not specifically attested to in the ethnographic literature, in general returning the remains of specific sea animals to the water is described for Algonquians, as are a variety of prescribed actions concerning specific side preferences for surrounding animal remains. Moreover, they found a near-absence of dog gnawing on faunal remains (0.6% of the sample had gnaw marks), despite the presence of domestic dog remains at the site, again consistent with some Algonquian cosmological practices that forbid allowing animals to gnaw on particular bones. Likely, these actions represent regular, local behaviours concerning how people were supposed to behave with regard to seals. The Late Woodland at Machias Bay also exhibits what appears to be more direct ritual activity surrounding animals. Tentatively, for instance, Late Woodland people there may have retained sea mink facial bones in a feature – possibly consistent with ethnographically known practices of bundling specific items together for ritual purposes (Robinson and Heller 2017). While a lot of work on ritual among societies known to have complex relationships with animals understandably focuses on animal remains, in our own work we have sought to expand the focus of ritual activity, such that it includes or even foregrounds the activities of women and children. In the ethnographic literature, myriad domestic activities were strongly patterned according to gender, even if they did not directly concern animals; these practices were crucially important to maintaining relationships among people and animal masters. To consider gendered patterning, we turned to a series of dwelling and sweathouse features in Port Joli, Nova Scotia. There, we found evidence for binary, likely gendered division of space within wigwams, corresponding to the distribution of specific artifacts within dwelling features. This patterning, aligned with numerous Historic period accounts of Wabanaki domestic space being divided by gender, suggests some throughput of these practices. We found that in a Middle Woodland dwelling, people at Port Joli incorporated architecture from a ­sweathouse – ethnographically male spaces for Wabanaki people – as a physical demarcation of gendered space. By the Late Maritime Woodland at a nearby site, gendered spatial patterning of artifacts was more pronounced, but did not require any sort of physical barrier (Hrynick and Betts 2014, 2017; Hrynick et al. 2012). While these changes are enigmatic, they point to throughput and perhaps even intensification of cosmological religious tradition in the Late Woodland. In the next chapter, we discuss the debates surrounding Historic period Wabanaki ethnicity and the development of closely related but ethnically distinct groups. We suspect that processes of ethnic realignment were not distinct to the Historic period

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and likely had pre-contact origins. We think it is possible to explore some of the drivers and mechanisms of ethnicity before contact. At Machias Bay, we have noted the apparent ritual surrounding the disposal of seals, and the presence of sea mink in quantities suggesting their inclusion in medicine bundles. A remarkable riverine example is at Metepenagiag. Recent archaeological work by Webb and colleagues (n.d.) has suggested that Indigenous people living at the Mi’kmaw village of Metepenagiag, at the confluence of the Northeast and Little Southwest Miramichi rivers in northwestern New Brunswick, have had an affinity for sturgeon (Acipenser spp.) since at least ca. 2400 cal BP. Metepenagiag is best known archaeologically for the Augustine Burial Mound, an Adena-affiliated burial mound (Turnbull 1976). However, a sturgeon affinity predates the mound, indicated by an abundance of sturgeon remains in the mound fill itself (Webb et al. n.d.). The dominance of sturgeon in the faunal assemblages at Metepenagiag is not matched by similar sites elsewhere on the Maritime Peninsula, even though such a fishery could have been supported by other environments (Webb et al. n.d.). Oral tradition and ethnographic accounts similarly suggest the people of Metepenagiag had a unique affinity for sturgeon, and displayed this relationship outwardly in the Historic period as a “totem” with which they marked their canoes (Le Clercq 1910; Webb et al. n.d.). Notably, this was in contrast to other Mi’kmaw totems elsewhere on the Miramachi, which were a man firing a bow and arrow and a beaver (Webb et al. n.d.). By 1980, sturgeon were extirpated, but the affinity for them lives on in Metepenagiag’s history and collective memory. Webb, Blair, and Litvak (n.d.) summarize the relationship between people and sturgeon at Metepenagiag: “the histories of neither sturgeon nor the ancestral Mi’kmaq at Metepenagiag can be understood in isolation from one another; each shaped, and was in turn shaped by, the other in an intimate relationship which lasted millennia.” Throughout Newfoundland, pendants resembling portions of seabirds suggest that the ancestors of the Beothuk had cosmological beliefs in which those animals were significant (Kristensen and Holly 2013). Some animals appear to have enjoyed broad significance over large areas and/or deep time depths. In the Atlantic Northeast, bears, for example, likely because of their anthropomorphism, appear to have required near-universal social obligations among Algonquians (e.g., Berres et al. 2004; Hallowell 1926; Jenness 1935; Martin 1978; Skinner 1914; Tanner 1979); they may have been conspecific with humans (following Betts et al. 2012; Conneller 2004), among certain other animals. Sharks may have had special significance from Archaic times, and their teeth occur in burial and ceremonial contexts from ca. 4000 cal BP into the Protohistoric period (Betts et al. 2012; see box 6.1). These classes of apex predators may be perceived as human-like because

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they hunt similar animals and exploit similar environments as humans. Not all animals with which Algonquians had social relationships were conspecifics. Martin’s (1978) review of the ethnographic literature suggests a class of animals that, while not conspecific, were under the purview of “game keepers.” These included a wide range of prey animals with which social relationships were required. However, there were also local affinities for particular animals. One way in which these local variations were expressed was in “animal friendships,” in which a hunter or hunting group had an affinity for a particular animal and for hunting that animal successfully (Martin 1978:121−122; Tanner 1979:139); this may account for some variability in religious practice within a basic Algonquian cosmology (see Hoffman 1955a:489). When a hunter in such a relationship died, his relationship could be passed on if his family or band made the appropriate offerings at the hunter’s funeral, and if extra attention was paid to ritual social action around the animal for a period following the hunter’s death. Considered alongside the local and plausibly ethnic relationships with animals ­suggested by the archaeological record in the Atlantic Northeast, this would be a mechanism to perpetuate ethnic identities – or to generate new ones.

The Norse Against this vibrant backdrop of Indigenous life in the Late Woodland, Norse visits to North America were of little consequence, despite the inordinate attention such visits receive. Treatment of the social motivations for finding Norse in North America or of Norse hoaxes could easily assume more space than we afford them here, a task others have ably undertaken (e.g., Snow 1981; Wallace 2010; Williams 1991:Ch. 9). There is only one unequivocally Norse settlement known from the Atlantic Northeast. L’Anse aux Meadows is as far north as one can get in Newfoundland on the Great Northern Peninsula. The settlement included a series of sod-covered structures for living in, manufacturing iron, and storing things or foodstuffs. Unlike Norse settlements elsewhere, livestock does not appear to have been kept at L’Anse aux Meadows, where the faunal assemblages consist exclusively of sea mammals. There may have been sporadic other contacts, especially with Paleo-Inuit peoples in the north (see McGovern 1990). According to Wallace (2003), L’Anse aux Meadows is probably Straumfjord from the Sagas, occupied around 1000 cal BP (Nydal 1988). It is also possible that the site is simply not included in the Sagas. Concisely summarizing the reason and function of L’Anse aux Meadows, Wallace (2003) argues, “L’Anse aux Meadows was a base for exploration and a transshipment station for resources collected farther afield. The

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archaeology of the site tells us that its occupants were mostly men, who spent considerable time away but who periodically returned, and that some of the exploration was in a southerly direction.” If so, Hóp, also described in the Sagas, may have been in northeastern New Brunswick, but has not been identified archaeologically. In the Sagas, Hóp is said to have been used in the short term during the warm season in order to collect grapes and butternut (also Deal 2008:13), and to have been characterized by estuaries or sandbar-defined lagoons. These plants are not available in Newfoundland, suggesting travels to New Brunswick or farther south to explain the few butternut remains found at L’Anse aux Meadows. If this formulation is correct, Vinland was in the Atlantic Northeast, though much of this is, and will probably remain, conjecture. Evidence for Norse interaction with Indigenous people is extant but rare. One piece is textual. The Sagas reference Skraelings who lived in Vinland, and seem to fit the description of Beothuk or ancestral Wabanaki, and whose interactions with the Norse are described mostly as hostile. Artifactual evidence for Norse-Indigenous interaction is limited, though butternuts were found at the site, a remarkable chronological similarity to the butternuts recovered from Late Maritime Woodland contexts in Port Joli. Perhaps enforcing the notion of strained Norse-Indigenous relations, McGhee (1984:13) postulates that a projectile point found in a Norse cemetery in Greenland could have been acquired – or perhaps shot into – a Norseman who brought it to Greenland. More convincing is the Goddard Penny, recovered by an avocational archaeologist, Guy Mellgren, in 1957 in Brooklin, Maine. The coin was initially misidentified as a twelfth-century English penny (Farmer 1978), but after Mellgren’s death the coin was conclusively re-identified in 1978 as an AD 1065–1080 Norwegian penny (Bourque and Cox 1981). Although Mellgren was a coin collector who had perhaps some interest in the Norse (Carpenter 2003), that the coin was not conclusively identified as such until just after Mellgren’s death seems at odds with a hoax. Moreover, Bourque and Cox (1981) note that the condition of the coin also seems consistent with its context at Goddard as being genuine. More recently, Gullbekk (2017) considered the broader numismatic context of the coin, especially the availability of such coins to collectors from the sales of discovered hoards, finding it unlikely that the coin was part of a hoax. Finally, the Goddard site also contained Ramah chert and a Dorset-style burin; although we acknowledge the potential that the coin was placed in the site (Carpenter 2003), taken with the Late Woodland age of the bulk of the site, the presence of an exchanged Norse coin that had found its way into Indigenous interaction spheres does not seem unlikely. Ironically, this coin probably serves more as a testament to far-reaching Indigenous exchange than anything else.

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On the Eve of Sustained European Contact In the millennium before sustained European contact in North America, Indigenous peoples were engaged in long-distance interactions across a landscape that was increasingly territorial. Social complexity was at least incipient along parts of the coast, with people living longer at key places and aggregating at others, where they would exchange things and information and reify social ties. In this context it is necessary, we think, to conceive of European contact as something that would not have been perceived of as wholly unique by Indigenous people. Rather, in the following chapter we contextualize contact within the rich history of the peoples of the Atlantic Northeast.

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CHAPTER 11

THE PROTOHISTORIC PERIOD (CA. 500 TO 350 CAL BP)

Introduction The Atlantic Northeast (figure 11.1) was the scene of some of the earliest – second only to the Caribbean – substantial European activity in the Americas. Thus, the region experienced early deleterious effects of this encounter, and experiences there shaped all subsequent interactions in North America. This Protohistoric period of early contact – the period during which spotty historical records were kept in the region, such as by early European explorers in the Atlantic Northeast – is, practically speaking, the period during which Indigenous people were aware of but mostly in indirect contact with Europeans. The Historic period, subsequently, is marked by more detailed records, but also by a more complete drawing of Indigenous people into the world economic system. The archaeological record provides a glimpse of how people in the Atlantic Northeast responded to Europeans in terms of their own economies, histories, and world views – sometimes evocatively. Machias Bay, Maine, is home to the largest number of pre-contact petroglyphs in northeastern North America. These petroglyphs record a series of Algonquian motifs, pecked into bedrock outcrops along the shore, by ancestral Wabanaki peoples. These petroglyphs likely represent over 2200 years of Wabanaki shamanistic practice. Though esoteric, these petroglyphs invoke Algonquian ritual and spiritual motifs and are a way Wabanaki peoples negotiated the world and the cosmos. Among the images are three likely early seventeenth-century European ships (Hedden 2002) (figure 11.2). It is impossible to know exactly what the person who made the petroglyphs intended by them, but the inclusion of ships among petroglyphs imbued with cosmological significance over ca. 2200 years illustrates two important points: the arrival of Europeans was handled much as other significant cultural events, and would be of fundamental cultural importance. One way to read the petroglyphs may be as a remark on people with differing religious beliefs. On one

FIGURE 11.1 Key Protohistoric period archaeological sites and locations ­mentioned in the text.

Map by Alexander Honsinger and Mallory Moran

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FIGURE 11.2  Photograph of one of the ship petroglyphs from Machias Bay, Maine.

Photograph by M. Gabriel Hrynick, courtesy Passamaquoddy Tribal Historic Preservation Office

of the ships, a cross is accompanied by partial arcs that may suggest ascent into heaven rather than a shamanistic journey that includes a return to Earth (Hedden 2002:10, 2004). However speculative interpretations of these petroglyphs may be, they invite archaeologists to consider European contact not as a moment, but as a historical process. We conceive of contact (cf. Silliman 2005 for discussion and critique of this term) as the collision of two histories. Indigenous people and Europeans alike had to fit the recognition of new people into historically defined explanations of the other. The nature of the encounter would also be structured by already extant socio-economic frameworks. For Europeans, this meant not just capitalistic mechanisms driving expanding resource extraction around the globe, but also that interactions with North American Indigenous people were approached based on early interactions with Indigenous people elsewhere. The groups all explained – to some degree – the other on cosmological or religious terms. In this chapter, we explore this collision of histories. The earlier portions of this book contextualize Indigenous life in the Atlantic Northeast, and the dynamic cultural setting for contact. We begin this chapter briefly by setting the immediate European socio-economic setting, before turning to some of the early

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written accounts of the Atlantic Northeast people and their homelands. From that ethnohistoric baseline, we turn to the archaeology of the Protohistoric period.

European Pursuit of Fish and Furs Wolf (1982:110–129) describes a Europe that, beginning about 1200 years ago (the Late Woodland in the Atlantic Northeast), is marked by the aftermath of the fall of the Roman Empire, with a series of smaller polities jockeying for economic power and control of trade, accompanied by the flex of military muscle. A shared result was that these new polities developed competitive, mercantile economic goals that could no longer be met within Europe. Because our focus here is on Indigenous North America, we have glossed a great deal of European historical context leading up to their sustained contact in North America and details about specific early ventures. (For a broader discussion of these developments in Europe, see useful discussions in Allen 1992; Braudel 1972; White 2017; Wolf 1982:Ch. 4, 1996). Cole (2008) has described fifteenth- to early sixteenth-century European interest in the Americas in terms of a northern and a southern “theatre,” the former referring to the Atlantic Northeast. The southern, of course, includes Columbus in the Caribbean, and subsequent Spanish explorations, pursuing precious metals in South and Central America. The northern began in 1497 when John Cabot, an Italian explorer, and perhaps 20 other men sailed a small ship, the Matthew, from Bristol, England, to the Northeast under a mandate from King Henry VII. Few written records have survived from this voyage but Cabot visited the coast of Newfoundland or, possibly, Cape Breton. Cabot was a mysterious and sinister character. His skills for a voyage to Newfoundland may have been developed while sailing with Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the Americas, but this is largely speculative (see Hodges 1897 and Hunter 2011 for popular accounts of Cabot). For most of the 1500s, direct European contact with Indigenous people was essentially confined to the Atlantic Northeast and the southern theatre, then roughly consisting of Florida and the Caribbean. European stops elsewhere on the east coast were usually brief forays as Europeans sailed between the two (Trigger and Swagerty 1996:334). This so-called Age of Exploration was an extension of increasingly capitalistic and worldly trading interests in Europe. Columbus and Cabot each were, famously, seeking new routes to known lands: Asia, where Europeans were engaged in exchange of bullion, spices, and silk. Instead, Cabot found an abundance of fish, Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua). Immediately, there were cruel human tolls in the northern as well as, famously, the southern theatres. Sebastian Cabot kidnapped and removed to Europe at least three Indigenous people, probably Beothuks, in just one example

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of a common practice (see Marshall 1996:17; Gomez in Biggar 1911:xxviii). The goal of such captures was often to train guides for future voyages (Trigger and Swagerty 1996:337). But there were also friendly dealings, and a preference, it seems, for Indigenous people to avoid direct interaction with Europeans, even during exchange. Early European explorers offer accounts of some sixteenth-century interactions. As we discussed last chapter, Verrazano’s approach to Casco Bay from the south produced an account contrasting Wabanaki with more southerly peoples (Wroth 1970:140–141). (Note that Marshall [1996:17] is less confident about Wroth’s attribution of these encounters to southern Maine, suggesting this interaction may have occurred in Cape Breton.) In 1501, Alberto Cantino summarized an account he heard from Gaspar Corte-Real, describing his 1501 Newfoundland expedition: And since throughout this region numerous large rivers flowed into the sea, by one of these they made their way about a league inland, where on landing they found abundance of most luscious and varied fruits, and trees and pines of such measureless height and girth, that they would be too big as a mast for the largest ship that sails the sea. No corn of any sort grows there, but the men of that country say they live altogether by fishing and hunting animals, in which the land abounds, such as very large deer, covered with extremely long hair, the skins of which they use for garments and also make houses and boats thereof, and again wolves, foxes, tigers and sables. They [the explorers] affirm that there are, what appears to me wonderful, as many falcons as there are sparrows in our country, and I have seen some of them and they are extremely pretty. They forcibly kidnapped about fifty men and women of this country and have brought them to the king. I have seen, touched and examined these people, and beginning with their stature, declare that they are somewhat taller than our average, with members corresponding and well formed. The hair of the men is long, just as we wear ours, and they wear it in curls, and have their faces marked with great signs, and these signs are like those of the [East] Indians. Their eyes are greenish and when they look at one, this gives an air of great boldness to their whole countenance. Their speech is unintelligible, but nevertheless is not harsh but rather human. Their manners and gestures are most gentle; they laugh considerably and manifest the greatest pleasure. So much for the men. The women have small breasts and most beautiful bodies, and rather pleasant faces. The colour of these women may be said to be more white than otherwise, but the men are considerably darker. In fine, except for the terribly harsh look of the men, they appear to me to be in all else of the same form

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an image as ourselves. They go quite naked except for their privy parts, which they cover with a skin of the above-mentioned deer. They have no arms nor iron, but whatever they work or fashion, they cut with very hard sharp stones, with which they split in two the very hardest substances. (Biggar 1911:64; see Hanbury-Tenison 2005:221–223)

The discovery of routes to India or China motivated some early European exploration, but other cultural and economic motives also existed. Cabot was looking for Asia, but the 1496 Letters Patent for his voyage included “to discover islands, countries, regions or provinces of heathens and infidels, in whatsoever part of the world placed, which before this time were unknown to all Christians” (in Quinn 1971:39). The practical outcome of many of the early European encounters was that English, Portuguese, Norman, and French Basque fisherman developed an enormously active early sixteenth-century cod fishery off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia (see Quinn 1971:232–249). The earliest fishery was the inshore “dry” fishery in which ships anchored in harbours and fish were dried on the shore. On-shore structures related to this industry included cabins and landing stages (figure 11.3). The inshore fishery continued even after an off-shore “wet” fishery developed in which fish were caught and then salted on ships (the latter spurred perhaps, according to Harris [2008:32], by the Little Ice Age [see White 2017] cooling waters and driving cod farther offshore). An advantage of the dry fishery was that it required less salt than the wet fishery, something that the English were sometimes in short supply of. The dry fishery cod also tasted better to many European palates and lasted longer, making a valuable export (Innis 1940). Even the wet fishery was only a warm-season activity. By the middle of the sixteenth century, a substantial – but again seasonal summer – whale fishery had been developed by the Basques, with onshore whaling stations to produce oil (Tuck and Grenier 1981). Occasionally, early whalers employed Indigenous people, but such employment was the exception rather than the rule (Holly 2013:129). During the early seventeenth century, the French and English expanded their fishery to Maine and the Maritimes, based on reports of abundant fish in the Gulf of Maine (Smith 1616). While seasonal fisheries persisted in the Maritimes and Newfoundland, the result in Maine and farther south was a contested but successful year-round fishery, providing both control over territory and access to near-shore spawning cod in the winter, supplemented by farming (Denys 1908; Faulkner 1985). Accounting archaeologically for these fishing stations and life at them is challenging because they were frequently dis- and re-assembled, mostly from wood (Pope 2004:9). Faulkner (1985, 1986) describes this process of cod fishing and the associated onshore structures in detail, and outlines the archaeologically visible infrastructure of such

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FIGURE 11.3  Photograph of an early twentieth-century fishing stage in Newfoundland, similar to those used to process fish in the Protohistoric period.

Memorial University of Newfoundland, Archives and Special Collections Geography Collection, Coll-137: 3.07.006

ventures at Damariscove Island in Maine, to form a model for considering early codfishery sites. Despite historical documentation, the remains of the seventeenth-century fishery were obscure. Structures were likely expediently made “wattle and sail” buildings, with sail roofs over rough stick frames, giving them a tent-like appearance. Stone pilings identified jutting out into the water at the site would have supported the “stages,” where fish were taken off ships and cleaned. According to historic records, characteristic of such sites were barracks-like structures for fishermen, a structure that was both captain’s residence and storage, and drying racks or “flakes.” More permanent fisheries would have also had more substantial residences, perhaps leaving foundations in the archaeological record. Notably, by 1622 at Damariscove, English fisherman had fortified their fishing village – not so much to protect the encampment itself as to maintain control over fishing waters. (Denys [1908:247] provides a detailed early account of practices surrounding the cod fishery.) The shift to an economy in North America focusing on the fur trade was a result of economic desires that could not be met in Europe. Cod provided food and whale oil offered light, but the fur trade was in large part a response to fashion. Famously, broad-brimmed hats made from beaver fur became increasingly fashionable among

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Western European men. Yet, according to Veale (1966:175), the beaver had been nearly pushed to extinction in Southern Europe by the sixteenth century by trappers pursuing its skin. As a result, the fur trade in Russia expanded, and developed in North America. In Turgeon’s (1998:599) analysis, the Swedish military seizure of the Baltic port Narva in 1581 accelerated the growth of the North American fur trade. In the Northeast, feeding this demand developed into a system of exchange not just directly between European and Indigenous people, but also involving Indigenous “middlemen” to move furs and European goods along trade networks. The system that emerged persisted, in some forms, into the latter half of the twentieth century, immortalized in Ianzelo and Richardson’s 1971 film, Cree Hunters of Mistassini. The Beothuk appear to have largely avoided participating in the fur trade, with the result that, to Europeans, Newfoundland “became symbolic of the entire banks fishery, even though other places facilitated access to the fishery” (Mancke 2005:38). As the fur trade intensified, so too did Indigenous-European interaction. With Europeans requiring furs from the interior of the Atlantic Northeast, complex systems of exchange over long distances intensified pre-existing Indigenous exchange routes and required new ones. Exchange did not proceed identically in each part of the region. European goods did not exclusively pass into and among Indigenous people via direct trade. Inuit and Beothuk sometimes left goods in prominent places for Europeans to gather and replace with trade items (Crout 1613; Howley 1915), which Holly (2013:130) notes appears to have been a preferential mode of trade during friendly relations. Scavenging the seasonally used (and therefore seasonally abandoned) whaling and fishing camps for useful materials such as nails, sail, and ballast flint was useful within Indigenous cultural contexts for making tools and shelter (Holly 2013:131).

Ethnicity in the Atlantic Northeast Historical accounts of Indigenous people in the Atlantic Northeast are not always clear about who they are describing. To anthropologists, ethnicity refers to groups of people set apart by themselves or by others (S. Jones 1997). Accordingly, it is a historically malleable and often ambiguous concept. For instance, today, as we described in an earlier chapter, Wabanaki are a confederacy, composed of closely related but unique groups – the Abenaki, Maliseet (Wolastoqiyik), Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy/Peskotomukhati, and Penobscot – that have linguistic, territorial, and political differences as well as commonalities. The question of ethnicity in the Atlantic Northeast has attracted enormous scholarly attention (see Bourque 1989), which we attempt to summarize here. The major challenge has been that it increasingly appears that ethnic groups realigned substantially after European contact. This is unsurprising, because flexible group membership and territoriality is the

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norm among small-scale societies. Models about Historic period Indigenous ethnicity have proposed that groups organized on a “river-centred” model (Dodge 1957:68; Speck 1915; Speck and Hadlock 1946) or a modified “river drainage” model (Snow 1968b, 1973, 1976; cf. Bourque 1989). Bourque (1989:274) has critiqued these positions, arguing that “the modern Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and Maliseet tribes are better understood as products of ethnic realignments, shifts in residence, territorial loss, and the Indian policies of New England and New France” (also Trigger 1978:2). Bourque’s (1989) critique of the various river-­oriented models hinges on a politically complex seventeenth- and ­eighteenth-century Northeast, characterized by frequently shifting Indigenous territoriality; in effect, he argues, the geopolitical realities of the early Historic period preclude the stability required by riverine models. Mallory Moran (2020) argues that riverine drainage models, while appealing as ethnic units, may obscure the important portage connections that link them southwest to northeast across the Maritime Peninsula. Nonetheless, the archaeological record, as we have argued, suggests long-term connections to certain places at least by the Woodland period. (For more detail on Wabanaki ethnicity, see Baker 2004; Bourque 1989; Champlain 1907:48–52, 56; Dodge 1957; Ganong 2003; Ghere 1997; Hoffman 1955a, 1955b; Morrison 1974, 1978; Lescarbot 1907; Prins 1992; Prins and Bourque 1987; Snow 1968b, 1976, 1980; Speck 1915, 1997; Thwaites 1896.) Early European accounts named ethnic groups in the early Historic period with toponyms or with names applied by Indigenous people they had already encountered. Groups identified for the Maritime Peninsula include Almouchiquois, Etchemin, and Souriquois. The Almouchiquois (see Baker 2004) were the group living on the Saco River encountered by Champlain at the village Chouacouet in 1605. According to Prins and McBride (2007:46), Almouchiquois “was a term the Mi’kmaq used, lumping the Abenaki and other horticultural Algonquian villagers in New England together as ‘Dog People,’ clearly a derogatory term expressing contempt for these foreigners with whom they were in a perpetual state of conflict in the early Contact Period.” The Abenaki are also described by Champlain as living farther up the Kennebec. The Souriquous lived in Maine and New Brunswick, the name referring to the ancestors of the Mi’kmaq (Hoffman 1955b). The Etchemin correspond to the Passamaquoddy/ Peskotomukhati and Wolastoqiyik, and probably include a group described in the late seventeenth century as the Canibas, who appear to have been a group of Abenaki who moved to the Penobscot (Bourque 1989). The tensions among these groups implied by their names for one another sometimes turned violent, such as in the 1607 Tarrentine War between the Etchemin and the Almouchiquois, and Souriquois sometimes raided Almouchiquois villages, maybe because they held horticultural food reserves (Baker 2004). In short, while the groups accounted for in the ethnohistoric record on the Maritime Peninsula are the ancestors of today’s Wabanaki groups,

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FIGURE 11.4 Beothuk pendants from the island of Newfoundland: (a) VIII-A:96; (b) VIII-A:99; (c) VIII-A:95; (d) VIII-A:108; (e) VIII-A:107; and (f) VIII-A:104. These pendants may be indicative of Beothuk relationships to animals, perhaps representing parts of birds (Kristensen and Holly 2013) or limbs of mammals.

Adapted from photography by David Keenlyside; ­illustration by Erin Ingram.

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s­ hifting those names directly into the past may deny complex and ancient mobility, alliance, and friction – as well as apply ethnocentric notions of territoriality introduced by colonization. On the island of Newfoundland, Beothuk ethnic history has often hinged on trying to determine whether they were linguistically Algonquian (see Marshall 1996:Ch. 27). Recently, genetic research has sought to further clarify the descent of the Beothuk. Duggan and colleagues (2017) have used mitochondrial DNA to suggest a complex history of Indigenous settlement of Newfoundland. By European contact, there was a shared Beothuk ethnic identity (figure 11.4).

Demography As economic activity around the fur trade amplified in the Atlantic Northeast, it was accompanied by a development that would prove disastrous. While much remains unknown about the European diseases that Europeans introduced into North America with devastating consequences, seventeenth-century voyages were shorter than ­sixteenth-century ones; prior to that, the length of voyages may have effectively served as a form of quarantine. Alternatively, the quarantine effect may have been from a lack of regular close contact between Indigenous and European peoples (see Spiess and Spiess 1987:77–78). Two vexing and related historical questions remain only answered in general terms: what were the diseases introduced by Europeans in the Atlantic Northeast and what was their toll (see Crosby 1976; Marr and Cathey 2010; Spiess and Spiess 1987:77)? These questions in turn shape what historians know – and perhaps what is knowable – about how many Indigenous people lived in the Atlantic Northeast before contact. A persistent question about pre-contact groups anywhere is their population size, which are for reasons of both scale and analogy difficult to infer archaeologically. One of the most common questions at any public presentation about the archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast is frustratingly vexing, “How many people lived here?” In the Atlantic Northeast, the question hinges, basically, on whether the devastating effects of epidemic disease were already profoundly being felt in Indigenous populations during the sixteenth century, rendering early European population estimates inapplicable to prehistoric population sizes (Dobyns 1989; Snow and Lanphear 1989). Secondary factors of this debate are population estimates derived from analogies to other huntergatherer groups in similar environments, and estimates based on the density of late prehistoric sites in the archaeological record. As we discussed in the previous chapter, our view is that the Late Woodland was probably marked by modest population growth. Varying views of all of these factors result in wildly disparate estimates. For the Beothuk, numbers between 500 and 3,000 are probably most likely, and are arrived at using ethnographically derived population densities for sub-Arctic environments and

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archaeological site densities (see Marshall 1996:283). European missionaries at least as early as Biard in 1616 offered population estimates, and Biard’s approximation of 3,500 Mi’kmaw individuals has been widely reported. Miller (1976) argued, however, that this estimate failed to account for over a hundred years of European contact and, with it, disease and changes in Mi’kmaw subsistence. Moreover, she argues that 3,500 would be a surprisingly small population to inhabit the Mi’kmaw homeland, especially considering prehistoric site density from well-surveyed parts of coastal Nova Scotia. The enigmatic Mawooshen description published by Purchas (1906) in the early seventeenth century and based on information from Waymouth’s 1605 travels in the Gulf of Maine also provides an estimate of the number of men and houses at villages along most of coastal Maine. These ranged roughly in size and population from small villages of 80 men in 50 houses to a large village of 60 houses and 400 men. A reasonable estimate from this census would be something in excess of 20,000 people in present-day Maine (A. Spiess, personal communication, 2019). For our part, we think Prins’s (1996:26–27) estimate of about 15 people per 100 km² reasonable, which would put the Mi’kmaq population at ca. 15,000. Snow (1980:32–42) generally favours more conservative population estimates, arguing that major epidemics mostly occurred in the early seventeenth century as historically documented, stemming from more frequent European contacts (see below). Snow’s population estimates are about half of Prins’s, and would produce an aggregate population of Maine and the Maritimes of fewer than 20,000 individuals at contact, and population densities lower than 30 per 100 km², which seems low in light of the Mawooshen census. Adding reasonable estimates in the low thousands for the Beothuk and a few more thousand for ancestral Innu groups in neighbouring areas, and an Indigenous population of the Atlantic Northeast at contact that was in the low- to mid-tens of thousands seems to us to be reasonable. At the moment, a preponderance of evidence points to low population density consistent with other hunter-gatherer groups, but nonetheless absolutely catastrophic population decline as a result of endemic disease by the early seventeenth century.

Historical Ethnography: Contact through European Eyes and Ears Anthropologists can get a sense of how Indigenous people appeared to Europeans at contact from historic accounts and by inference from ethnographic collections. Bourque and Labar (2009) and Whitehead (2001) have reviewed museological collections and historic accounts to synthesize how Wabanaki may have dressed at early contact. Whitehead (2001:252) summarizes key seventeenth-century sources. There were broad similarities, but also differences suggesting ethnic diversity among people inhabiting the

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Atlantic Northeast (e.g., Levinge 1846:116). As indicated by the passage from Verrazzano as he entered Casco Bay, Wabanaki people at contact wore fur robes made from many of the species that they would later exchange with Europe (Bourque and Labar 2009). These were often slung across one shoulder and accompanied by a hide loincloth. A leather belt both secured the clothing and provided a place to tuck items and support pouches (Whitehead 1989:89) for tobacco and other materials. Leggings (Whitehead 1989:89), sleeves, and moccasins (e.g., Whitehead 1989:11, 56, 89, 92, 95, 97, 2001:253) were also worn. A variety of dolls in museum collections (e.g., Whitehead 1989) as well as exhibits and exhibit catalogues (notably Bourque and Labar 2009) may show traditional dress. Le Clercq (1910:93–94) provides this description: … before the settlement of the French in this new world the Indians clothed themselves only in skins of moose, beaver, marten, and seal, in which indeed, many of these people are clothed even to the present day. The appearance and representation of Hercules, who wears upon his shoulders in the form of a mantle the skin of the lion which he had bravely overcome and slain, as history records, is somewhat like that of an Indian in his wigwam…. These people nevertheless, have always exhibited, as do the Gaspesians of to-day, much more modesty than does this false deity, as shown in the particular care which they take to cover and conceal that which nature and decency do not permit to be shown. The severe cold, further, which prevails during the winter in Canada obliges them to cover themselves more modestly. But aside from this, however rigorous the winter in their country may be, and however excessive the heat in summer, they always make use of stirrup-like stockings without feet, while their moccasins, which are quite flat and without heels, really resemble leather socks. They line these with moose skins in order always to preserve some warmth for the feet. As to their coats, these are large and broad. The sleeves are not attached to the body, but are separate therefrom, and tied together by two thongs, separated into equal parts by an opening which serves for the passing of the head. One of these sleeves falls in front, and covers only half of the arm; the other falls behind, and clothes the entire shoulders. The women’s coats are not different in any particular from those of the men. I will tell you only this, that the women dress and clothe themselves with so much reserve and modesty that they do not permit any nakedness to appear which could offend modesty and decency. For their clothes, they make use of a white or red blanket, which falls from the shoulders to the mid-leg in the form of a tunic; with this they enwrap the body, and they belt it in by a girdle ornamented with beadwork and wampum.

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Elsewhere, he describes their headwear: The Gaspesians, as a rule, all go bare-headed … very often, [they] make for themselves a kind of crown from the two wings of the bird which they have killed in their hunting; but they never made use of hats or caps until the French had given them use thereof. (Le Clercq 1910:98)

Hair styles served as ethnic markers. For instance, Almouchiquois men kept their hair cut short on top, while Etchemin men favoured a bun worn on the top of the head (Prins and McBride 2007:18). Some people, including Mi’kmaq living on the Gaspé, dyed their hair dark with grease. Wabanaki people lived in conical wigwams, covered with birchbark. These were assembled by women, and served as home to family units. Although there are few accounts of their interiors, they ordered them by gender, with men on one side and women on the other, and with special places afforded to guests or elders. Inside, people slept on mats or boughs. Near the centre, houses had a fire, smoke from which was released from a hole in the top of the structure. Many of their formal sweathouses were likely isolated from European view, but Europeans sometimes saw wigwams used expediently as sweathouses with the door sealed shut. Europeans would have heard people speaking (with the possible exception of Beothuk; see Goddard 1978:77; Marshall 1996:435–437) Algonquian languages, some of which are still spoken today and descend from Proto-Algonquian, the dispersal of which we discussed in chapter 9. Due to their relatedness, many of these languages are somewhat mutually intelligible especially among nearby groups. On the Maritime Peninsula, these languages are classified as Eastern Algonquian (Goddard 1978) while farther west Cree peoples spoke Central Algonquian languages. Some of these languages are alive today, and are among the many important ways Indigenous cultures have persisted in the Atlantic Northeast. For instance, Francis and Leavitt (2008:8) note that “as European colonists settled in the region, the borrowing of French and English words expanded Passamaquoddy-Maliseet vocabulary but did not change the structure of the language or its ways of conceptualizing society and the environment.”

Socio-Political Organization In general, the core of political organization in the Atlantic Northeast homeland was – as for most hunter-gatherers – the family band, composed of small groups of kin. In principle, these groups may have been patrilineal, but in practice were

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­ robably often defined both paternally and maternally. After marriage, new couples p may have lived for a short period of bride service with the bride’s family, but were usually patrilocal. Exogamous marriage served to reinforce relationships among bands. Various sources attest to spring and summer aggregations of bands at locales where resources were numerous (Prins 1996). Social aggregations such as these were probably fairly regular occurrences at least in the Woodland period, as we discussed in previous chapters. Beyond this family band and associated aggregations, a key question is to what extent a variety of more complex forms of political organization arose before contact or in response to contact, especially to respond to pressures to control exchange channels to move furs, European goods, and other things. For instance, the Wabanaki Confederacy was founded as a seventeenth-century response to European – especially English – aggression in the Atlantic Northeast. However, it was a recognition of pre-existing alliances, affinities, and relationships, many of which were ancient. That such an alliance was needed also acknowledges significant ethnic differences below the scale of a confederacy (see previous chapter) and a variety of political institutions. As early as the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Mawooshen document (Purchas 1906) suggests that much of the Indigenous population in Maine described above (plausibly over 10,000 people in Mawooshen) was in some sort of alliance under the leadership of a superchief named Bashabez (or Bashabe or Bashaba) living somewhere on the Penobscot. Such an alliance or confederacy would have apparently transcended, it appears, distinctions among Etchemin, Canibas, Abenaki, and Almouchiquois groups (see Norton and Baker 2007; Petersen et al. 2004:6–7; Snow 1976). Petersen and colleagues (2004:6) suggest the confederacy was important for trade, but the time depth of such trade relationships is opaque. To what degree Mawooshen was a pre-European phenomenon or a response to growing Indigenous connections and p ­ ressures to the east or in southern New England deserves further exploration. The case we made in the previous chapter for increasing sedentism, intensification of some resources, and expansion of trade networks in the Late Woodland suggests that complexity was increasing before European contact. This new evidence, especially accompanied by increased temporal resolution, suggests tentatively that, contrary to previous work (e.g., Nietfield 1981), there may have been shifts toward tribal social organization. Sub-regional ethnic variability, resource patchiness, and position for exchange with other Indigenous groups may have all contributed to a mosaic of political structures that were amplified but not developed in their entirety at contact. Part of this variability may be summarized in what Darnell (1998) has described as an “accordion model.” Darnell argues that mobile groups

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are difficult to conceptualize with terms for socio-political complexity that are most often applied to sedentary groups – and that early European accounts would be better able to recognize – where group organization was malleable and involved expansions and contraction based on “subsistence-motivated expansion of social groups in relation to resource exploitation” (91). Emphasizing mobility and deemphasizing concepts such as “the village” is useful for conceptualizing the development of various far-reaching political institutions that facilitate seasonal aggregation and still permit political control that might be situational, and spatially and temporally constrained. As we describe below, such a model could incorporate varied responses to European incursion. Fundamentally, our point here is to reiterate that we see roots of the historically reported political developments in the Woodland, including variability and socio-political complexity, and do not see this as inconsistent with a basically band-level family-oriented pattern across much of the region and indeed through many seasons. The Beothuk in Newfoundland may pose something of an exception because they did not participate in much organized direct exchange with Europeans, and instead probably were consistently loosely affiliated small bands (see Marshall 1996:Ch. 18).

Archaeology and Ethnohistory So far in this chapter, we have focused on what the first European observers would have perceived in the Atlantic Northeast, and why they arrived there. The question of what it must have been like for Indigenous people is at the root of archaeological and ethnohistorical studies of contact, moving beyond the sort of “ethnographic baseline” we have taken for much of this chapter so far. Ethnohistory, which applies historical data to anthropological questions, owes much of its modern genesis to the Atlantic Northeast. A.G. Bailey, who spent most of his career at the University of New Brunswick, helped invent North American ethnohistory with The Conflict of European and Algonkian Cultures (1937), described by Trigger (1989:4) as “a trailblazing study of how French and Eastern Algonkian cultures had mutually influenced each other in the 16th and 17th centuries.” A critical contribution of this work was that embracing the growing influence of Boasian anthropology led scholars to treat Indigenous people in the Atlantic Northeast as responding to the fur trade in terms of their own histories. In other important accounts, such as by Innis (1930), important advances were made about the economy of the fur trade, “yet, while Innis acknowledged the important role played by Native People as trappers and collectors of furs, he paid little attention to how their specific beliefs and ways of life influence their participation in the fur trade or how doing so affected their lives. Instead, he

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preferred to explain their participation in terms of universal patterns of rational economic behavior; for Innis, Native people were ‘Economic Man’ dressed up in feathers” (Trigger 1989:5). Bailey’s approach presaged and provided critical emphasis for archaeologists and ethnohistorians to consider contact as a process that required attention to Indigenous history, and de-emphasized approaching Northeastern Algonquians as static remnants of a primitive past (Trigger 1989). Today, archaeologists and ethnohistorians recognize better still the connections between the past peoples of the Atlantic Northeast and the First Nations who still live here – a realization that should encourage scholars to emphasize colonialism as something with which Indigenous people engaged in a wide variety of socially contextualized ways, requiring both archaeological and ethnohistorical methods. This helps to add Indigenous context for the experience around contact, where there are only sporadic written accounts of Indigenous people, and virtually none in their own voices. Archaeologically it is clear that, as in Europe, the period leading up to contact, in general, was socio-economically dynamic, with increased socio-political complexity, changes in economy, increasing sedentism, and long-ranging interaction spheres and political relationships (see Trigger and Swagerty 1996). Accordingly, even itinerant coastal contacts could ripple westward in the form of goods, diseases, and information, identifiable only through archaeological studies.

The Protohistoric Archaeological Record: Copper Kettle Burials Excepting a handful of sites, many of which we discuss below, the sixteenth century on the Maritime Peninsula is archaeologically known almost entirely from mortuary sites, many of which were excavated in the nineteenth and early twentieth century (e.g., Turnbull 1984:13–22). However, Whitehead (1993) notes that, at least since the seventeenth century, Europeans sometimes looted Indigenous graves for the valuable metals and furs they contained, as well as curiosity. These inhumations tended to contain a variety of European metal items and items from native copper, and often appear to have involved placing remains on bark or hide. Although difficult to infer from excavation records, some burials were probably secondary inhumations, in which bundles of bones were interred after decomposition, such as at Old Mission Point (Pike 2014:95; cf. Turnbull 1984:18–19). Pike suggests that such burials may have followed cold season deaths, and may be similar to “scaffold burials” in the sub-Arctic and elsewhere. According to Le Clercq (1910:310; see also Denys 1908:438), Mi’kmaq placed individuals who died after

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the ground had frozen in trees near rivers: “those of his wigwam enwrap him with much care in barks painted red and black, place him upon the branches of some tree on the bank of a river, and build around him with logs a kind of little fort, for fear lest he be torn by wild beasts or birds of prey.” Other burials were probably primary, such as a probable sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century grave at Pemaquid, Maine, where a woman and child were interred together (Camp 1975:76). At Penobscot, Walker’s Pond and Sandy Point are examples of elaborate late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century burials, within the territory of the large Mawooshen confederacy, which was likely in control of regional exchange until about 1615 (Petersen et al. 2004). In short, elaborate burials seem to have been associated with territories that had rich trading relationships with Europeans and other Indigenous peoples. The most visible and discussed aspect of Protohistoric burials is their tendency to be associated with copper pots that were ritually killed by breaking their bases, probably by striking them with another object (figure 11.5). Anthropologists are intrigued by the ways in which people incorporate and reinvent items in their own cultural frames. Accordingly, copper kettle burials – the use of an apparently mundane European trade item in ritual contexts that are anything but mundane – have received extensive archaeological and ethnohistorical attention (Fitzgerald et al. 1993; Martin 1975; Turgeon 1997). Native copper, as we have discussed, served important roles in prehistoric Indigenous life, and was exchanged over long distances from sources at Cape d’Or, Grand Manan, or perhaps as far away as the Great Lakes. The material continued to be used in ritual contexts after contact. Given sparse direct interaction and the early presence of copper kettles in ethnohistoric accounts, European copper may have quickly been moved along some of the same exchange routes that native copper had previously travelled. Kettles, Martin (1975) has argued, became a critical technology to the Indigenous inhabitants of the Atlantic Northeast, offering a durable and light container ideally suited to hunter-gatherer lifeways. Citing Denys’s (1908) observation that copper kettles were “the most valuable item” to Mi’kmaq obtainable from exchange with Europeans, Martin (1975:113) describes the varied cultural implications of copper kettles: “What Denys meant was that the kettle was more to these people than simply a handy cooking vessel. Much more than that, we know that it was an instrument which pervaded the exchange economy (as a highly-prized commodity of trade), the ceremonial complex (as grave furniture, for instance) and the overarching belief system (like all other material culture, it was invested with an animating spirit), and lastly, the settlement pattern (to the degree that it contributed to overthrow of wooden cauldron-based territories).”

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FIGURE 11.5  Sixteenth-century copper pot (72.51.20) from the burial of a young adult woman at the Northport site in Nova Scotia (BlCx-1), 26 cm diameter, 15 cm depth. Adapted from Whitehead (1993:Fig. 52).

Illustration by Erin Ingram

Protohistoric Occupation Sites Contrasting with the highly visible copper kettle burials, largely confined to territory associated with Mi’kmaq, are a few Protohistoric habitation components (see Grumet 1995:74–75). That they have rarely been detected reflects, in part, the same focus on deeply stratified coastal sites that permitted broad culture history building for the Woodland period, but lacked temporal resolution. As on the Maritime Peninsula, archaeologists in Newfoundland find it challenging to distinguish among Beothuk and Little Passage sites, relying on stratigraphic associations of Euro–North American materials with Indigenous technologies, or modified Euro–North American implements, such as hooks repurposed from nails (Holly et al. 2010:36–37). The relative rarity of identified Protohistoric period items on the Maritime Peninsula probably attests to – contrary to what might be imagined – relatively few European items

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e­ ntering Indigenous contexts during the Protohistoric, causing Protohistoric-aged components to be interpreted as mixed Late Woodland ones. Recent archaeological work has begun to suggest that the Protohistoric period may have been marked by rapid shifts in seasonal occupation of the coast. Such changes are consistent with historic accounts summarized by Bourque (1973), which – in contrast to year-round coastal and interior populations described in earlier chapters – suggested coastal-interior transhumance, with summers on the coast. Bourque (1973:9) noted that the ethnohistoric accounts are unable to establish whether or not the shift occurred after European contact or just before, highlighting the need to consider contact from both archaeological and ethnohistorical vantages. The Devil’s Head site, located in Calais, Maine, is a rare example of a discrete Protohistoric habitation site from the Maritime Peninsula. The site has been radiocarbon dated to AD 1410–1610, suggesting that the site may have been occupied by people who knew of, or had sporadic contact with, Europeans (Hrynick et al. 2017). That contact has been supported in the most recent excavations at the site by the identification of several pieces of cut copper, possibly from kettles, one blue trade bead (figure 11.6), and a plausibly sixteenth- or seventeenth-century metal finial. The site speaks to questions of settlement at contact in interesting ways. First, the site occupies

FIGURE 11.6  A blue Protohistoric period trade bead recovered from the Devil’s Head site (97.10) along the St. Croix River in Maine.

Photograph by Rob Blanchard, University of New Brunswick

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a bend in the St. Croix River that, today, Passamaquoddy canoeists stop at to wait for the tides to change before canoeing into Passamaquoddy Bay. But a later Late Maritime Woodland occupation at the site is located in a discrete area compared to the Protohistoric components. This suggests that the bend was a useful vantage both before and after contact. Unlike the Late Maritime Woodland occupants, however, the site’s Protohistoric inhabitants broke with the Woodland period tendency to re-occupy living surfaces, and shifted their living surfaces to the northwest. The faunal collection from the Late Maritime Woodland occupation at the site is dominated by moose, beaver (figure 11.7), and hare, with the long bones from mammals fractured spirally. Spiral fractures are often associated with marrow extraction, as bones are struck while still green between a stone and a hammer. Moreover, some of the bones exhibited polish on their ends, suggesting they were boiled in a pot to extract bone grease, which can be particularly valuable to consume during the winter, when other foods are less regularly available. Taken together, the faunal evidence suggests a winter occupation of the site during the Late Woodland. In contrast, the Protohistoric occupations were dominated by a range of large and small mammals, as well as shortnose sturgeon, alewives, and flounder, likely associated with a warm season (Hrynick et al. 2017).

FIGURE 11.7  A beaver mandible with European copper on a gravel and comminuted shell feature edge from the Protohistoric component of the Devil’s Head site (97.10).

Photograph by M. Gabriel Hrynick, University of New Brunswick

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In addition to potentially narrowing the time frame for the Woodland-Protohistoric settlement shift, Devil’s Head suggests expansion of Indigenous exchange patterns. As we discussed in earlier chapters, Black (2004) noted increased use of exotic toolstone in the Late Maritime Woodland in comparison to the Middle Maritime Woodland. At Devil’s Head, the Late Maritime Woodland period contained ca. 1% by weight of total lithic material of toolstone, likely acquired non-locally. In contrast, the Protohistoric exotic lithics comprised ca. 16% by weight of the overall lithic assemblage, with much of the material likely originating in the Minas Basin of Nova Scotia (Hrynick et al. 2017). We can situate the Devil’s Head site alongside at least two or perhaps three other Protohistoric archaeological sites in the Quoddy Region. The Birch Cove site (Blair et al. 2017) has notable similarities to Devil’s Head structurally and in terms of being dominated by Indigenous artifacts; in fact, it contained just one piece of likely early buff-coloured ceramic that is or resembles Saintonge ceramics from France. The lithic collection there is overwhelmingly characterized by local materials, and the midden includes a surprising number of whelks along with fish and bird bones. There are, surprisingly, no scrapers or Indigenous ceramics at the site. Another analogous site reported by David Black (2004:41–42, 95) is Ledge, from the insular Quoddy Region. The site returned a radiocarbon date of 380 ± 50 BP (Black 2004:50). Ledge contained a single faunal remain – probably gadid – in a soft-shell clam and urchin midden, with a few other species, and was devoid of artifacts (Black 2004:106). In Nova Scotia, habitation sites are similarly rarely identified, making the contrast with elaborate mortuary sites even starker (figure 11.8). In Port Joli Harbour, a Protohistoric component was recognized based primarily on a date of 510–310 cal BP on caribou bone in a shallow context overlying a Late Woodland surface. Absent this date, the two pieces of temporally ambiguous wrought iron that were in the stratum would likely have been viewed as intrusive (Betts 2019a). However, careful stratigraphic excavation allowed the Protohistoric context to be reconstructed following confirmation with the radiometric date. We suspect that while studies of habitation or task sites are nascent now, they will be increasingly recognized in coming decades. That said, we think the patterning of habitation sites contrasted with the concentration of elaborate Protohistoric mortuary sites in Mi’kmaw territory and elsewhere speaks to real archaeological patterning that deserves attention. In a preliminary way, sites such as Devil’s Head and others in the Quoddy Region offer a contrast to the burial-focused studies of the Protohistoric from elsewhere in the Maritimes and New England. It is possible that, in the Quoddy Region, such burials have just not been identified. Given the extent of work, and the archaeological visibility of such sites, this seems unlikely to us, and

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FIGURE 11.8  Protohistoric biface assemblage from AlDf24 Area C, Port Joli, Nova Scotia. Note the distinct similarity to Late Maritime Woodland projectile points. In the absence of radiocarbon dates and diagnostic European material, Protohistoric assemblages are very difficult to identify.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, E’se’get Archaeology Project

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suggests true regional patterning not yet well understood. More survey is clearly warranted, paired with more radiometric dating. It also suggests that the emphasis on burials with European inclusions in the archaeological literature may obscure other patterning. For instance, Howey’s (2017:162) recent treatment of copper kettle burials in the Northeast at large refers to a “near-constant myriad of material objects acquired, exchanged, valued and destroyed, produced and consumed during the 16th century.” Something different seems to be going on in the Quoddy Region, where shifts are more subtle, but the shifts imbue the quotidian Protohistoric with archaeological visibility. In Newfoundland, the Protohistoric also was marked by settlement shifts, including the abandonment of some areas. The protected “inner-coast” site locations that we described in the previous chapter permitted exploitation of a wide range of ­terrestrial and coastal foods. These locations were also good bases for scavenging seasonally abandoned European fishing stations. Holly (2008) argues that these early sporadic and seasonally limited European contacts helped encourage Beothuk to dig in to their inner-coastal sites, making larger, more robust dwellings at sites such as Boyd’s Cove, and using a variety of repurposed European items including metal and sails. Eventually, as European interests expanded to near and inshore resources, hostilities ensued, and the Beothuk were driven inland, where they formed larger settlements, possibly for defence, and tried to exploit more interior resources, especially caribou. Throughout the Northeast, the value of the coast for access to resources and access to trade would drive shifts in settlement and seasonal rounds, amplifying, changing, and reifying relationships among Indigenous and European groups, shaped by different cultural and economic goals. Protohistoric habitation sites, in general, in the Atlantic Northeast suggest technological continuity. Stone tool technologies appear more-or-less continuous and ancestral Wabanaki continued to make ceramics. Foodways appear to have stayed the same, with efforts to maintain them even as people were later forced to shift from areas they previously occupied (Holly 2019). In some portions of the Wabanaki homeland, wigwams continued to be the dominant form of domestic architecture until the middle part of the nineteenth century (Bock 1978). That it is extremely difficult in most cases to distinguish sixteenth-century from Late Woodland sites archaeologically is a testament to this continuity, and subtle shifts in subsistence and seasonality attest to the initial response to European contact, which probably resembled ways in which people in the Atlantic Northeast had long responded to and negotiated interaction with others. Eventually, in some parts of the Atlantic Northeast, economic change would become more profound and contact prolonged, accelerating change.

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Exchange and Ethnic Realignments In Nova Scotia and the eastern Gulf of Maine, sixteenth- and early seventeenthcentury Tarrentines – primarily Souriquois (or Mi’kmaq) with some Etchemin (or Passamaquoddy-Maliseet) allies – used their advantageous coastal position to emerge as brokers or “middlemen” of the burgeoning fur trade. In Bourque and Whitehead’s (1985) essential analysis of this activity, they attribute the rapid and skilled adoption of shallops, small European sailing ships, to the success of this project, because the deft use of these vessels over waters that Tarrentines were already intimately familiar with allowed them to control the trade of furs with Europeans, serving both as a conduit of European goods to the interior and of furs to Europeans. While this undoubtedly changed the dynamic of pre-existing exchange relationships and routes, the structure of the routes was probably not very foreign from the forms of exchange that had already been expanding in the Late Woodland (see chapter 10). In effect, shallops permitted Tarrentines to serve as both brokers and shippers by permitting them to control the entire Gulf of Maine fur trade. Shallops facilitated moving quickly along the coast to trade European items acquired via the St. Lawrence fur trade with other Indigenous people.

BOX 11.1  FROM CANOE TO SHALLOP At the time of European contact, Indigenous people in the Atlantic Northeast had birchbark, dugout, and skin-covered boat technology for riverine and ocean travel, perfected over millennia and adapted to the environment of the Atlantic Northeast. After contact, Mi’kmaw traders asserted themselves as brokers in the burgeoning fur trade in the Atlantic Northeast. While French voyageurs would eventually adopt canoes for the fur trade, Mi’kmaq were using shallops expertly by the late sixteenth century (Bahar 2019; Bourque and Whitehead 1985; Loewen 2016). Shallop refers to a variety of small, open vessel, usually powered by sail on a single mast. Although Mi’kmaw ocean-going canoes can be quite large (something on the order of 20 feet in length) (Adney and Chapelle 1964), shallops could be double the size and could carry more cargo while taking advantage of sail power. They were also capable of moving people rapidly; by 1607, the Sagamore Membertou was able

to rally hundreds of Mi’kmaw men to travel in shallops from Port Royal to the Saco River on a revenge raid on the Almouchiquois (see Morrison 1974). Denys (1908:196–197) gives some insight into how shallops were acquired and how their use proliferated in the Northeast: It is well to observe that the Indians of the coast use canoes only for the rivers, and all have boats for the sea. These they sometimes buy from the Captains who are about to leave after having completed their fishery; but the greater part they take from the places in which the Captains have had them hidden on the coast or in the ponds, in order to make use of them on another voyage. But when the proprietors, or others having a right to them, (continued)

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BOX 1.2  Continued r­ ecognise them, they make no more ceremony of taking them back than the Indians do in making use of them. European accounts attest to the skill with which Wabanaki people used shallops. One Jesuit account describes: These Shallops they buy of the French who frequent their shores for the sake of fishing, and they handle them as skillfully as our most courageous and active Sailors of France. They made a little Bridge of wood to enable them to embark dry-shod in these Shallops, which were held for them readylaunched. That done, and the feast concluded, our warriors issued from a large Cabin, well armed after their fashion, singing, dancing, and then running quickly to their Shallops. Those who embarked last immediately threw into the water the pieces of wood constituting their Bridges, and, taking the oars in hand with incredible celerity, were clear of the bank in a moment. Had any one fallen into the water or wetted himself in embarking, or had the Shallop run aground or been delayed in the least degree, such an ill omen would

have brought them to an instant halt and made them change their plans. (Thwaites 1896:221–223) Although larger than canoes, it seems possible that Mi’kmaq used shallops with confidence from the knowledge of navigating the region’s waters in canoes, and likely brought skills from canoeing to pilot the vessels in ways distinct from Europeans. Brad Loewen (2016:10) suggests that Mi’kmaq and other Indigenous Northeast groups’ adoption of the shallop helped form a “middle ground” – “a space of cultural contact where an original, blended culture emerged and flowered” with knowledge, items, and technologies circulating and being adapted ahead of direct European contact (after White 1991). Shallops adapted by Indigenous northeasterners became both a central and identifying technology, and a means for the rapid transmission of goods, ideas, and information. Sometime Indigenous people emblazoned their shallops with totems, such as moose, much like they did canoes. Indigenous people in the Atlantic Northeast also developed their own ways to repair or even craft shallops from local materials such as birchbark (Bahar 2019:40–47). Clearly, sailing technology was easily adapted and Indigenized by expert seafarers, which would make groups such as the Wabanaki formidable Historic period adversaries or allies to ­European ventures on the coast of the Atlantic ­Northeast (Bahar 2019; Chaves 2019).

The expansion of the European fur trade and the resulting movement and intensive exchange certainly sparked major shifts directly attributable to European contact, such as we have just described. But in many cases, the changes in relationships were complex and actualized largely in intra-Indigenous interaction. For instance, in northern Labrador, the Innu may similarly have encountered pressure from Inuit seeking to attain powerful trading positions with Europeans along the coast (Holly 2013:132– 133). The near abandonment of some areas by the Beothuk that had been inhabited by their ancestors, among them the southwest coast of Placentia Bay, may be for similar reasons. One possibility was that Mi’kmaq, who had perhaps previously made sporadic visits to Newfoundland but for whom there is no evidence of a

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pre-European presence, expanded to southwest Newfoundland to raid in support of their privileged position in the burgeoning fur trade in the 1500s. To the west, on the edge of Iroquoia, enigmatic realignments and Indigenous interactions also occurred. St. Lawrence Iroquoians were encountered by Cartier in AD 1535–1536 at Stadacona (near or at Quebec City) and Hochelaga (near or at Montreal). Archaeological work has suggested these people were Iroquoian horticulturalists living along the St. Lawrence River, where they are archaeologically visible from about AD 1300–1600 in terms of distinctly Iroquoian material culture, such as highly decorated dentate stamped and often castellated small ceramic jars, sometimes with images of corn and circular punctates, and ceramic pipes, some of them with elaborate faces or other decorations (Jamieson 1990; Pendergast 1998; Trigger and Pendergast 1978). Much about these people is enigmatic, including their relationship to other Iroquoian groups, interactions with Algonquian groups, and role in contact-period exchange along the St. Lawrence. Most mysterious, however, is what became of these people, who disappear from the archaeological and historical record along the St. Lawrence at about AD 1600. Archaeologists have tended to infer that disease or conflict with Iroquoians or Algonquians, each possibly related to their advantageous position with regard to exchange along the St. Lawrence, led to their disappearance (Jamieson 1990). Archaeologists have increasingly suggested possible manifestations of St. Lawrence Iroquoian dispersal based on the appearance of apparently St. Lawrence Iroquoian ceramics outside their traditional homeland (see Birch and Williamson 2015:132–136) and scraps of historical information, possibly suggesting that some St. Lawrence Iroquoians were absorbed by the Wyandot or by Algonquians in the Ottawa Valley (Trigger 1976:225–228). However, there is tantalizing archaeological evidence in western/north-central Maine, near the province of Quebec, of St. Lawrence Iroquoian ceramics (Petersen 1990). The presence of St. Lawrence Iroquoian ceramics in Protohistoric contexts along the Kennebec River, notably at the Tracy Farm site (Cowie and Petersen 1999), led Ellen Cowie and James Petersen to suggest that while exchange and other factors could explain the presence of St. Lawrence Iroquoian ceramics in Maine, another possibility is that remnant groups of St. Lawrence Iroquoians themselves shifted to Maine, joining Wabanaki groups. A contact period 25 m x 5 m longhouse with plausibly associated pit features and Iroquoian ceramics at Tracy Farm (Cowie 2002:118–123; Cowie and Petersen 1999) is further suggestive of a St. Lawrence Iroquoian presence on the Kennebec. The timing of this, interestingly, may coincide with a proliferation of maize horticulture along the Kennebec. Arthur Spiess (personal communication, January 25, 2018) notes that such an immigration would help to explain the development of sedentary horticultural villages in the area. We think that

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such a scenario makes anthropological sense in terms of likely Algonquian and French alliances. As Trigger (1976:216) remarks, it would be odd for the St. Lawrence Iroquoians and northern Algonquians to have particular tensions, because “relations between adjacent horticultural and hunting peoples in eastern North America were generally friendly, since such groups were able to exchange surplus corn for skins and dried meat. As the Algonkians living in the interior spent more time hunting in order to participate in the fur trade, they would have become more dependent on the Iroquoians for agricultural produce and in this way the Iroquoians would have been able to secure more furs with the French. Thus, with the development of the fur trade, relations between these two groups should have become friendlier rather than more hostile.”

The End of the Protohistoric Period The boundary between protohistory and history is ambiguous, though it is tempting to try to pinpoint moments at which power and Indigenous and European relations in the Northeast were irreconcilably changed (figure 11.9). In the seventeenth century, increased permanence of European settlement is where we place the admittedly arbitrary end to archaeological discussion in this chapter. These European settlements reflected both the informal economic needs of settlers in North America and goals originating in Europe (Crompton 2015; Faulkner and Faulkner 1987; Mancke 2005; Pope 2004). In Maine, for instance, by the 1620s, English settlers from elsewhere in the Massachusetts Bay Colony or England began to live year-round as farmers in southern Maine (Hornsby 2015). The French began farming the Bay of Fundy (Acadia) in the 1630s, specifically to maintain a French presence in the area (Mancke 2005). In Newfoundland, year-round European settlement grew out of the seasonal fishery, its intensification, and the need to control fishing places and equipment. Some settlements were formally planned from Europe, such as at Ferryland on the Avalon Peninsula, in 1621, under a patent from James I to George Calvert (see Pope 2004). While beyond the scope of this text, there has been much important archaeological work focused on understanding these early European settlements (e.g., Brain 2007, 2016; CottreauRobins in press; Faulkner and Faulkner 1987; Harper 1956; Morrison 2002; Tuck 1993b; Tuck and Gaulton 2013) and Historic period Indigenous or Indigenous and European villages or fortified villages (e.g., Caywood 1969; Cowie 2002). The seventeenth century in the Northeast also saw the beginning of outright wars among Indigenous and European peoples. In southern New England, the Pequot War of 1636–1638 marked the end of illusory possibilities for effective and peaceful economic relations and introduced European-style war in the region (Grandjean 2011; McBride 1990). Skirmishes in the King Philip’s War of 1675–1678 were fought from

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FIGURE 11.9  Mi’kmaw women in front of their wigwams in Sydney, Nova Scotia, ca. 1857. This ­photograph emphasizes cultural and technological continuity before and after contact in the Atlantic Northeast.

Photograph by Paul-Emile Miot, courtesy Library and Archives Canada, LAC ­accession no. 1995-084 NPC, item no. PA-194632

southern New England to Nova Scotia between the English and Algonquian-French allies. In Maine and the Maritimes, this foreshadowed continued conflict between the English, the French, and Algonquian allies focused in southern and western Maine, which formed a contested English-French colonial border. Catholic Wabanaki communities formed in this period, most famously at Norridgewock in western Maine where, in 1727, the English forces attacked, destroying the community, killing Abenaki people and the priest, Fr. Sebastien Rasle, and forcing others to retreat. Fighting continued until the middle part of the eighteenth century in the Maritimes (Cowie 2002), and the Historic period was surely well underway. While the archaeological and historical record of contact and the written and oral histories of the peoples of the Atlantic Northeast illuminate the profound changes of the Historic period, we would argue that the continuities are more profound. As we observed in chapter 1, archaeology and the study of things people left behind is among the ways in which connections between living people in the Atlantic Northeast and the past are visible and tangible. Archaeology of the Historic period will serve to elaborate on the historical record, but an essential way in which it will do so is to identify how people drew on the past to negotiate and redefine the Atlantic Northeast, and to persist in it.

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CONCLUSION

Introduction In Wabanaki cosmology, there are six worlds: beneath the water, beneath the Earth, the Earth, the world above the Earth, the world beyond the sky, and the land of souls. These worlds can be travelled through and between by people under particular circumstances (Hornborg 2006; Whitehead 1988). Archaeology has no such ability to traverse worlds, time, or place; the complexity of the Wabanaki universe should remind archaeologists of the flattened and narrow version of the past they can infer from archaeological data alone. In this spirit, there remains much to learn about Indigenous lifeways in the Atlantic Northeast at and before European contact. We have synthesized archaeological work from the region to devise a narrative culture history. As we have made clear in this book, substantial culture historical questions remain in the Atlantic Northeast. But this is true throughout North America and, given a return to archaeological explanations that emphasize the local, historical context of peoples’ actions (e.g., Sassaman and Holly 2011), notions of a “definitive” culture history are illusory. As a conclusion, we offer two sets of ideas in this chapter. The first are a series of questions that we think are of particular archaeological and culture historical ­significance – they are far from the only questions remaining in the region, but we think they offer models for how the Atlantic Northeast can be articulated with anthropological archaeology at regional, continental, and global scales, and importantly, how archaeology can be mindful and collaborative in the context of community needs and wishes. Yet, just as the archaeological record in the Atlantic Northeast seems on the cusp of providing major contributions to these questions, it is under threat, and the professional capacity to complete archaeological work ahead of the destruction of the archaeological record is absent. We review archaeological practice in the region with some ideas for building capacity and disseminating research.

Big Questions: The Atlantic Northeast and Archaeology’s “Grand Challenges” A useful framework for seeing how the Atlantic Northeast can speak to broader perspectives is to consider Kintigh and colleagues’ (2014a, 2014b) “grand challenges for archaeology,” a crowd-sourced effort to aggregate expert opinions on major global questions to which archaeology can speak. We are struck by the direct relevance of many of the themes we have discussed in this book to those challenges. For instance, the question “How do leaders emerge, maintain themselves, and transform society?” permeates The Archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast. The questions “Can we characterize social collapse or decline in a way that is applicable across cultures, and are there any warning signals that collapse or severe decline is near?” are at the core of understanding the dramatic cultural manifestations of the Late Maritime Archaic, the Dorset, the Beothuk, and the sedentism and interaction of the Late Woodland. The paucity of horticulture during the Woodland period, questions of Palaeoindian identity maintenance over large regions, and responses to climate change along coastlines all are specific examples speaking to some of the big questions Kintigh and colleagues outline. We do not need to go into great detail about these connections, but make this point to highlight the relevance of the Atlantic Northeast not only as an understudied vibrant culture history, but as an opportunity to contribute archaeological insight to “big” anthropological and historical questions. We encourage students, academics, and other scholars in this region to devise their research programs and narratives with an eye to “grand challenges,” and to consider the broader implications of some of the material we have outlined in this book. In preparing this book, we have tried to be forthright about what we think remains poorly understood in the region. We hope that in reading this book, other researchers, and particularly students, have found threads of research to pull on and pursue with vigour. The following list of model questions represents a few of the big remaining issues. We offer these questions only in brief here and refer the reader to material in the rest of the text. FLUTED-POINT PALAEOINDIAN MOBILITY

In general, it seems to us to be well-supported that fluted-point Palaeoindians were highly mobile and likely focused to some degree on caribou hunting. Yet, we also think that serious attention to many of the criticisms raised by Speth and colleagues (2013) is warranted. In particular, we think that the sheer volume of high-quality chert is not high enough at most sites to convince us of a tidy relationship between chert source and residential mobility. We also are not convinced that low population density during

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the Palaeoindian period would preclude exchange of lithic (and other) materials or robust social interaction (again, see Speth et al. 2013). Indeed, recent research we outlined in chapter 4 has increasingly emphasized social relationships proxied by cultural and technological similarity (point-fluting and its potential social implications and a focus on big game, for instance). In the Northeast, the limitations surrounding absolute dating pose challenges to studying Palaeoindians and their mobility beyond even that associated with hunter-gatherers generally. We should add that we suspect much of the conventional wisdom about Palaeoindians will likely hold up to a degree; however, the variety of studies emphasizing Palaeoindian social lives strikes us as a crucial step at this juncture. COASTAL AND INTERIOR RELATIONSHIPS

Recognition that year-round occupation on the coast and the interior during the Middle Maritime and Late Maritime Woodland periods runs contrary to inference from historic accounts and complicates archaeological understanding of where and when people lived in the Atlantic Northeast. To some degree, the archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast is understood in terms of a coastal plain, similar to the Northwest Coast, but with trade and connections to at least some major interior sites. Archaeologists now suspect that, for much of the time before contact, there were contemporaneous uses of the coast and the interior. To what degree coastal interior differences, especially on the Maritime Peninsula, are just ordinary riverine economic adaptations or real ethnic differences deserves further attention. Of course, for huntergatherer groups, to what degree such distinctions are “ethnic,” or identity driven, also is laden with questions. Is a particular affinity for an interior animal among some communities a crucial distinction? What about the difference in the “twist” of cordwrapped stick ceramic decoration? Indeed, it seems it might be a marker of differing identities (see chapter 9). We have also made the case here that regionally the Maritime Archaic cultural phenomenon represents essentially different economic foci and environment against a shared culture backdrop (chapter 6). One of the periods during which this is least developed in the Atlantic Northeast is in the culture historical position of the Late Maritime Archaic and the Laurentian Tradition (chapter 9). Laurentian has never been as clearly defined in the Atlantic Northeast as it was farther south and west, such as in New York, where it can apparently be divided into phases based on diagnostic projectile points. In the Atlantic Northeast, a handful of sites with Laurentian material culture do not have similar temporal resolution within the phase, nor are the sites as abundant. There are apparent relationships among Moorehead burials and Laurentian, and a swordfish harpoon was found at an interior Late Archaic site in Maine (Cox 1991).

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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GROSWATER PRE-DORSET AND EARLY WOODLAND IN THE MARITIME PENINSULA

As outlined in chapters 7 and 8, box-based points similar to Groswater endblades are found throughout the Atlantic Northeast during the Early Maritime Woodland period, particularly in Meadowood contexts (Cudmore 2014; McEachen 1996). They have also been discovered in Quebec and New York (Clermont and Chapdelaine 1982; Granger 1978; Levesque et al. 1964; Ritchie 1961). Though more crudely made than the finest Phillip’s Garden West points, they are thin and finely crafted, and the similarities are striking, and have no specific analogues in the greater Northeast. Wright (1994) believed they were the first arrowheads in the region, which is intriguing given the potential link to Pre-Dorset. Given the spiritual and ritual association of these tools for Groswater (e.g., Ryan 2011), does this represent the participation of the island of Newfoundland in the same far-flung ritual interaction spheres of the Early Woodland period? And is there any evidence of such southern material returning to Newfoundland assemblages? If so, the implications of this are profound, and imply a vast movement of ideas, belief systems, and even potentially ritual specialists around a vast Northeastern landscape. Even if they are not related to Groswater Pre-Dorset, they are unusual, and are a topic that demands specific attention (e.g., Cudmore 2014:121). WOODLAND PERIOD INTERACTION SPHERES

The above big question leads directly to our next one. The Woodland period in the Eastern Woodlands is often portrayed by archaeologists in terms of a series of interaction spheres or cultures. We have discussed some of these, including the Early Woodland Meadowood and Adena. Later interaction spheres include Hopewell and Mississippian (see Pauketat and Sassaman 2020:Ch. 9–10). In parts of the Eastern Woodlands, these cultures produced large earthenworks and likely had “aggrandizer” leaders with religious mandates. The most famous of these is Cahokia, a Late Woodland urban settlement associated with the Mississippian cultural phenomenon (see Pauketat 2012; Pauketat and Alt 2015; Pauketat and Emerson 1997). The site, located in the “American Bottom” near St. Louis, Missouri, likely was a hub of urban life. Cahokia’s leadership was probably imbued with religious power and could apparently marshal labour, resources, and control over a large area. We are curious about the influence that these Woodland hubs and their leaders may have had in the Atlantic Northeast. It seems entirely plausible to us that some people living in the Atlantic Northeast could have visited Cahokia, for instance, and that many people knew someone who had been there. We think it is likely that the presence of large urban centres farther south was well known among Atlantic Northeasterners. What might the social effects of knowing of such a place have been?

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How might a broad knowledge of seemingly infinitely powerful spiritual leaders in the south and west affected the ability of potential aggrandizers to seize power in the Atlantic Northeast? We wonder if such spiritual or social “eclipsing“ may have provided an important check on the accumulation of power throughout much of the Northeast: if enormous urban settlements ruled by chiefs imbued with cosmological power were widely known to exist on rich horticultural ground, it may have driven potential leaders in the Northeast to proceed with a cautious eye when claiming their own spiritual or economic power. This is of course speculative, but we think as knowledge about the interactions among the Atlantic Northeast and elsewhere increasingly suggests a cosmopolitan region, there are opportunities to explore these kinds of social explanations and hunches that envision an Atlantic Northeast that was well-connected to the rest of Indigenous North America and substantially impacted by it. VILLAGES, PLANTS, AND INTENSIFICATION

Black’s (2002) observations about Late Woodland subsistence and settlement change on the Maritime Peninsula have withstood subsequent research, such that it now appears to essentially encapsulate a regional subsistence shift (see chapter 9). This shift aligns with others throughout the Northeast, where the Middle to Late Woodland is synonymous with the proliferation of maize. Yet, it is not entirely clear that maize drove the formation of nucleated villages elsewhere in the Northeast, though it does appear to coincide with increased sedentism and possibly dispersed villages, in which the kind of political leadership often associated with villages extended over a larger area than “village” typically connotes. Interestingly, in the Atlantic Northeast, architectural, faunal, and floral data suggest a degree of resource intensification, and site stratigraphy and structures suggest increased sedentism. What drove these changes throughout the Northeast, and why was horticulture not requisite for them to occur, at least on a smaller scale, in the Atlantic Northeast? The Atlantic Northeast will be crucial for addressing this question because it offers a comparative to areas with horticulture. A SERIES OF BOOMS AND BUSTS

At least twice, Indigenous peoples in the Atlantic Northeast appeared to be on the cusp of socio-political complexity. The first, the Late Maritime Archaic, included ­intensification of marine resources, elaborate cemeteries, longhouses, and burial inclusions, suggesting a degree of social stratification and population expansion (see ­chapter 6). In the Late Maritime Woodland, apparent population growth, evidence for increasing sedentism, and logistical mobility accompanied the intensification of some floral and faunal resources. In many ways, the Late Maritime Woodland on the

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Maritime Peninsula was marked by many of the changes that accompanied the proliferation of maize horticulture farther south and west (see chapter 9). Each of these phenomena is anthropologically interesting; so too are similarities in how they end. We have suggested specific historical contexts for each of these “collapses” in earlier chapters in terms of a confluence of factors, including new people on the social and resource landscape and climate change. We have also suggested another possible mechanism at play, specifically the knowledge of complex and powerful societies and their leaders to the west of the Atlantic Northeast. PROTOHISTORIC INTERACTION EXCHANGE ROUTES

In chapter 10, we observed that the Protohistoric period remains difficult to elucidate archaeologically, and in the literature is defined in large part by the elaborate coastal burials found primarily in Mi’kmaw territory. Likely, the abundance of European goods in select burials reflects the participation of some Tarrentines as middlemen in trade with Europeans. This would explain, as Bourque and Whitehead (1985) have suggested, much about the distribution of material in the historic record, and the seemingly light footprint of European material in the interior. Strikingly, despite increased Late Maritime Woodland sedentism and presumed population increase, there are few Protohistoric sites, likely indicative of bioturbation in shallow strata mixing Late Maritme Woodland and Protohistoric material. Radiocarbon dating on animal bone is one way archaeologists have started to identify the Protohistoric (Betts 2019a; Hrynick et al. 2017). It seems that the theme is one of basic technological, settlement, and subsistence continuity from the Late Maritime Woodland to around the time of European contact (Betts 2019b; Hrynick et al. 2017). As Protohistoric sites are increasingly identified, we think they will provide much to explore about the nature of contact in the Atlantic Northeast, especially regarding interactions among Indigenous peoples, how goods moved about the Atlantic Northeast, and if these routes changed or amplified at contact. Excitingly, these interactions may help archaeologists to understand ethnic relations in the region. That European contact in the Atlantic Northeast was nearly as early as Columbus’s in the Caribbean makes this region a particular interesting case study. TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION AND COMPARISON

As we have outlined in all the chapters of this volume, the stylistic and morphological connections between lithic and non-lithic material culture in the Atlantic Northeast are extreme. Despite significant recognition that projectile point styles, ground stone, and ceramics share traits throughout the Northeast, and throughout the Atlantic Northeast, often in lockstep with artifact style shifts elsewhere, there has been very

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limited analysis of these trends. The most significant work has occurred with ceramics (e.g., Bourgeois 1999; Curtis et al. 2019; Kristmanson 1993; Kristmanson and Deal 1993; Petersen and Sanger 1993). Surprisingly, however, little of this ceramic research has compared stylistic traits from the Atlantic Northeast outside of the well-defined typologies of the region (though see Curtis et al. 2019 for cursory discussion). Furthermore, and perhaps more significantly, there have been limited attempts to develop a chipped stone typology, despite recognition of substantial connections throughout the Atlantic Northeast, and between the Atlantic Northeast and the greater Northeastern part of the continent. There have been good strides toward developing ground stone typologies in various regions (e.g., Brzezicki 2015; Fitzhugh 1975, 1978; Sanger 1973; Tuck 1976a), though again little attempt has been made to reconcile these on a region-wide scale. We attribute this deficiency to the lack of graduate programs in the region, and the relatively late development of archaeological work in the area. By the time professional archaeologists had started to delve into the region’s prehistory in a substantial way, the era of typology, seriation, and traditional culture history was coming to an end. Having missed this era, much recent work has been less focused on culture historical questions and more on anthropological or theoretical explorations. However, we note that attempts at developing typologies have been made (e.g., Petersen and Sanger 1993), and have been overwhelming successful and research-provoking. As archaeology returns to its roots in building culture history, we believe this sort of fundamental research will be critical to building nuanced historical narratives. CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISONS

In the early 1980s, Ronald Nash (1983) edited a volume that attempted to compare the cultural trajectories of foraging societies on the Northwest and Northeast coasts of North America. Though not explicitly stated, the goal of the book was to explore why cultural developments in each of the regions were so divergent. This came at a time when cultural development was still largely seen as unidirectional, from simple “foragers” to complex “collectors” following Binford (1980), and there was increased interest in such neoevolutionary human developments (e.g., Price and Brown 1985). The consensus of the book was that, given available data at the time, the Atlantic Northeast did not witness the development of complex hunter-gatherers, though at times (e.g., Late Maritime Archaic) it had come close (Spiess et al. 1983). As we have shown in this book, a historical approach provides a more nuanced understanding of how hunter-gatherer groups change through time, and importantly understands that cultural developments are contingent, and need not pass through specific evolutionary stages. Nevertheless, we feel the narrative we have developed

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makes an important case study to compare to narratives in other parts of the world, especially North America. For example, why, at ca. 4000 years ago, did similar trajectories of burial ceremonialism and aggregations develop on both sides of the continent, and what specific contingent processes led to divergence after this time? We have explored processes that led to the demise of Late Maritime Archaic (LMA) (see chapter 6) populations in detail, which involved both climate change, the arrival of newcomers, and a social life that relied, perhaps too heavily, on communal procurement and social aggregations. Though some in situ cultural transmission may have occurred, it appears that LMA society disappeared in the Atlantic Northeast. This historic event, without a direct analogue in the Northwest, is just one of the historical contingencies that fractured any trajectory toward hunter-gatherer complexity. During the Maritime Woodland period, the presence of massive ceremonial centres in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys was another unique pressure, which may have curtailed the ability of incipient aggrandizers, who often use spiritual capital to maintain power (e.g. Hayden 2018, 2003). The presence of these spiritual leaders negated any claim of spiritual authority, and thus limited their ability to seize the means (and proceeds) of production. “Spiritually and socially eclipsed” by more powerful leaders in places like Cahokia, there was limited ability for putative aggrandizers in the Northeast to rule. This may also explain the pulses of ritual and ideological movements, from Middlesex to Meadowood to Adena and others, as local groups explored means to participate in these much larger movements. Regardless, without powerful leaders vested with spiritual and social authority, there may have been no historical impetus to move in the same trajectory as the Northwest Coast. While this type of comparison is obviously nascent and requires much more exploration, we believe that this type of research is critical to not only placing the unique and highly diverse archaeological history of the Atlantic Northeast front and centre in major theoretical explorations, but also to bring the region, and those it is compared to, into sharper focus. As we realize that the archaeological record is historically contingent in all aspects, and yet part of a sequence of human negotiations (i.e., creative decisions) with both the processes of human history and natural forces of change, a truly compelling picture of the past can be achieved.

Threats to the Archaeological Record Archaeologists’ ability to address questions such as these is dependent upon the integrity of the archaeological record and the capacity to recover information from that record. The problem may be conceived of as a race, with capacity pitted against time, as the destruction of the archaeological record in the Atlantic Northeast accelerates. The primary threat, in our view, is the rapid and accelerating destruction of coastal

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archaeological sites due to sea level rise and the increased amplitude and frequency of storms (figure 12.1). This is a global problem (e.g., Erlandson 2008). In the Atlantic Northeast, research continues to illuminate this destruction in stark terms. In 2018, we attempted to relocate eight previously reported sites from the Maine Historic Preservation Commission database that earlier accounts (mostly from the 1950s to early 2000s) suggested might have good research potential and access. We could not relocate five of them (62.5%), suggesting they have been fully eroded or otherwise destroyed. Two (25%) still have research potential, but one is heavily looted. This was similar to the results of our work in 2017 in southern Nova Scotia. There, we sought to revisit 21 previously reported coastal sites. Of these, 14 (71%) were unidentifiable or eroded beyond research potential. Of sites discovered before this millennium, over 90% were fully eroded. Among the eroding sites we have identified in Nova Scotia was an eroded Palaeoindian findspot (Betts, Hrynick, and Pelletier-Michaud 2018), emphasizing that the temporal range of lost archaeological sites is profound (figure 12.2). To put all this in rough human terms, by the end of our careers, there will likely be few coastal sites (and especially shell middens) still containing research potential; a handful of sites in unique

FIGURE 12.1  Photograph of a noweroded archaeological site in Nova Scotia.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, Canadian Museum of History

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FIGURE 12.2  Photograph of the Pierce-Embree Palaeoindian point, recovered from an eroding context in southern Nova Scotia.

Photograph courtesy Matthew Betts, Canadian Museum of History

­ reservation contexts will be all that remains of the sites that once defined much p of Northeast archaeology. A variety of programs are working to mitigate this crisis. One effort to salvage data from these middens is the Maine Midden Minders project (figure 12.3). Maine Midden Minders (n.d.) works with local groups such as conservation organizations and school groups to monitor eroding middens and their contents and report them to a team of professional archaeologists and a secure database. Collaborative efforts such as these – uniting citizen scientists and archaeologists – necessarily require creative collaborative effort by all involved, including government and Indigenous political authorities. This impressive program has accomplished that collaborative framework, with the result of a massively expanded capacity to collect archaeological data and provide public education and a sense of stewardship. Another approach is demonstrated by the Community Observation, Assessment and Salvage of Threatened Archaeological Legacy project (COASTAL), a collaboration between the Canadian Museum of History, the University of New Brunswick, the Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative, Acadia First Nation, Bear River First Nation, and the Nova Scotia Museum (Betts, Hrynick, Cottreau-Robins, Purdy, and MacLeod-Leslie 2018). Recognizing that the erosion of the coastline disproportionately destroys Mi’kmaw

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FIGURE 12.3  In 2019, the Maine Midden Minders, the University of Maine, and the University of New Brunswick collaborated with the Cobscook Institute high school to train the high schoolers to measure the erosion of an archaeological site in Downeast Maine and report those data back to the Midden Minders digital repository. In addition to being an educational experience, this information helps archaeologists better understand how sites are eroding in the region and how to respond to abrupt changes in midden condition. Students and faculty are shown here working on the project. Photograph courtesy M. ­Gabriel Hrynick, Northeastern Archaeological Survey

history and that the scale of erosion is too great to salvage every site, the COASTAL project uses a management committee composed of archaeologists and Mi’kmaw leaders to make decisions about which sites are most important to salvage (Betts, Hrynick, Cottreau-Robins, Purdy, and MacLeod-Leslie 2018; Betts and Hrynick 2018). Development is another considerable but, we think, more tractable problem. At least in theory, development is more easily paced to capacity for CRM, with market forces having some capacity to grow the CRM industry or be placed on hold (as we discuss below, what to do with data generated from CRM remains a challenge). In New Brunswick, for instance, 154 archaeology permits were issued in 2016, only one of which was categorized as being for research; 123 of the permits were for CRM impact assessments, with the bulk of the others being for monitoring of excavation equipment. This is an increase from 30 permits in 2006, 8 of which were for research

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FIGURE 12.4 Cultural resource management archaeology – or CRM – accounts for the majority of archaeological fieldwork in the Atlantic Northeast.

Photograph ­courtesy Shannon McDonnell, ­University of Toronto

and the rest apparently for CRM (Insituated Heritage n.d.). While these numbers reflect in part changes in legislation, the general patterns are similar across the Atlantic provinces; archaeological fieldwork is overwhelmingly CRM, and therefore driven by development (figure 12.4). In theory, an abundance of CRM data should produce exciting archaeological results. A proliferation of CRM archaeology could be a powerful force for regional archaeological understanding. For instance, CRM could be used to test areas archaeologists might not ordinarily pay much attention to. Much of what archaeologists know, for instance, about Northeast Palaeoindians comes from CRM archaeology paired with an ethos of publication and presentation. Publications such as the Maine Archaeological Society Bulletin and the Archaeology in Newfoundland and Labrador Annual Report Series are important venues that serve in part to disseminate CRM research. Maine and Newfoundland and Labrador governments also publish digital bibliographies of archaeological research (PAO Document Reference List n.d.; MPREHIST n.d.). Yet there is spotty dissemination of CRM research in much of the region. Webb and colleagues (2017), for instance, showed that increased CRM in the Maritime provinces in the 1980s was accompanied by a decrease in the net amount of

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published faunal research. Some of this is due to a shift away from coastal research in the Maritimes, where, even as coastal erosion increases, faunal preservation is best. It also reflects a shift from research question–oriented work to site avoidance and mitigation, with resources rarely made available for detailed faunal analysis. In sum, archaeology is a cumulative science and progresses appropriately only when archaeologists use their work in dialogue with that from others. Efforts such as those in Maine and Newfoundland to make research available are valuable and imitable. As we researched this book, we sought to incorporate CRM research; this was, of course, easiest where document reference lists were available and CRM research appeared in bulletins or annual reports. Anecdotally but not coincidentally, those jurisdictions appeared to exhibit attitudes of research transparency. Access to research generated by recent CRM in the Maritimes relied almost entirely on word of mouth. In writing this book, we emailed CRM archaeologists in the Maritimes to ask for reports they thought were important, an approach that really only works with a work of this breadth, and is not feasible for researchers who may not know the archaeologists working in the region. In principle, emphasis at the regulatory level on the dissemination of archaeological research to the public – it is worth remembering that CRM generally deploys public funds – is not just a laudable goal but is ethically essential. Regulatory support of archaeological research producing results that are accessible by other scholars and the public makes clear that “good work” is not limited to adequate field methods, meeting budgets and deadlines, and getting the archaeological out of the way of development, but instead harnesses those needs toward the accumulation of accessible information about the archaeological record. Regulatory enforcement and encouragement of a culture of research dissemination, moreover, respects the substantial expertise of CRM archaeologists, who in addition to their often-substantial academic training, typically see a wider array of archaeological sites and materials than do specialized academics. It seems to us that the regulatory environment has a profound effect on the health of the local archaeological output, as well as the ability of archaeologists and members of local communities to strive for transparent and productive relationships. Beyond the examples of Maine and Newfoundland, which we have already discussed, Vermont, for instance, requires public outreach and explicitly encourages scholarly publication of CRM work (Vermont State Historic Preservation Office 2017). Another aspect of research capacity derives from a tradition of responsible avocational archaeology in the Atlantic Northeast, by which we mean research by nonprofessionals with various degrees of expertise in coordination with the professional archaeological community. (The contributions of avocational archaeologists in the Atlantic Northeast are, in fact, important enough that some archaeologists are

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a­ vocational only in the literal sense that they have not been paid for most of their archaeological work, which is of professional quality from research plan to subsequent publication.) Their contributions have appeared tacitly in this book. A variety of organizations, such as the Maine Archaeological Society, the Nova Scotia Archaeological Society, and the Association of Professional Archaeologists of New Brunswick seek to bring avocational and professional archaeologists together. These avocational archaeologists can be contrasted with looters. While the former build and share archaeological knowledge, the latter contribute to its destruction and their activities remain opaque. The visibility of the coastal archaeological record makes it particularly susceptible to undisciplined digging and the search for artifacts. In our assessment, a minority of looters are motivated by nefariousness; while some may be motivated by the sale of artifacts or a perverse enthusiasm for hoarding artifacts for private enjoyment, most seem genuinely curious about the past in a region where archaeologists are few. We think that positive efforts by professional archaeologists to relate research to the public are particularly valuable to dissuade looting.

Collaborative and Indigenous Archaeologies The archaeology described in this book is from traditional territories of Indigenous peoples and is inseparable from the colonial context and the injustices that accompanied it; it is the history of Indigenous people. We believe, and have seen in our own collaborative work, that archaeology offers information that is valuable to Indigenous as well as non-Indigenous people. Setting aside the deployment of archaeology in support of treaty claims, Indigenous scholars advocate for various approaches to archaeological research – of course, there are a variety of Indigenous opinions on archaeological research. At the outset of this book, we discussed our approach here: to present a compendium of data as a history from an explicitly archaeological perspective that we hope can be drawn on by Indigenous scholars and others. We have an outsider perspective, in that we are studying a history that is not ours, but strive to incorporate Indigenous collaborations in our research, and have learned a great deal from our Indigenous collaborators. We think it is important to explicitly state that we recognize that archaeological data can be deployed by Indigenous people for political goals, despite epistemological differences that may exist among archaeologists and Indigenous people. Our discussion here on collaboration takes the legitimacy of the use of archaeological data by Indigenous people for Indigenous goals for granted, arising from their authority over their own histories. While beyond the scope of this volume, we are also excited by the growing literature on the politics of archaeology and differing epistemologies (e.g., Atalay

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2012; Cipolla et al. 2019; Lyons and Blair 2018) and on Indigenous management of the archaeological record (e.g., Gupta et al. 2020). We think that at least one problem in archaeological practice is clear: Indigenous communities are frequently consulted in contemporary archaeology but often removed from opportunities for real decision making about archaeological research. Marshall’s proposal of “two-eyed seeing” proposes “to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous ways of knowing, and to see from the other eye with the strengths of Western ways of knowing, and to use both of these eyes together” (Bartlett et al. 2012:335; see box 2.1), which seems to us a laudable goal, but in practice it seems often to be invoked to describe Western archaeologies with only a brief nod to collaboration, without clear co-management and co-interpretation of results. Conceptually, perhaps, this is part and parcel of the “processual plus” (Hegmon 2003) theoretical orientation of much contemporary archaeology. However, the interpretive frameworks archaeologists use are astride crucial societal questions about the relationships between Western scholarship and Indigenous communities, and there is a risk of shallow epistemology masquerading as political action. Addressing this situation will require, at this juncture, systemic change that acknowledges that archaeological work now has proceeded in both Indigenous and Western intellectual traditions and is codified under layers of federal and state and provincial laws that privilege the latter. At present, it seems to us that any short-term redress must focus on corrections within existing systems. This is in part because archaeological histories are threatened at such a rate that substantial pauses in archaeological research represent a societal decision to facilitate the destruction of archaeological sites. There are some clear steps, we think. For instance, training programs focused on Indigenous scholars and heritage professionals offer one avenue by which Indigenous communities may be afforded a stronger voice within the discipline. However, these should articulate in a scaffolded way with university programs, such that Indigenous trainees may eventually pursue graduate university degrees required to supervise CRM projects or assume faculty and curatorial positions: training Indigenous students for seasonal and dead-end employment as excavators without access to subsequent training at the management and interpretive levels of archaeological research simply reifies colonial structures. Trigger’s (2003) call for affirmative action programs aimed at recruiting and supporting Indigenous students within university programs may be one positive step both for bringing Indigenous perspectives to academia and for expanding capacity for heritage management within indigenous communities. We also think shared authority or collaboratively managed frameworks (see, e.g., Atalay 2012) provide one avenue of achievable collaborative archaeology, such as what we described for the COASTAL project. Museums in the region also increasingly seek

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to foreground Indigenous perspectives and interests. For instance, the Abbe Museum in Maine has appointed an archaeological advisory committee as part of its decolonization initiatives, and has extensive Wabanaki representation in leadership and staff positions.

Looking Back to Look Ahead In 1883, when G.F. Matthew led the excavations at Bocabec near St. Andrews, New Brunswick (Matthew 1884), that resulted in what Trigger would later describe as the best nineteenth-century account of shell midden archaeology in North America, he may have thought of New Brunswick as geographically peripheral, but we doubt it seemed intellectually so. Neither a trained archaeologist nor geologist, Matthew published more than 200 papers (primarily on the latter topic), receiving three honorary degrees and the Murchison Medal from the Geological Society of London (Miller and Buhay 2007:15). His communication and reading about archaeology and geology was expansive and international – aided by his employment at the Saint John customs house. His international contacts and his membership in the Natural History Society of New Brunswick meant he had intellectual colleagues, and access to a library and comparative specimens. He exchanged letters with such people as Daniel Wilson, the first president of the University of Toronto and an important archaeologist of both Europe and North America (Matthew and Kain 1905:348; see Trigger 1966) and with the pioneering Ontario archaeologist David Boyle (see Killan 1988:22). While Matthew’s abilities were exceptional, he was not the only home-grown Northeast archaeologist of considerable talent (e.g., Willoughby 1898). More remarkable may be the amount of outside attention the Atlantic Northeast attracted in the nineteenth century, including from Jesse Walter Fewkes (see O’Grady 1993), Jeffries Wyman (see Randall 2015), and Spencer Fullerton Baird (see Black 2008a). The early twentieth century in the region would see an interest from such luminaries of American anthropology and archaeology as Warren Moorehead (1922) and Frank Speck (1922, 1997). Indeed, the relative geographic isolation of the Atlantic Northeast was key to its development, with scholars under the then-fashionable impression that Indigenous people in the Atlantic Northeast were less contacted and therefore more directly connected to and able to inform upon the archaeological past. Yet by the Great Depression, archaeology in the Atlantic Northeast had entered what Spiess (1985:119) termed the “doldrums,” marked in Maine by “a lack of continuity in institutional support, part-time commitment by leading fieldworkers, and a lack of in-depth publication of the results.” This pattern extended throughout the Atlantic Northeast, along with the shared result that “… many of the data that were generated by this work even today remain incompletely integrated” (Spiess 1985:119;

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see Connolly 1977; Davis 1998). Not until the late 1950s did the region see more sustained archaeological work in the region in the form of regular faculty appointments, government contracts (e.g., Erskine 1986), full-time specialist government positions, and, later, cultural resource management archaeology. As we have charted in this book, many of these archaeologists produced extensive and important archaeological work, perhaps the more notably so because the number of archaeologists in the region has remained small compared to elsewhere (figure 12.5). While we think that many archaeologists may feel that the region in which they work has received insufficient attention, especially from outsiders, some examples suggest that there may be misperceptions of the archaeology in the region that contribute to its marginalization. In a popular textbook about the archaeology of North

FIGURE 12.5 George Frederick Clarke, ca. 1960, holding one of the bifaces from the Bristol-Shiktehawk site, New Brunswick. Clarke was an avocational archaeologist in New Brunswick who published much of his research, notably in the book Someone Before Us (1968).

Photograph courtesy Alexandre Pelletier-Michaud and the University of New Brunswick

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America, the chapter about the Northeast begins, “When fifteenth-century Europeans sailed up the St. Lawrence River, they came into contact with powerful Iroquois nations and with the Huron. Less spectacular Northeastern societies flourished along the Atlantic coast, while other groups anchored themselves to interior lakes” (Fagan 2011:134, emphasis added). Leonard (1996:17–18) noted the “invisibility” of the Canadian Maritimes in North American archaeology, and the occasional resulting misrepresentation of research from the region, including the misplacement of important Atlantic Northeast sites in textbook maps. Integration requires grappling with what Sanger (2002) described as “intellectual fault lines,” including the international border transecting the Northeast, literature primarily reported in either French or English, and that “a scholar who assumes the task of writing a synthesis for the Northeast region faces not only the multiple repository problems associated with artifacts and ‘gray literature,’ but with a whole series of archaeological fiefdoms, traditional research areas of many university and colleges, and local museums.” More frustrating to us than the myriad preservation and taphonomic challenges that exist in the Northeast are the challenges Sanger glosses under the “archaeo-political” landscape. While we accept that differences in legislative ­agendas will vary across the Atlantic Northeast, it is past time to give serious attention to the persistent problems Sanger notes, in which grey literature continues to expand but remains obscure or entirely inaccessible even to other scholars (Sanger 2002:6), a problem particularly acute in the Maritimes. While we have included substantial grey literature in this volume, we admit that our access has only been at best trivial, and a massive amount of integrative work remains. Our hope in writing this book has been to collate archaeological research from the Atlantic Northeast to produce a culture historical account for the region – a small step toward addressing marginality. We see no reason to abandon the enthusiasm, productivity, and importance with which G.F. Matthew and others approached this region at the turn of the twentieth century. As we have written this volume, our excitement about the quality of archaeological research that can be carried out here and the opportunity to work with local communities has only grown. This book reflects our assessment of what is known about the region, but, more importantly, what we see as useful gaps to fill and routes to explore. Archaeology is unique in its ability to provide a long-term human context for the present. It is a crucial way for people to make sense of the world. The Atlantic Northeast has much left to show us about the past.

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GLOSSARY In this glossary, we provide definitions for anthropological and methodological terms that may not be readily apparent to non-archaeologist readers of The Archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast. absolute date: A date that can be converted to a calendar date, rather than simply stating

something is older or younger than something else. In archaeology, these are often statistical estimates calibrated to calendar years. assemblage: All the material from a particular occupation, or context, of a site. Archaeologists

sometimes use this term to refer to what would more properly be called a collection – all of a particular class of tools at a site (e.g., the “stone tool assemblage”). before present (BP): The number of uncalibrated radiocarbon years before AD 1950, used

by archaeologists because it is easily compatible with radiocarbon dating. Calibrated years BP (or cal BP) refers to dates that have been adjusted for natural perturbations in radiocarbon isotopes and represent accurate calendar years before 1950 (see absolute date, radiocarbon dating). The reason the “present” is set at 1950 is because that is approximately the year radiocarbon dating was invented, but also because atmospheric nuclear testing released massive amounts of carbon-14 into the isotope reservoir, making radiocarbon dating highly inaccurate after 1950. biface: Flaked stone technology in which a piece of toolstone is reduced on both sides; it is a

common manufacturing technique for projectile points such as spear and arrow points. bipolar reduction: A process to reduce a piece or cryptocrystalline (“glassy”) stone material by

placing it on a harder “anvil” stone and striking it with another hard implement, such as a hammer stone. This creates two opposing points of impact, from the hammer stone and the anvil. complex: A culture historical term referring to recurring compilations of artifact traits, types,

and frequencies, as well as site types and feature traits that occur together in two or more sites in a localized area over a defined period of time. Here it denotes a geographically localized or segregated group with a shared identity, but which may be presumed to have relationships to societies at much larger sub-regional or regional geographic scales. context: The conditions in which an artifact was recovered, including its spatial location and

its relationship to other artifacts, features, and other components of the site. The context of an artifact is critical for interpreting its age and significance, and without it, the value of the artifact for reconstructing archaeological history is greatly diminished.

cultural resource management (CRM): Archaeology mandated by law to mitigate against

the impact of development on archaeological and historical sites. culture (archaeological): A society, or group of people, at various geographic and temporal

scales, that share specific practices, beliefs, ideas, and technologies. culture history: In its most classic formulation, culture history seeks to identify meaningful

patterns in time and space, and to consider them in terms of cultural relationships. Various culture historical terms are included in this glossary, including tradition, phase, and assemblage. Note that the actual usage of cultural terms has sometimes been ambiguous in the Atlantic Northeast. curated tools: Tools that have a long use-life and will be refurbished (e.g., sharpened,

reshaped) many times over the course of their use, or tools that are carefully preserved for nonutilitarian uses; see also expedient tools. debitage: The waste stone produced by the production of flaked stone tools. economy: Used here to refer to the ways people made their livings, especially the ways they

acquired food. eustatic sea level rise: A global rise in sea levels, caused by a global event such as deglacia-

tion. Sea levels have been rising across the globe since the last glaciation, and are increasing due to recent climate change. expedient tools: Tools that have a relatively short use-life and will be subject to fairly few

maintenance procedures over the course of their use; see also curated tools. flaked stone: Striking particular kinds of glass-like stone (e.g., cherts) with hammers made

from stone or other materials produces conchoidal fractures and sharp flakes of stone; readers who have shot BB guns through glass windows or chipped glass coffee tables will be familiar with this kind of fracture. Flintknappers can use this method to produce stone tools by taking flakes off larger pieces of rock. Examples of flaked stone technology include projectile points and scrapers. flotation: A process for extracting burned seeds and other lightweight food remains from

archaeological samples. Because seeds are less dense than soil, adding water to soil samples and then agitating the soil causes the botanicals to float to the surface. ground stone: Contrasted with flaked stone, some stone tools are shaped via pecking, grind-

ing, or polishing stones into a desired tool shape (note some tool forms can be both flaked and ground). Some common examples of ground stone discussed here are gouges and adzes. horizon: Any artifact, art style, or other cultural trait that has extensive geographical distribu-

tion but a limited time span. It can cross-cut or encapsulate phases, traditions, or complexes, and it is largely useful for dating purposes, using artifact styles or types called “horizon markers.” isostatic rebound: The uplift of the earth’s crust following deglaciation, often leading to the

relative lowering of sea levels and the presence of relict beach ridges. period: A chronological unit of time. It may equate to an archaeological construct (e.g., tradi-

tion, phase), a palaeographic construct (e.g., glacial or other climatological epoch), or any other criteria defined by the research.

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petroglyph: An image or pattern made by pecking or scratching away the outer surface

of a stone. phase: A culture historical term referring to an archaeological manifestation that is used to

characterize chronological variability assemblages, often within a tradition. It is defined primarily by chronological differences from archaeological material before or after it. Here it is roughly equivalent to a society or group of people who are chronologically distinct, but generally descended from those who came before and ancestral to those who came after. Usually, a phase occurs as a distinct cultural unit, defined by the specific nature of its archaeological assemblages, sites, and other material traces, within a large cultural time period with generally shared attributes (see tradition). A phase is usually a relatively short period of time, and while some phases may occur regionally, they tend to be larger in geographic scope than complexes. Some researchers erroneously use the term phase and complex interchangeably, though we prefer the definition of phase to emphasize chronological variability in large cultural time periods (e.g., a tradition), while a complex represents a local or sub-regional variation in a large cultural region. projectile point: A sharp implement of bone, stone (chert), or wood attached to the shaft of

an arrow, spear, or similar thrusting or projectile implement. If made from chert, it is often a biface (see above), with a specially created hafting implement (basal preparation). pièce esquillée: A type of flaked stone artifact manufactured using the bipolar percussion

technique. Generally characterized by a lenticular or wedge-shaped cross-section; opposed bifacial crushing, battering, and hinge-fracturing; and frequently relatively long columnar blade-like flake scars. radiocarbon dating: A kind of absolute date that produces a statistical estimate of the date

an organic material died by measuring the decay of unstable 14C to 12C isotopes. This occurs at a known rate that can be calibrated to create a calendar date range estimate. relative dating: Dates that use principles of the archaeological record (e.g., stratigraphic order)

to determine whether something is older or younger than something else. shell midden: A human-made deposit of shell, usually accumulating from the refuse of food

processing or other manufacturing activities. Shell middens are essentially refuse heaps, and so also often retain refuse from other activities, such as bones from consumption of other animals, and discarded artifacts or waste from their manufacture. In the Atlantic Northeast, these deposits make ordinarily highly acidic soil more basic, permitting preservation of organic materials, such as bone, that would otherwise be lost. taxonomy (archaeological): The various culture historical categories archaeologists use to

sort the past into units that may have correlates with past cultural groupings. tradition (anthropological): Here used to refer to a model of the past created in the present;

such models are crucial to the construction of identity. tradition (culture historical): In the building of culture histories, a tradition denotes the

persistence of individual attributes, artifact types, or technologies in a given area over a period of time; a culture that exists for an extended period of time and usually over an extended area. It implies a continuity of a technology (e.g., a kind of tool) or related technologies over a period GLOSSARY

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of time and over a large geographic scope. A tradition may be composed of phases, complexes, horizons, and other taxonomic entities. The emphasis here is on continuity through time, with the spatial limits of the tradition de-emphasized. uniface: In lithic technology, a piece of stone worked on only one side to make a sharp imple-

ment; this is a common manufacturing technique for scrapers.

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INDEX Page numbers in italics denote illustrations. “8200” cal BP event, 37 Adena burial practices, 158, 159, 162, 163 Age of Exploration, 254 Aillik 2 site, 101, 102, 111, 112, 139 Alaska, 185 AlDf-24 site (Port Joli), 192, 195 assemblage, 232, 234, 273 ceramics, 200, 230 AlDf-30 site, 193, 205, 233, 239 Algonquian-speaking peoples cosmology, 240, 244–245, 246, 247–248 languages, 264 Late Boreal Woodland, 210 Late Woodland, 219 post-contact interactions, 277–278 Almouchiquois, 259 American Indian, as term, 56 Americas, arrival of people, 55 animals and hunting in Arctic cultures, 171, 173, 180 in burial, 122 in cosmology, 122, 130, 131, 240, 245–246, 247–248 Early Maritime Archaic, 88, 98, 105–106 Inuit, 186, 186–187 Late Maritime Woodland, 223 LMA, 118, 121, 126, 130–131, 133–134, 137–138, 141 Middle Maritime Woodland, 196, 197, 198 Palaeoindian, 65, 66, 74, 76

Protohistoric, 271 spiral fractures, 224, 271 Transitional Archaic, 149 See also specific animals Apios americana (groundnut), 227, 228 archaeological record and climate, 25 and continuity, 8, 22 floral datasets, 226, 227, 228 and gender, 239 and humans, 24–25 interpretation, 47–48, 50, 280 meaning and use, 45, 46 threats to, 49, 280, 287–293 transfer to Indigenous peoples, 43 archaeological sites. See sites archaeology dissemination of research, 291, 292 and ethnohistory, 266–267, 270 exclusion of Indigenous peoples, 42 as historical narrative of Indigenous peoples, 4, 280 and oral histories, 4, 33 and religion, 244 and taxonomy, 215 See also collaborative archaeologies; Indigenous archaeology archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast approaches of authors, 4–5 future studies and ideas, 280, 281– 287 graduate programs, 7, 286, 294

history of, 8–16 independent cultures, 22 interest and challenges in, 13, 295–297 by non-Indigenous archaeologists, 4 and the past to make the present, 42, 45–47, 50 research in, 1, 3, 7–8, 10, 82, 285– 286 sources on, 8 synthesis of information in, 22–23 teaching of, 3 Archaic change in, 84, 154 cultural intensification, 108 description, 83 end of, 84 sub-periods, 19 (See also each sub-period) transition from Palaeoindian, 80–82, 83, 84 transition to Woodland, 153–157 Arctic Cordillera ecoregion, 26, 27 Arctic cultures of Newfoundland arrival of people, 143, 170–171, 179, 185–186 climate change, 174, 175, 185 different groups at same time, 173, 174–175, 178–179, 185, 188 Dorset, 178–185, 210 Groswater Pre-Dorset, 175–178, 179, 210, 283 Inuit in, 185–188

Arctic cultures ... (continued ) overview and terminology, 21, 170 Pre-Dorset, 143, 170–175 sites and locations, 172 social aspects, 184–185 “Arctic Small Tool Tradition,” 170, 171 Arrowhead Mine site, 97 artifacts discovery and collection, 92 temporal resolution, 269–270 See also specific periods, sites, or topics ash trees, 46–47 Atlantic Northeast arrival of people, 51–53, 55–57, 143, 170–171 chrono-cultural framework, 18–22, 19 classification terminology, 215 climatic events (See climatic events) cross-cultural comparisons, 286–287 defined as region, 1–3, 25, 53 early environment, 51 future studies ideas, 280, 281–287 map, 2 research in, 1, 3, 7–8, 285–286 three-period scheme, 16–21 See also archaeology of the Atlantic Northeast Atlantic Ocean and bioregions, 29 Atlantic Slope Macro-Tradition, 81 Augustine, Joe, 163 Augustine Mound site, 163, 164, 247 authority over the past, 45, 49 avocational archaeologists, 91, 92, 151, 292–293, 296 axe, in Transitional Archaic, 147 Bailey, A.G., 266, 267 basketry Late Maritime Woodland, 231, 235 as tradition for Wabanaki, 45–47, 46

372 

INDEX

Basque sites, and Inuit, 188 bayonets, 127–128, 130–131, 135 BC/AC dates, use and conversion, 18 Beaches Complex, 211–212, 215 bears, in cosmology, 240, 247 beaver mandible, 271 Beothuk Late Boreal Woodland, 212, 213 pendants, 260 population size, 261–262 Protohistoric, 258, 266, 274, 276– 277 Beothuk Complex, 215 Betts, M.W, 131, 203, 205 biface caches, 78, 165–166 Bristol-Shiktehawk cache, 56–57, 165, 166, 296 bifaces “broadspears,” 146, 146, 147 caching, 78 Dorset, 180 Early Woodland, 159 in fluted points recreation, 52 Middle Maritime Woodland on Maritime Peninsula, 201 Palaeoindian, 58, 58–59, 78 pre-Clovis types, 56–57 Protohistoric, 273 Transitional Archaic, 146 bipolar cores, 62 bipolar reduction, 62 birchbark canoes, 149–150, 235 Birch Cove site, 272 birds, in LMA, 118, 133 Black, David, 12, 20, 153, 166, 222, 224 Black Island Complex and Black Island 2 site, 112–113 Blacksmith, Sam, 240 blood on stone tools, 66 Boardman, Samuel, 12 boats, 186, 275–276 in petroglyph, 251, 253, 253 See also canoes Bocabec River site, 10 bone and antler technology, 88, 91, 104, 111

border (Canada-US), as archaeological divide, 43–44 “Boreal Archaic” material culture, 107 Boreal Woodland artifacts, 209 Early Boreal Woodland, 207– 209 in Newfoundland, 206–207 populations and descent, 209 sites and locations, 190 as term, 21, 160, 207, 212 See also Late Boreal Woodland Boswell site, 151 Bourque, Bruce culture history approach, 22 on ethnic groupings, 259 and Moorehead Phase, 134, 141 Protohistoric, 270 Transitional Archaic, 156, 167 Turner Farm site, 132, 133 bow and arrow, 174–175, 186, 210, 236 box-based points, 159, 177–178, 283 BP dates, use and conversion, 18 Bradley, J.W., and colleagues, 57, 59 Bringham site, 87–88, 88 “Bristol blades,” 165 Bristol-Shiktehawk cache, 56–57, 165, 166, 296 “broadspears” bifaces, 146, 146, 147 “Broadspear Tradition,” 144 Bull Brook site, 60, 74, 75 burial objects Dorset, 183 Early Maritime Archaic, 98–100, 99, 103 Early Woodland, 163, 164 in LMA cemeteries, 107, 108, 117–118, 122–123, 123, 124– 125, 126, 127–128, 128, 129– 132, 138 as LMA tradition, 129–130 and pits, 117, 127 Protohistoric, 267 repatriation, 43, 44

burial practices/traditions Early Maritime Archaic, 91, 93, 106 Early Woodland, 158, 159, 162, 163 LMA, 117, 121 See also L’Anse Amour burial feature/mound; Moorehead Phase/Burial Tradition burials and copper pots, 268, 269, 269 cremation, 147 Dorset, 182–183 European inclusions, 267, 268, 274, 285 Protohistoric, 267–268, 269, 272– 273, 285 winter deaths, 267–268 See also cemeteries in LMA burial sites in LMA. See cemeteries in LMA Bush, George H.W., 44 butternuts, 226, 249 Byers, Douglas, 13 Cabot, John, 254, 256 Cabot, Sebastian, 254–255 caches, purpose of, 166 See also biface caches Cahokia, 283, 287 cal BP dates, use and conversion, 18 Campbell, J.A., 149, 151 Canada, and repatriations, 43 Canadian Museum of History, 49 canoe routes, 150 canoes birchbark, 149–150, 235 Late Maritime Woodland, 231, 235 Late Woodland, 218 Protohistoric, 275, 279 See also dugout canoes Cantino, Alberto, 255–256 Cap-de-Bon-Désir site, 95 Cape Porpoise dugout canoe, 236 Caribbean, and exploration, 254 caribou (Rangifer tarandus), 66, 68–69, 70, 73, 115–116 Carr, K.W., 80

cave burials, 183 CeEt-482 site, 96 cemeteries in LMA artifacts, 107, 108, 117–118, 122–123, 123, 124–125, 126, 127–128, 128, 129–132, 138 description, 117 as hallmark, 108 in Maine, 125–127 Moorehead Phase on Maritime Peninsula, 129 in New Brunswick, 127–128 on Newfoundland island, 107, 121 people in, 108, 118, 121, 122– 124, 126, 132, 138 status and rank in, 138–139 as tradition, 129–130, 132 “Ceramic Periods,” 20, 198, 199, 201 ceramics as chronological marker, 198, 199 cordage in, 242 Early Woodland, 154, 158, 160, 161–162 and identity, 242 Late Boreal Woodland, 210, 211, 229–231, 235 Late Maritime Woodland, 229– 231, 230, 235 Middle Maritime Woodland on Maritime Peninsula, 200 motifs in, 229, 231, 242 origins, 161–162 stylistic traits research, 285 terminology, 20 Vinette I, 158, 160, 161, 161–162 cervids, 66, 224 Chadbourne, H.P., 9 Champlain, Samuel de, 189 Champlain Sea, 71–72 chert, 69, 69, 70–71, 281 See also Ramah chert child burials, in LMA, 108 chrono-cultural framework in Atlantic Northeast, 18–22, 19 “chronological shingling,” 12 citizen science, 92 clams, in LMA, 134 See also soft-shell clams

Clarke, George Frederick, 56, 165, 296 climate and archaeological record, 25 changes, 142, 154, 174, 175, 185 and cultural change, 24–25, 79 Early Woodland, 154 in ecoregions, 27 and first inhabitants, 51 LMA, 141, 142, 175 and post-deglaciation events, 19, 36–40 climatic events “8200” cal BP event, 37 in chrono-cultural framework, 19 Holocene climatic optimum, 37–38 Little Ice Age, 40 Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA), 39–40 Neoglacial period, 38 Roman Warm Period, 38–39 Younger Dryas event, 24, 36–37, 51, 59, 76 Clovis Impact event (or Clovis event), 24 Clovis people/Palaeoindians, 51, 55 coastal sites Early Maritime Archaic, 93–95, 97, 98–103 erosion and change, 12, 288 and interior sites relationship, 282 Labrador, 100–103 Maritime Peninsula, 222, 224, 225 Palaeoindian, 65, 71 Protohistoric, 270, 271, 274 coastlines, and deglaciation, 32–34 Cobb, C.R., 6 cod fishery and stations, 256–257 collaborative archaeologies benefits, 42, 44–45 concerns and tensions, 43–44, 293–294 description and goal, 42, 43, 44, 49 improvements in, 294–295 in organizations, 43, 47 preservation of sites, 49 protocols, 44

INDEX

373

collaborative archaeologies (cont’d ) as requirement by law, 43, 294 and sharing of knowledge, 48, 50, 294 and two-eyed seeing, 294 See also Indigenous archaeology collectors of artifacts, 91, 92 colonialism, impact of, 42, 267 Columbus, Christopher, 254 Community Observation, Assessment and Salvage of Threatened Archaeological Legacy project (COASTAL), 289–290 complexes, as term, 215 complexity, pathways to, 137 Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq, 15 contact with Europeans in Protohistoric burials and copper, 268 canoes and boats, 275 cod fishery and stations, 256–257 as collision of histories, 253 and ethnicity of Indigenous peoples, 258–259, 261 fur trade, 257–258, 275–276 historical context, 254–256 impact, 251 and intra-Indigenous interaction, 276–278, 285 records and accounts of, 251, 254, 255–256 response and experience of Indigenous peoples, 251, 266– 267, 276 and sites, 269, 270–271 and socio-political organization, 265 viewed by Europeans, 253, 262– 264 contiguous habitat subsistence model, 197 “continual habitation” model, 151 continuity as approach, 4–5, 41 and archaeological record, 8, 22 in cosmology, 244 in culture, 25 in culture history, 22–23

374 

INDEX

in Historic, 279, 279 and Indigenous peoples, 41, 42, 48 and past to make the present, 42, 45–47, 50 between periods, 78–80, 129–130, 131, 167–168 copper, significance and use, 163, 268 copper kettle burials, 268, 269, 274 copper pots, 268, 269 Corte-Real, Gaspar, 255 cosmology and spirituality as analogy, 67 changes in, 244 Dorset, 181, 184 Early Maritime Archaic, 93, 103, 106 and ethnicity, 240, 244–249 and gender, 246 Late Woodland, 244–246 LMA, 122, 130, 131, 141 Middle Maritime Woodland, 206 Wabanaki, 251, 253, 280 Cow Head Complex, 210–211, 212 Cow Head site, 120–121 Cowie, Ellen, 225–226 Cow Point cemetery, 127, 128 Cree ethnographic record, 67 The Cree Hunters of Mistassini (film), 240, 258 Cree people, 239, 240, 264 CRM archaeology, 15, 16, 42, 290–292, 291 cryptocrystalline lithic materials, 69 cultural change and climate, 24–25, 79 and humans, 24–25 LMA, 108, 143 Middle Maritime Woodland, 191 Palaeoindian, 79 Transitional Archaic and Early Woodland, 144, 157, 167–168 and transitions, 108 cultural resource management (CRM) archaeology, 15, 16, 42, 290–292, 291 culture, as continuum, 104–105 culture history

in archaeology, 5, 280 concept, aim and role, 1, 16, 49 and continuity, 22–23 Early Maritime Archaic, 96 Early Woodland, 154, 157–159 and everyday life, 6–7 future studies, 280, 281–287 and historical processualism, 5–6 and humans-natural environment, 7 and material culture, 285–286 and spread of ideas, 144 synthesis in, 22–23, 49 and temporal resolution, 269– 270 terminologies, 56, 155, 157–158 traditional view, 5 Woodland, 155 Curtis site, 124 Damariscotta Middens, 9 Damariscotta River, 9 Dana, Barry, 42 Daniel Rattle Complex, 213 Darnell, R., 265–266 data, authority over, 45 Davis, S.A., 197 Debert Palaeoindian site collaboration at, 15, 44 excavations, 55 spatial organization, 74, 75 toolkit, 52, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64 debitage, in Palaeoindian, 62, 74 decolonization, 42, 44 deglaciation, 32–34, 37 Denys, N., 275–276 development, and destruction of sites, 290–291 Devil’s Head site, 237, 270, 270–272, 271 DhEb-1A site (Baie-Comeau), 96 Dincauze, D.F., 96 directional evolution, 5–6 discontinuity, and colonialism, 42 diseases introduction, 261, 262 dispersed village model, 228–229 DNA analysis, 143, 209 domesticates of plants, 226 Dorset people

as Arctic culture of Newfoundland and Labrador, 178–185 arrival in Newfoundland and Labrador, 179 art and effigies, 181, 182 artifacts, 180, 180–181, 181, 182, 183, 184 decline, 185 Late Boreal Woodland, 210 settlements, 179–180 similarities, 105 sites, 179, 183–185 unusual aspects, 181 Double Mer Point site, 187 drills, 62–63, 148 dugout canoes Early Maritime Archaic, 105 Late Maritime Woodland, 235, 236 LMA, 116, 142 Transitional Archaic, 149, 150 dwellings Dorset, 183–184 Early Maritime Archaic, 101, 103, 106 gendered space, 239, 246, 264 Inuit, 187, 188 Late Woodland, 237, 237, 239, 246, 271 LMA, 108, 111, 113 Middle Maritime Woodland on Maritime Peninsula, 196–197 Protohistoric, 264, 274 See also habitation; wigwams Early Archaic, 81–82, 84, 86 Early Boreal Woodland, 207–209 Early Maritime Archaic assemblage, 88, 91–93, 97, 99, 103, 104, 105–106 coastal sites and evidence, 93–95, 97, 98–103 description and features, 84, 86 foodways, 88 “Great Hiatus,” 86–87 interior sites, 87–88, 93, 98 in Labrador, 97–103 lakes and rivers, 93 lifeways, 100

marine focus, 87–88, 91, 93, 95–97, 100, 103, 104, 105– 106 on Maritime Peninsula, 87–95 quartz industry, 95, 97 sites, 86–87, 88, 95–97, 111 sites and locations, 85 toolkit, 87–88, 89, 90, 90, 93–94, 94, 95, 98, 104 as whole culture, 83, 103–104, 105–106, 131 See also Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition Early Maritime Woodland (or Early Woodland) artifacts, 159, 283 bifaces and caches, 159, 165–166, 166, 296 ceramics, 154, 158, 160, 161–162 changes in, 154 description and overview, 157–160 hypotheses, 166–169 mortuary complexes, 162–165, 168 sites, 157, 159–160, 167 sites and locations, 145 transition from Transitional Archaic, 156–157, 167–168 Early Pre-Dorset, 171, 173–174 early professional period, 12–14 Early Woodland interaction sphere, 158, 163, 283 Eastern Temperate Forests ecoregion, 25–27, 26 Eastern Woodlands, as interaction spheres, 283–284 effigies, 181 EiBg-7E sites (Blanc-Sablon), 96, 97 “8200” cal BP event, 37 Ellis, C., 57, 70 Emsik, 189 See also Port Joli endblades, 183 endscrapers, 64 environmental diversity, 25 Erskine, John, 13–14 E’se’get Archaeology Project, 44 Etchemin, 259

ethnicity in anthropology, 240 and boundaries, 240–241 and coastal-interior questions, 282 as concept, 258 and cosmology, 240, 244–249 and identity, 239–241, 258–261 Late Maritime Woodland, 241– 242 Protohistoric, 258–261, 285 ethnohistoric view of contact, 266–267 Europeans contact in Late Woodland, 214, 250, 251, 254 contact in Protohistoric (See contact with Europeans in Protohistoric) disease introduction, 261 Inuit interactions, 187, 188 naming of Indigenous peoples, 259, 261 pre-contact and early exploration, 254–256 pursuit of fish and furs, 254–258 settlements permanence, 278 wars with Indigenous peoples, 278–279 eustatic sea level rise, 34 exchange intra-Indigenous interactions, 258, 276–278, 285 LMA, 137, 139 family bands, 264–265 Fewkes, Jesse Walter, 47 Fiedel, S.J., 168 fire and spark holders, 203, 204 first peoples, arrival, 51–53, 55–57 fish and fishing and cosmology, 93, 103, 106, 131, 141, 247 Early Maritime Archaic, 91 fishing stages, 257, 257 Late Maritime Woodland, 223 LMA, 118, 126, 130, 133, 138 Middle Maritime Woodland, 196, 197 Palaeoindian, 78 Protohistoric, 256–257

INDEX

375

fish and fishing (continued ) sites, 257 Transitional Archaic, 149 See also specific fish Fitzhugh, W. Arctic cultures, 175 Early Boreal Woodland, 208 Early Maritime Archaic, 100–101, 103 Inuit, 188 LMA, 112, 114, 117, 138 flaked stone tools, 60, 62, 87, 95 flintknappers, 52 floral datasets and record, 226, 227, 228 flotation, for Palaeoindian, 65 fluted-point Palaeoindian description, 53, 59 foodways, 65–66, 68 knowledge by analogy, 66–67 mobility, 67, 69–70, 71, 281–282 point forms and as tools, 57–58, 58, 59, 60 relationship with Late Palaeoindian, 78–80 settlement, 71–76 toolkit, 59–65, 60, 61, 63, 69 toolstone procurement, caribou, and mobility, 67–71 fluted points, 51, 52, 57–59, 69, 74 forests as boundary, 241 in ecoregions, 25–27 LMA changes, 142–143 in post-deglaciation, 37, 38, 39, 40 Fowler, J., 10 Francis, D.A., 264 Frostfish Cove, shell middens, 9–10 fully channelled gouges, 87, 91, 93 fur trade, 257–258, 275–276 “game keepers” and cosmology, 245, 248 gardening, 227–228 See also horticulture gender, in domestic space, 239, 246, 264 geomorphology, 27–28 Georges Bank, 29, 32

376 

INDEX

Gesner, A., 8–9 giant beavers (Castoroides ohioensis), 33 Gilman Falls site, 91 glacial ice, 30–31, 32 glaciation, 24, 32, 36–37 deglaciation, 32–34, 37 post-glaciation, 33, 34–36 Glidden Oyster Midden, 9 Goddard Penny, 249 Goddard site, 249 gouges (for woodworking), 129 gouges (fully channelled), 87, 91, 93 Gould site, 120, 122, 211 Gramly, R.M., 62–63 Grand Banks, 32 “grand challenges for archaeology,” 281 grave goods. See burial objects “Great Hiatus” in Early Maritime Archaic, 86–87 grey literature, 15, 297 Groswater Pre-Dorset people as Arctic culture, 175–178, 179 artifacts, 176, 178, 179 Early Woodland, 283 Late Boreal Woodland, 210 sites, 176–177 toolkit, 175, 177, 283 See also Pre-Dorset people ground slate, 111 ground stone tools Early Maritime Archaic, 87–88, 91, 94, 95, 98, 104 sequence in, 124–125 Gulf of Maine, description, 29 Gulf of Maine Archaic Tradition assemblage, 90, 91–93, 94–97 culture, 90 description and criteria, 90–91 extent, 91 Labrador sites, 97–98 mortuary component, 91, 93 in Quebec, 95–97 in transition to Archaic, 81 Gulf of St. Lawrence, 29, 95–97 Gulf Stream, 29 habitation “continual habitation” model, 151

Cree people, 239 Early Woodland, 159, 160 floors, 187, 194, 196–197, 237 Inuit, 187 LMA, 108, 122, 124, 126–127, 139 Protohistoric, 271, 272, 274 See also dwellings Hadlock, Wendell, 13 harpoon, 91, 100, 175 harpoon head, 202 Hayden, B., 62 hearths, 95–96, 103, 113, 208 Heckenberger, M.J., and colleagues, 158 hides, and endscrapers, 64 Hirundo site, 146 Historic and continuity, 279, 279 ethnicity, 246–247 and Indigenous peoples, 251, 259, 261 transition to, 278 historical approach, 4–5 historical processualism, 5–6 Holly, D.H., Jr, 210 Holocene climatic optimum, 37–38 Hóp, 249 Hopewell Interaction Sphere, 205–206 horticulture, 154, 219–220, 226–228, 284 Hrynick, G., 235 Howland Reservoir, 129 Hull, S., 212 human-animal-environment relationships, 7 human remains, repatriation and protection, 43, 44 humans, and cultural change, 24–25 hunter-gatherers and caribou, 68–69 ceramics, 161, 162 cosmology, 244–245 development and change, 286–287 mobility, 67

in natural world, 7 subsistence, 6 hunting. See animals and hunting ice calving and retreat, 32 ice sheets, 24, 32 See also glacial ice Independence I people, 171 Indian, as term, 56, 206 Indiantown Island, 195 Indigenous archaeology capacity or authority in, 48, 294– 295 and collaboration, 42, 293–294 and directional evolution, 6 overview, 3–4, 42 and THPO, 15–16, 47 and traditional knowledge, 47 See also collaborative archaeologies Indigenous peoples and communities alliances, 265 capacity in archaeology, 15–16, 17 collaboration with archaeologists (See collaborative archaeologies) contact in Protohistoric (See contact with Europeans in Protohistoric) in continuity, 41, 42, 48 descriptions and locations, 41–42 and disease, 261 emergence in Atlantic Northeast, 191 ethnicity post-contact, 258–259 exclusion in archaeology, 42 in fur trade, 258, 275–276 historical narrative, 4, 280 intra-Indigenous interaction at contact, 276–278, 285 kidnappings by explorers, 254–255 movement, 41–42 naming by Europeans, 259, 261 and Norse, 249 peoples included, 3 population estimates, 261–262 pre- and early contact, 214, 250, 251, 254 response to and experiences of contact, 251, 266–267, 276 sharing of knowledge, 47–48

terminology, 56 transfer of archaeological record to, 43 wars with Europeans, 278–279 See also individual communities or people Innis, H.A., 266 Innu, 213 Innu ethnographic record, as analogy, 66–67 interior sites and coastal sites relationship, 282 Early Maritime Archaic, 87–88, 93, 98 Maritime Peninsula, 224, 225 Palaeoindian, 71 Intermediate Indian period, 21, 160, 206, 207, 209 Inuit ancestral Inuit, 21 arrival in Newfoundland and Labrador, 185–188 house floor, 187 hunting technology, 186, 186 settlements, 187, 188 similarities in, 104–105 sites, 185, 188 sites and locations, 172 toolkit, 186, 188 trade and wealth, 187, 188 See also Paleo-Inuit Iroquoian-speaking peoples, 219, 277–278 isostatic rebound, 12, 71–72, 97 Jelsma, J., 142 Jerome, Bernard, 43–44 Jones, J.M., 9–10 Kaplan, S.A., 186 Karl Oom sites, 101 Keenlyside, David, 20, 58–59 Kejimkujik Complex, 137 Kennebec River, and cultural boundaries, 241–242 Kidder Point site, 195 killer whales, 131 killiaq slate, 171 Kluscap (Mi’kmaw figure), 33

KMKNO. See Kwilmu’kw Mawklusuaqn knowledge employed analogies, 66–67 sharing, 47–48, 50, 294 traditional, 45, 46, 47–48 Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn (Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative), 4, 15, 47 Labrador central coast sites, 100–103 contact and interactions, 173, 174–175 disappearance of LMA, 175 Early Boreal Woodland, 207–208 Early Maritime Archaic, 97–103 Late Boreal Woodland complexes, 212–213 Strait of Belle Isle sites, 97–100 See also Newfoundland and Labrador Labrador Current, 28–29, 185 Lacroix, D., 125 land and resource rights, 15 land subsidence and uplift, 35, 35–36, 71–72 language, 45, 47, 264 L’Anse Amour burial feature/mound, 97, 98–100, 99, 103, 110 L’Anse aux Meadows settlement, 248–249 Late Boreal Woodland ceramics, 210, 211, 229–231, 235 change in, 214 complexes, 210–213 contact in, 214 overview, 216 populations, 209–210 sites, 211 sites and locations, 217 terminology, 214–215 toolkit and assemblages, 210, 211– 212 See also Late Woodland Late Ceramic, 215 Late Maritime Archaic (LMA) artifacts, 107, 115, 130 cemeteries (See cemeteries in LMA) cosmology, 122, 130, 131, 141

INDEX

377

Late Maritime Archaic (continued ) cultural complexity, 137–140 description and features, 108 end of, 109, 142–143, 146, 287 exchange system, 137, 139 families and population, 114–115, 139, 287 longhouse structures, 111, 112, 114, 116, 116, 139 on Maritime Peninsula, 125–130, 132–137 material culture evidence, 130 mortuary activities, 117 new arrivals, 143 in Newfoundland, 107, 110–111, 173–174, 175 Northern Branch, 110, 111–118 and Pre-Dorset, 173, 174–175 ritual, 139–140 sites, 111, 271 sites and locations, 109 social life and organization, 116– 117, 118, 132, 139–140, 174, 284 Southern Branch, 110, 118–125 subsistence, 117 “third branch,” 125 toolkit, 129, 134, 135, 136 traditions and complexes in, 142 as transition period, 108 as whole culture, 140–142 Late Maritime Woodland assemblage, 232, 233, 234 ceramics, 229–231, 230, 235 change in, 214 contact in, 214, 250, 251, 254 overview, 216 population and foodways, 216, 218, 227, 284–285 settlement on Maritime Peninsula, 220–226 sites and locations, 217 sites and middens, 216, 221–225 terminology, 214–215 See also Late Woodland Late Palaeoindian, 53, 59, 76–80, 77 Late Woodland artifacts, 237, 239

378 

INDEX

cosmology, 244–249 domestic space and gender, 239, 246 dwellings, 237, 237, 239, 246, 271 ethnic identities, 218, 239–240, 244–249 horticulture, 219–220, 226–228, 284 political aspects, 216, 218–219, 266 populations, 209–210, 261 regional integration and boundaries, 214, 220, 228, 239–244 sites and locations, 217 technological change, 229–239 as terminology, 215–216 trade and travels, 218, 243 villages, 214, 219, 228–229, 284 wigwams, 237, 237–239, 238, 246 See also Late Boreal Woodland; Late Maritime Woodland Laurentian Tradition, 282 leadership, 216, 218, 284, 287 Leavitt, R., 264 Le Clercq (explorer), 263–264, 267–268 Ledge site, 272 Le Jeune (missionary), 227 Leonard, K., 227, 228 Lescarbot (explorer), 227 Lewis, Robert, 133 Lewis, Roger, 47–48 limaces, 64 lithic materials, and ethnic boundaries, 242–243 lithic technology Early Boreal Woodland, 207–208 Late Woodland, 231, 232–234, 235–237 Middle Maritime Woodland, 201– 202 Palaeoindian, 59, 62, 64 typology, 285–286 “Little Gap” in Transitional Archaic, 155–156 Little Ice Age, 40

Little Passage Complex, 212, 215 LMA. See Late Maritime Archaic Locus II site, 122–124, 123 longhouse structures in LMA Aillik 2 site, 111, 112, 139 in Labrador, 116 Nulliak Cove site, 114, 116, 139 looters, 293 Loring, S., 139, 243 Lothrop, J.C., 62 Machias Bay petroglyphs and site, 48, 245, 246, 247, 251, 253, 253 MacLeod, D., 124 Maine cemeteries, 125–127 in Ceramic Periods, 198, 201 cod fishery, 256–257 Early Woodland, 160 erosion and destruction of sites and middens, 49, 288, 289, 290 population size, 262 professional period, 12–13, 15–16 repatriations, 43, 44 shell middens, 9, 9, 11, 13, 132, 133, 134 sites from LMA, 125–127, 132– 134 time periods, 12 Transitional Archaic, 148–149 “Maine Indian Bones Act,” 43, 44 Maine Midden Minders, 49, 92, 289, 290 maize horticulture, 219, 220, 227, 228, 284 Maliseet (or Wolastoqiyik) communities, 41 See also Wabanaki peoples and Confederacy Manley fluted point, 69 marine focus Early Maritime Archaic, 87–88, 91, 93, 95–97, 100, 103, 104, 105–106 Maritime Archaic, 83, 84, 88 Palaeoindian, 71–72, 77, 78

marine mammals Early Maritime Archaic, 95, 100, 103 LMA, 108, 118, 126, 133 marine predators, 131, 141 Maritime Archaic branches in, 110–111, 125 change in, 84 in chrono-cultural framework, 18, 20 connection to Boreal Woodland, 209 description and sub-periods, 18–20, 84, 86 (See also each subperiod) duration and extent, 84, 140 marine focus, 83, 84, 88 mortuary complex, 121 overlaps and transitions in, 81 pan-regional culture, 103–106, 140–142 settlement, 84 sites and locations, 85, 86, 109 as term and concept, 18, 83–84 transition from Palaeoindian, 80–82, 83 Maritime Peninsula ceramics, 229 chrono-cultural framework, 19 coastal and interior sites, 222, 224, 225 coastal-interior relationship, 282 coastal villages, 228–229 Early Maritime Archaic, 87–95 Early Woodland, 159–160 ethnicity, 259, 261 exodus and “Little Gap,” 155–156 Groswater Pre-Dorset, 283 languages, 264 Late Boreal Woodland, 216 LMA, 125–130, 132–137 and Middle Maritime Woodland (See Middle Maritime Woodland on Maritime Peninsula) as region, 1 sea level change, 34 settlement, 220–226 shellfish, 191–192

Maritime provinces “continual habitation” model, 151 CRM, 291–292 professional period, 13–15 as region, 1 shell middens, 9–11, 13–14 Transitional Archaic, 150–153 See also individual provinces Maritime Woodland, 20–21, 155, 199, 207 Marshall, Albert, 33 Martin, C., 268 Matthew, George Frederick, 10, 11, 295 Mawooshen census/document, 262, 265 McGhee, R., 97, 119–120 Meadowood interaction sphere, 158 Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA), 39–40 megafauna, in oral histories, 33 Mellgren, G., 249 men, 205, 239, 246, 264 Mersey River, 134–135, 136 Metepenagiag village, and cosmology, 247 Michaud/Neponset aged site, 73 microblades, 173, 181 middens. See shell middens Middle Archaic, description, 84, 86 See also Early Maritime Archaic Middle Maritime Woodland art, 203 artifacts, 202–203, 203 assemblages, 198, 201–202 in Ceramic Periods, 198, 199, 201 description and cultural change, 191 Emsik (Port Joli), 189, 191 foodways, 196–197 material culture, 198 ritual, 203, 205 sites, 191 sites and locations, 190 Middle Maritime Woodland on Maritime Peninsula artifacts, 201, 202 ceramic assemblage, 200 clams and clams harvesting, 189, 191–195, 197

clay-lined clams shells, 202–203, 204 Emsik (Port Joli), 189, 191, 192 foodways and settlement, 196–198 house and floors, 194, 196–197 “kitchen middens,” 193, 193–194 processing middens, 192, 192– 193, 194, 195, 197, 205 regionalization and artifact style, 198, 201–202, 203 shell-bearing sites and types, 192, 192–194, 193 sites, 191, 192, 195 social and ideational practice, 202– 206 sweathouse, 205, 205 Mi’kmaq archaeological evidence, 15, 45 basket, 46 burials, 267–268, 269, 272, 285 chrono-cultural terms, 21–22 continuity, 279 cosmology, 247 description and location, 41 Emsik clams, 189 erosion at sites, 289–290 fire and ritual, 203, 205 forays on Newfoundland island, 276–277 giant beavers, 33 historical narrative, 4 Middle Maritime Woodland, 191, 197, 198, 202–205 political organization, 216, 218 population size, 262 post-glaciation, 33 shallops, 275, 276 social history, 202–205 terminology, 21, 56 traditional knowledge, 47 and two-eyed seeing, 33 See also Wabanaki peoples and Confederacy Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative (Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn), 4, 15, 47 Minister’s Island site, 163, 165 modern professional period, 14–16 Moorehead, W. K., 13

INDEX

379

Moorehead Phase/Burial Tradition description and features, 129–130, 132 in Maine, 133–134 in Nova Scotia, 134–137, 151 as part of LMA, 140–141 Moore-Mitchell, Brenda, 42 Morrison, A., 17 Morse, E. S., 11 mortuary complexes, in Early Woodland, 162–165, 168 mortuary sites, in Protohistoric, 267–268, 272–274 “mosaic subsistence model,” 197 mounded burials, 163 Murphy, B., 91 museums, decolonization in, 44 Nash, R., 197, 286 National Historic Preservation Act, 43 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), 43, 44 natural history societies, 10 naturalist period, 8–11 Neoglacial period, 38 nephrite spear point, 94 Neuman, L.K., 46 Neville Complex, 96 Neville site, 96 Nevin site/cemetery, 126–127 New Brunswick, 127–128, 134, 163, 289–291 New England, 219, 220–221, 228 Newfoundland and Labrador Arctic cultures in (See Arctic cultures of Newfoundland) Boreal Woodland, 206–207 ceramics, 229 chronology for Indigenous peoples, 21 Early Boreal Woodland, 207–209 land subsidence and uplift, 35, 35–36, 71–72 Late Boreal Woodland, 210 LMA, 107, 110–111, 173–174, 175 Mi’kmaq forays, 276–277

380 

INDEX

See also Labrador; Newfoundland island Newfoundland and Labrador Shelves, 29 Newfoundland island cemeteries, 107, 121 complexes, 215 Early Boreal Woodland, 160, 283 fishing stage, 257 Inuit on, 188 Late Boreal Woodland, 209–212, 215, 216 Late Maritime Woodland, 224, 236, 239 Protohistoric, 274 settlement, 224 sites, 111, 211, 212, 224, 274 Norse, 248–249 “North Eastern Maritime Continuum,” 83, 103, 131 Northern Branch Maritime Archaic assemblages, 110, 111–112, 113– 114 bifaces, 165 complexes, 112–114 description, 110, 118 dwellings, 111, 113 Nulliak Cove, 114–116, 117–118 overlap with Southern Branch, 110, 118–119 Northern Forests ecoregion, 26, 27 Northport site, 269 Nova Scotia artifacts, 135–137 in Ceramic Periods, 201 erosion of sites, 288, 288 Middle Maritime Woodland, 196–198 Moorehead Phase, 134–137, 151 mortuary complex, 163 shell middens, 14, 191, 192–194, 196–197 subsistence and settlement models, 197 Transitional Archaic, 151 Nulliak Cove site and mound, 114–116, 117–118, 138

longhouse structure, 114, 116, 139 nuts, 88, 149 ocean productivity, 28, 29, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 oceans and oceanography, 28–29 ochre, on burial objects, 107, 127, 129 Ohio Valley, 162 Oliver, C., 162 oral histories, 4, 33, 47 “out of the blue” model, 222, 224 “Palaeoeskimo” as term, 21, 170 Palaeoindian period assemblages, 64, 78, 79 biface forms sequence, 58, 58 in chrono-cultural framework, 18 chronology building, 57–59, 82 description and sub-periods, 18, 19, 53, 59 first people, 51–53, 55–57 fluted-point (See fluted-point Palaeoindian) Late Palaeoindian, 53, 59, 76–80, 77 marine focus, 71–72, 77, 78 overview, 51–53 “settling in” in, 80 sites, 55, 71–78, 73, 75, 76, 79 sites and locations, 54 transition to Archaic, 80–82, 83, 84 Palaeoindians archaeological record and tools, 51–52, 53 CRM and sites, 53, 291 description, 51–53, 59 knowledge by analogy, 66–67 lifeways, 53 as term, 18, 56 Paleo-Inuit arrival, 170–171, 173 as cultural group, 21 LMA contact and interactions, 173, 174–175 Saqqaq people, 171 sites and locations, 172 as term, 170 Passamaquoddy (Peskotomuhkati) people, 41, 47

See also Wabanaki peoples and Confederacy Pauketat, T., 244 Peabody Museum at Harvard, 9 Pelletier-Michaud, A., 165–166 Pentz, B.C., 135 Pequot language scripts, 47 Petersen, James, 156, 198, 225–226, 242 Phillips, P., 17 Phillip’s Garden sites, 177 artifacts, 176, 177–178, 178, 180, 181, 182, 183, 283 physiography (modern), 25–28 pièces esquillées, 62, 63 Pierce-Embree Palaeoindian point, 289 pinnipeds. See seals and pinnipeds plants, 65, 226–228, 284 Pleistocene, 78, 79 Plourde, M., 95–96, 104 Point Revenge Complex, 212–213 points (projectile) in chronologies, 58–59 Early Maritime Archaic, 88, 96, 97–98, 100, 101–103, 104 Early Woodland, 159, 283 fluting of, 52 and identity, 241–242 Late Maritime Woodland, 232, 236–237 Late Palaeoindian, 77, 79, 80 Palaeoindian, 289 in Palaeoindian transition, 80–82 Protohistoric, 273 as symbol, 52 See also bifaces; specific types polar bear effigies, 181, 184 Polis, J., 45 political organization Late Woodland, 216, 218–219, 266 Protohistoric, 264–266 Port au Choix 3 site/cemetery burial objects, 107, 123, 131, 138 description and features, 121–124, 125, 138–139 skeletons, 107, 143 Port au Choix Dorset sites, 179, 183–184, 185

Port au Choix Groswater sites, 177 See also Phillip’s Garden sites Port au Choix town (NL), 107 Port Joli assemblage, 272, 273 clams and harvest, 189, 191, 202 description, 189 gendered space, 239, 246 Late Maritime Woodland, 216 Middle Maritime Woodland, 196, 197–198, 224 shell middens, 191, 193, 196, 197, 203 sites and occupation, 189, 191, 192, 193, 205, 224 See also specific sites post-Archaic, 20 pottery. See ceramics precipitation, in ecoregions, 27 Pre-Clovis theories, 55, 56–57 Pre-Dorset people as Arctic culture of Newfoundland, 170–175 arrival, 143, 171 assemblages, 171, 173, 174, 175 LMA contact and interactions, 173, 174–175, 177 sites, 171, 173–175 See also Groswater Pre-Dorset people “pre-Inuit,” as term, 170 See also Paleo-Inuit processual archaeology, 5, 6 professional period, 12–16 projectile points. See points Proto-Algonquian expansion, 210, 264 Protohistoric assemblage, 273, 289 and contact (See contact with Europeans in Protohistoric) demography, 261–262 end of, 278–279 ethnicity in, 258–261, 285 ethnohistoric view, 266–267, 270 exchange in, 258, 275–278, 285 fish and furs pursuit, 254–258 mortuary sites, 267–268 overview, 251–254 sites, 267, 269–274, 285

sites and locations, 252 socio-political organization, 264–266 Putnam, D., 43–44 Putnam, F.W., 11 Quarry Island midden, 14 Quebec, 95–97, 188 Quoddy Region, 151, 153, 221 shell middens, 194–195, 221–224, 272 Quoddy Tradition, 221 radiocarbon dates, 18, 57 Ramah chert Arctic cultures, 177 description, 112, 243 and identity, 243–244 Late Woodland, 242–244 LMA, 112, 113, 114, 116, 139 Palaeoindian, 69 Ramah chert quarry, 112, 113 Rattlers Bight Complex and site, 113–114, 115, 117 Recent Indian period, 21, 206–207, 212, 215 record. See archaeological record “Red Paint People,” 13, 126 relational approaches, 5 repatriation of remains and items, 43, 44 reserve lands, description and arrangement, 41–42 riverine models of ethnicity, 259 Robinson, B., 88, 90–91, 95, 167, 241–242 Robinson, F.J., IV (Jess), 78, 162 Roman Warm Period, 38–39 Rose Island site, 171, 173 Rum Beach site, 151, 153 Russell, H.S., 227 Ryan, K., 171, 174 “sacred ecology” system, 244–245 sacred items, repatriation, 43, 44 Sagas (Norse), 248–249 Saglek Bay sites, 173, 174 “Sandy Cove Complex” sites, 101, 103

INDEX

381

Sanger, D. Ceramic Periods, 198 on ceramics and identity, 242 Cow Point site, 127–128 on Early Maritime Archaic, 86, 91 middens in Middle Maritime Woodland, 192–193 problems in archaeology, 297 Quoddy Tradition, 221 on Transitional Archaic, 150, 156, 167 Saqqaq people, 171 Sassaman, K.E., 5, 137, 154, 168 Saxby Gale, 12 Scotian Shelf, 29 scrapers, 64, 182, 234 sea, changes in LMA, 142, 143 sea level change and clams in Middle Maritime Woodland on Maritime Peninsula, 189, 191–192 Early Maritime Archaic, 86, 87, 93 and erosion, 12, 287–288 LMA, 142, 143 in oral histories, 33 Palaeoindian, 71–72 post-glaciation history, 34–36 relative sea levels, 34 seals and pinnipeds, 118, 180, 198, 245–246 Sebago Lake, ceramic sherd, 161 Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, 43 seeds, in Palaeoindian, 65 shallops, 275–276 sharks, 131, 247 Sharrow site, 87–88 Shay, Florence Nicola, 45, 47 shellfish, 191–192, 195, 198 See also soft-shell clams shell middens diversity in, 194 erosion, 49, 192, 222, 289, 290 “kitchen middens,” 193, 193–194 Late Woodland, 221–223, 222 LMA, 132, 133, 134 Maine, 9, 9, 11, 13, 132, 133, 134 Maritime provinces, 9–11, 13–14

382 

INDEX

Port Joli and Nova Scotia, 14, 191, 192–194, 196–197, 203 processing middens, 192, 192– 193, 194, 195, 197, 205 Quoddy Region, 194–195, 221– 224, 272 Transitional Archaic, 149 shells, and cemetery, 126 ships in petroglyph, 251, 253, 253 Shuldum Island site, 184 sidescrapers, 64 sites (archaeological sites) coastal (See coastal sites) and collectors, 92 “drowned sites” hypothesis, 86 and erosion, 12, 222, 288, 289, 290 gendered or task-specific areas, 75 interior sites, 71, 87–88, 93, 98, 224, 225, 282 space organization and loci, 74–75, 76 temporal resolution, 269–270 threats to, 8, 12, 49 See also specific sites, regions or periods skeletons, 107, 126, 143 Skora site, 163 soapstone artifacts, 184 Soctomah, D., 48 soft-shell clams (Mya arenaria) in diet, 195–196 Late Maritime Woodland, 222 Middle Maritime Woodland on Maritime Peninsula, 189, 191– 195, 197 spark holders, 202, 203, 204 for storage, 193, 196 types of sites, 192–194 soils, 8, 27 “Solutrean hypothesis,” 56 Souriquous, 259 Southern Branch Maritime Archaic assemblages, 110–111, 119, 120, 121 cemeteries, 121–125 description, 110, 118–119 overlap with Northern Branch, 110, 118–119 sites, 119–121

space and cosmology, 245 gendered, 239, 246, 264 Palaeoindian, 74, 75 spark holders, 202-203, 204 spears, 236 See also points Speth, J.D., and colleagues, 67, 71 Spiess, A.E., and colleagues, 133–134, 195 spirituality. See cosmology and spirituality Stark Complex, 96 St. Croix River, 271 Stewart, F., 197 St. Lawrence Iroquoians, 277–278 stories and songs, preservation, 47 Strait of Belle Isle sites, 97–98, 125 stratigraphic profile, 88 sturgeon (Acipenser spp.), 247 sub-Arctic ethnographic record, for analogy, 66 subsistence routines, 6 Susquehanna, as term, 144 Susquehanna people, 143 Susquehanna Tradition Early Woodland, 157, 192 material culture, 143, 151 sites, 147, 151, 153 toolkit, 146, 147, 148 sweathouse, 205, 205 swordfish and rostra, 91, 127, 130, 133 Taché, K., 162 Taiga ecoregion, 26, 27 Tanner, Adrian, 239 Tarrentines, 275 Taxiway site, 73 taxonomy, definition and use, 215 teeth, in burial remains, 127, 131 temper in ceramics, 162, 198, 231 terrestrial ecoregions, 25–27, 26 Thule Inuit, 185, 186 Thurman Station site, 78 tobacco (Nicotiana rustica), 228 toggle, 100 tomcod, 223 Tracy Farm site, 277

trade Inuit, 187, 188 Late Woodland, 218, 243 Protohistoric, 257–258, 266–267, 272, 275–276 See also exchange trade bead, 270 traditional knowledge, 45, 46, 47–48 Transitional Archaic archaeological record, 150–151, 153 artifacts, 147–149, 152 cremation burials, 147 description, 18, 20, 144, 145, 155, 157, 167 exodus and “Little Gap,” 155–156 foodways, 149 hypotheses, 166–168, 169 lithic reduction strategies, 156 in Maritimes, 150–153 migration hypotheses, 144, 150– 151, 156, 167 overview, 144–150 sites, 147, 151, 153, 156, 167 sites and locations, 145 toolkit, 146, 149 transition to Woodland and Early Woodland, 157, 167–168 as whole culture, 144–145 transitions. See specific periods Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO) and officers, 15–16, 47 Trigger, B.G., 266–267, 278 tuberous plants, 227 Tuck, J. Arctic cultures, 173 Early Maritime Archaic, 83–84, 86, 97, 103 LMA, 110, 119–120, 125 LMA cemeteries, 107, 121 way of life continuum model, 83, 103, 131 Turnbull, C., 163 Turner Farm site, 132–134, 148–149 two-eyed seeing, 33, 294

ulus (semi-lunar knives) Early Maritime Archaic, 93–94 LMA, 111, 134, 136 unifaces (unifacial tools), 64–65, 77 United States, repatriations, 43, 44 urban settlements, 283–284 Vail site, 62 Varney Farm site, 77, 77 Vermont, Palaeoindian sites, 71–72 Verrazano (explorer), 220–221, 255, 263 villages, in Late Woodland, 214, 219, 228–229, 284 Vinette I pottery, 158, 160, 161, 161–162 Wabanaki peoples and Confederacy basketry, 45–47, 46 cosmology, 251, 253, 280 domestic space and gender, 239, 246, 264 dress at contact, 262–264 dwellings, 264 ethnicity, ethnic groups and diversity, 246–247, 258, 259, 261, 262–263 fire, 203 founding of Confederacy, 265 groups included in, 258 language revitalization, 47 lifeways, 274 location and name’s meaning, 41 Machias Bay petroglyphs, 251, 253 Middle Maritime Woodland, 196–198 natural history societies, 10 and post-glaciation, 33 repatriations, 44 shallops, 276 traditional knowledge, 47, 48 use of archaeological record, 45, 46 See also specific group Wallace, B., 248–249 Washademoak chert, 235, 235

Webb, J., 223 wedges, 62 See also pièces esquillées Weir site, 222 West Isles, 152 whale effigy, 123, 131, 136, 136 whale fishery and hunt, 223, 256 wigwams Late Woodland, 237, 237–239, 238, 246 Palaeoindian, 42 Protohistoric, 264, 279 reconstruction, 238 Wabanaki, 264 Willey, G., 17 Willoughby, C. C., 11, 12 Wilmot, C., 45 Wintemberg, W.J., 13 Wisconsinan ice, 24, 32, 36 Wolastoqiyik (or Maliseet) communities, 41 See also Wabanaki peoples and Confederacy women, 203, 205, 239, 246, 264 Woodland in chrono-cultural framework, 20–21 as concept, 20–21, 154 description and sub-periods, 19, 20–21 (See also each sub-period) hallmarks, 155 horticulture, 154 as interaction spheres or cultures, 283–284 terminology, 155 transition from Archaic, 153–157 transition from Transitional Archaic, 156–157 woodworking, 231 woodworking tools, 87, 129 Woollett, J.M., 186 Wright, J.V., 141 Wyman, Jefferies, 11 Younger Dryas event, 24, 36–37, 51, 59, 76

INDEX

383